The Dialogue: Greta Gertwig

GRETA GERWIG had always loved Little Women, Louisa May Alcott’s tale of four Civil War-era sisters, especially its protagonist, rebellious writer Jo. “It’s impossible for me to tease out at this point if Jo March was like me, and that’s why I was drawn to her,” Gerwig says, “or if I liked Jo March, and thus I made myself like Jo March.” Following her directorial debut success with Lady Bird, Gerwig’s Little Women adaptation not only grew wings but also gathered a stellar cast, including Lady Bird’s Saoirse Ronan as Jo, Laura Dern as matriarch Marmee, and Meryl Streep as Aunt March.

Had you been considering LittleWomen as an adaptation for a while?

I hadn’t read it since I was 14 or 15, and then I happened to read it when I was 30, just because I thought I would re-love it. My experience with the book completely changed. First of all, there were things in the book that I hadn’t remembered at all. And there were things that seemed much spikier and stranger and more modern and very relevant, and who they were as adults suddenly became fascinating tome. I said, I’d like to make a film with this, because now I see this completely differently. And I think that there’s something interesting here that is completely pressing to make a film about.

How did you sell your idea to Sony and Amy Pascal in your initial meeting?

What did you say? The thing I said to them was, it was so clear to me when I reread the book, this book is about women, ambition, money, and art. And it was about the intersection of those things. I want to make a movie that focuses in on that, because tome, that’s what this book is about. And moreover, that’s what Louisa May Alcottliked, in fact. And this distance between Louisa May Alcott and Jo March is also at the crux of my story. I wanted to explore all that. I think I said it with enough confidence that they accepted my analysis.

I don’t think people liked Amy until they saw your version of her.

One of my experiences of reading the book was actually re-experiencing Amy as a profound character and equal to Jo, and someone that is a worthy opponent in someways of Jo. And her lines in particular, some of them are lines that stood out to me as if they were written in neon, as if they could have been said yesterday. Like, “I want to be great or nothing.” Which is so ambitious and big, and such a statement from a 20-year old about art. It’s not a cute pursuit. It’s a completely egomaniacal pursuit in the best way. Or, “I don’t pretend to be wise, but I am observant.” You think, Holy shit, this girl sees everything. She knows everything. Amy is a character of profound desires and lust that she has no problem expressing. I think its interesting that for years, the character we hated the most is the character who most expresses her desire.

That was shameful for women then.

Yeah. Because to want something is to be too much, too desirous. So that to me is a fascinating shift in how we view a woman.

Amy’s ‘women and marriage’ speech evolved from a conversation you hadwith Meryl Streep, right?

She is obviously the queen of all things, but she’s also just so clear and intelligent about texts and filmmaking. At a lunch she said, “The thing you have to make the audience understand is it’s not just that women couldn't vote, which they couldn’t. It’snot just that they couldn’t own property, which they couldn’t. It’s that they couldn’t own anything when they were married.”They didn’t even own their children. They could leave a bad marriage, but they would leave with nothing, not even the kids. So, when you’re talking about marriage, you're talking about the biggest decision you’ll make, because if you yoke yourself to the wrong person, you will suffer for the rest of your life. And it’s not just an economic proposition, it’s all-encompassing, and it was the decision you have to make. You have no possibilities outside of that.

You’ve also talked about the genderfluidity between Jo and Laurie, who’s played by Timothée Chalamet.

Jo spends the entire book saying she wishes that she was a boy, and it’s all over the book. Almost every other page she says she wishes she was a boy. I think there are lots of ways to read that. We have our own particular 21st century lens on it. But I mean, to go back to the Amyproposition, she’s really stating a fact, which is that boys have options and girls have none. So wouldn’t it be better to be a boy? But so much of Jo and Laurie—I read in an essay about Little Women, they said that the gender reversal is so striking, even in their names. Laurie is the boy with the girl’s name, and Jo is a girl with a boys name. And Laurie in many ways is a dandy or flâneur in that kind of 19 th -century style of masculinity.

Laurie buys too many neckties, whichJo always chastises him for. He’s really into fashion and she’s like, “You shouldn't be that way.” He’s preening a little bit, and Jo thinks he’s ridiculous. There’s gender reversal stuff all over the book. What I loved about Jo and Laurie as embodied by Saoirse and Timothée, is they’re both so physically, simultaneously handsome and beautiful. They are each other’s mirror. Timothée is both handsome and beautiful. Saoirse is both handsome and beautiful. And when they stand together, they both look like they are occupying some middle gender, which is superior to all of us.