The movie Greta Gerwig called “heaven”
Greta Gerwig, the voice behind Lady Bird, Little Women and Barbie, is one of the most exciting talents in Hollywood right now.
One of the smartest, sharpest writer-directors in the business, Gerwig pours her heart and soul into every movie she makes, creating stunning and moving pieces of cinema that have spoken to audiences the world over. She’s made three films as a solo director and has yet to turn in anything that hasn’t been a smashing success.
Lady Bird, a deeply personal work which nonetheless felt absolutely universal, is a modern masterpiece and one of the best films A24 have ever released – and that is seriously saying something. Little Women was similarly brilliant, not to mention a very intelligent adaptation that added a fresh spin to the story.
And most recently, she unleashed Barbie, perhaps the most culturally important film of the year. It has become the highest-grossing film ever made by a solo female director, and it’s almost certainly going to become the third Greta Gerwig joint in a row to be nominated for ‘Best Picture’.
It might not have been as good as her past two films, but it was a technical masterpiece that showed just how skilled she is behind the camera and refreshingly, Gerwig’s first big Hollywood film still unmistakably felt like a Greta Gerwig movie.
That was particularly satisfying as, honestly, she seemed like an odd choice to helm Barbie at first. Nonetheless, looking through a list of films she has described as her favourites over the years, her decision to direct Barbie makes a lot more sense.
In Barbie, you can see the influence of quite a few of the movies that inspired Gerwig. These include The Wizard of Oz, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Oklahoma, 2001: A Space Odyssey – which Barbie memorably pays homage to – and A Matter of Life and Death, one of the most acclaimed movies by the legendary and brilliant British filmmaking duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger.
The film is about a British pilot who cheats death and then has to argue for his right to live before a celestial court, and when discussing it, Gerwig emphasises how much she loves its production design, especially its depiction of heaven.
She writes: “The builds are extraordinary. Heaven—where they have those circles with everybody looking down—is so stunning, and then it has that vanishing perspective of it and it goes into a matte painting, which is so gorgeous.”
Gerwig is far from the only one to have been captivated by A Matter of Life and Death‘s version of heaven, for this depiction has become absolutely iconic and influential. This imagery has been referenced in a number of diverse projects in the year since; to highlight a surprising but memorable example, a Tom & Jerry cartoon called “Heavenly Puss” pays extensive homage to A Matter of Life and Death.
Seeing Gerwig highlight this is unsurprising given her recent work on Barbie, in which she created what has already become one of the most iconic fictional worlds in recent memory: Barbieland. A brightly coloured, visually dazzling tour-de-force of Oscar-worthy production design, this vividly-realised story world really made viewers the world over feel like they’d walked into a Barbie playset.
Just as A Matter of Life and Death‘s vision of heaven has continued to endure for decades, it’s likely that Barbie‘s vibrant imagery will, too.
