Our members gathered on Monday evening for the last Directors UK screening of 2019, and what a screening it was to go out on! We were treated to a showing of Little Women, followed by a Q&A with Greta Gerwig — moderated by Mike Leigh.
Greta spoke to Mike about the rhythm of her dialogue, the decision to shoot on film, what she had learned since directing Lady Bird, and that wonderful moment when you first hear the score for your film.
Catch up with all of our live-tweets from the event below.
That was our last screening of the year, and it was a very special one: @LittleWomen. Follow us now as we live-tweet our Q&A with director Greta Gerwig, who’s appearing in conversation with Mike Leigh #DUKlittlewomen pic.twitter.com/r3FyjjBBI1
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
Mike begins by praising the film for its remarkable direction of actors #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
It’s a great ensemble film, and a great period drama - but one that maintains a modernity #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
Greta begins by thanking us for being here and saying that Mike Leigh is her favourite director - so she’ll try her best to answer questions, but this is a bit of a moment for her! #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
Moving on to the film, Greta explains that she straightaway heard it as a cacophony of dialogue, and so that’s what she tried to achieve by having an ensemble #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
She rehearsed with the actors. They all brought such talent with them, so what rehearsals do is make them loose and comfortable being embarrassed in front of one another #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
Greta doesn’t particularly like improvisation. She likes dialogue to have a set rhythm, and if you have too much improvisation you lose that #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
But you still want a looseness in performance - you don’t want it to be stilted #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
Greta refers to the lived-in quality of the characters in Mike’s Mr Turner. Period drama can sometimes feel performative - Mr Turner absolutely isn’t like that, and that’s what she wanted to achieve with Little Women #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
She wanted the characters to feel lived in - embodied #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
And she made the cast watch Mr Turner as preparation! #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
Greta worked with costume designers to make the clothes feel lived in. She didn’t want bonnets and corsets. She wanted them to be the 19th century equivalent of a hippy family #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
We open out to questions from the audience. One of our members asks Greta what her experiences are of working in the industry as the mother of a young child #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
Greta says her son is still very young, so she’s not entirely sure yet. In some ways she feels that the hours work well for having a family, but time will tell! #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
Greta tells us she has no desire to ever direct herself as an actor. When she’s acting she feels she needs a certain lack of self-consciousness in order to give a director the performance they need. She wouldn’t be able to do that if she was directing herself #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
Asked if she had to kill any of her darlings when making the film, Greta says there was a credits sequence that she loved, but she watched it with a test audience and could tell that they didn’t understand it #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
It was clear to her but no-one else! On reflection it was messier than it needed to be and didn’t give the film the clean beginning it needed #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
The film’s structure came to her very early on. She loved the book as a child, and reading it again as an adult it was like she’d never read it before. She sees the film as looking back at the book itself but also her experience of rediscovering the book #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
Also the book itself was initially published in two parts, that are very much in dialogue with one another. By cutting between the two she could make those conversations explicit and also cut again moments that could otherwise be saccharine #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
Greta also likes that feeling of not quite knowing where or when you are when films jump between different time periods. It gives you a little jolt of engagement #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
She wrote the first few drafts of Little Women before making Lady Bird #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
There are two things that she feels she’s much better at since directing Lady Bird: blocking and using the camera #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
With Lady Bird she was so scared of moving between shots that she kept the camera static and locked off #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
It was quite theatrical. But the skills she learnt there gave her more confidence for Little Women. The ability to move people through space is one of those things you only learn by doing #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
The scenes with Jo’s publisher are largely based on what’s in the book, but also the universal challenge of making art. It is a film about making movies in an odd way, or at least about making narratives #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
Little Women was shot on film, because it meant that as soon as it came off the truck it was pretty close to how she wanted it to look #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
She felt that film captured the time period better than digital would have done #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
They decided not to go overboard in having visual differences between the two time periods, but they did use certain in-camera effects to add some differentiation #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
They wanted to capture the glow of the past as you look back on it #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
You have all these ideas about colour palette but the main thing you end up doing is colour correcting candle flames so they don’t look so orange! #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
Mike says that for him one of the best days as a filmmaker is when you come in and see the music added in and it all just comes together #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
Greta agrees and says what a privilege it is to have these musicians who have been practicing their whole lives come in for a few days to record for your film #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
That’s a wrap! A huge thank you to the amazing Greta Gerwig for joining us, and to Mike Leigh for moderating a fascinating conversation #DUKlittlewomen
— Directors UK (@Directors_UK) December 16, 2019
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