Greta Gerwig’s favourite musical of all time: “It is aching and beautiful and fleeting”
What must it be like to wake up every morning and remember that you’re Greta Gerwig? Not content with conquering the world of acting, the Sacramento native moved into directing with incredible results. All of her first three solo efforts were nominated for ‘Best Picture’ at the Oscars. Her latest film, Barbie, dominated the planet and made Gerwig the first solo female director to helm a billion-dollar project. Also, she’s married to Noam Baumbach, which must be fun.
Her directing career actually began with 2008’s Nights and Weekends, which she made alongside fellow mumblecore royalty Joe Swanberg. It wouldn’t be until 2017, though, that she assumed complete control with Lady Bird, a coming-of-age story starring Saoirse Ronan and modelled loosely on the director’s own adolescence.
During an interview with Female, Gerwig shed some light on the process behind Lady Bird, including a rather unusual source of inspiration. “Merrily We Roll Along is my favourite musical,” she revealed. “My hope for Lady Bird is that it gives audiences a little bit of the feeling that I got watching Sondheim’s Merrily for the first time. That sense of time slipping away, the future charging into the present, the bonds of childhood as only living on in memory. It is aching and beautiful and fleeting and the thing I always look for in art.”
Merrily We Roll Along was written by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth in 1981. It is based on a play by George S Kaufman and Moss Hart, and it tells the story of three friends over the course of 20 years. However, there’s a twist. Instead of moving forward through time, it goes backwards, beginning in the mid-1970s, when the friends are middle-aged and jaded, and ending in the 1950s when they are full of youthful vigour.
Lady Bird isn’t a musical, but it does feature a stellar soundtrack that is deployed perfectly throughout the story. “I wanted the songs in the film, the needle drop moments, to be a real reflection of teenage taste at that time and in that place,” Gerwig said of her work, which is set between 2002 and 2003.
“Some of the songs that are in the film I wrote into the script,” she continued, referencing Alanis Morissette’s ‘Hand in My Pocket’ and Dave Matthews’ ‘Crash Into Me’. “Alanis because she was my Patti Smith, my Kate Bush, my Stevie Nicks,” she added. “She was a woman who wrote her own music and lyrics and performed the hell out of these very emotional songs that felt like they were written just for me. And I’ve always thought ‘Crash’ is up there with the most romantic songs ever written. I remember playing it on a loop and feeling like nobody would ever kiss me. I don’t know any other song that connects more deeply to teenage longing.”
Director Richard Linklater is currently working on a film version of Merrily We Roll Along, although that too comes with a caveat. As he did with his movie Boyhood, Linklater is filming in real-time so as to capture the reality of his characters ageing through their actors. As it stands, Paul Mescal, Ben Platt, and Beanie Feldstein (who also appeared in Lady Bird) are involved. Mallory Betchel has also been cast in an undisclosed role, and who knows who else will join this mental project as it, quite aptly, rolls along.
