The writer that helped Greta Gerwig “understand the world”
There are few filmmakers on the planet right now enjoying the resounding success that Greta Gerwig is experiencing. After making her way as an actor in several movies in the mumblecore genre, Gerwig has established herself as one of the most prominent American directors in Hollywood, with her films Barbie, Lady Bird and Little Women being considered some of the most significant movie events of recent times.
Gerwig’s movies have provided some of the best moments in cinema of the past decade or so, but she’s not without her own personal favourites in the world of film, previously stating her love for the likes of Spike Lee, Mike Leigh, Howard Hawks, Chantal Akerman, Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese.
While Gerwig is certainly a die-hard fan of cinema, she also looks to be a profound lover of the written word and once named her favourite books of all time in an interview with Francis Ford Coppola. “As a kid, I was a big reader,” she said. “Books and theatre were the way I understood the world and also the way I organized my sense of morality.”
Gerwig included the likes of George Eliot, Elif Batuman, Maggie Nelson, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Alice Munro and Virginia Woolf on her list of literary favourites but paid particular respect to the writing icon Joan Didion, who was considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism alongside Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe.
Discussing Didion’s 1979 book of essays, The White Album, Gerwig said, “She is my patron saint, and this collection of essays helped me understand the world I was not around for, but that still shaped my life. Her truths are tiny knives, piercing the surface and bleeding out the illusions of life, especially life in California.”
The White Album is similar to Didion’s previous book, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, in the way it compiles a selection of essays that the writer had previously published in a wide range of magazines, including Life and Esquire, focusing on the politics and history of California.
Didion started her writing career in the 1950s after she won a Vogue-sponsored contest. After developing a readership throughout the 1960s and 1970s with her take on the American counterculture movement, Didion established herself as one of the most significant American writers of the 20th and 21st Centuries and won a National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2005 for her book The Year of Magical Thinking.
She’s an author who gave Greta Gerwig a more profound sense of understanding about the world that surrounds her.
