The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, December 5, 2017 — 5

COURTESY OF A24

Greta Gerwig talks ‘Lady 
Bird’ and growing up

Greta Gerwig has hit the ground 

running 
with 
her 
directorial 

debut in “Lady Bird.” A vaguely 
autobiographical 
comedy-

drama about teen angst in 2002 
Sacramento, 
Gerwig 
illustrates 

a mother-daughter relationship 
that has already captured several 
awards, earned a record-shattering 
100 percent ‘Fresh’ rating on Rotten 
Tomatoes with over 180 reviews 
and started Oscar rumblings. The 
numbers don’t lie: “Lady Bird” is a 
stunning film that takes everything 
cliché about cinema and turns it 
into something special. And it’s 
been nothing but a success for 
Gerwig, who has broken out of her 
acting role (“Mistress America,” 
“Frances Ha”) to prove that she 
can really do it all. And how? 
Well, those are the questions she 
answered in a phone interview 
with The Daily:

***

How long did you have the 

story of “Lady Bird” floating 
around before it was produced? 
When did you start to convert 
your vision into a film?

I spent a couple of years writing 

the movie. It always takes me a long 
time to write and it’s my process. 
And it’s because once I’m on set, I 
don’t do any improvisation. And 
once I had a good draft of the film, 
I decided to have it be this thing 
that would be my directorial debut. 
And then after that, it took another 
year to get financing and get going. 
So it was really, from the first 
time I started writing it to being 
in production, about three years. 
And then it took a year after that to 
finish editing it and bringing into 
the world. So filmmaking is a long 
process, but it’s a very rewarding 
one.

One thing that really warmed 

my heart was that “Lady Bird” 
was a very mother-daughter 
centric 
film. 
Did 
coming-

of-age cinema influence the 
development of Lady Bird?

Well, I was thinking about a lot 

of the different films that deal with 
both coming-of-age and growing 
up and occupying personal identity. 
And I wanted to make a film that 
was both one person’s coming-
of-age and another person letting 
go. And I wanted it to be as much 
about the adults as it was about the 
teenagers.

And in particular, I guess I was 

thinking about the films that to me 
have to do with not just childhood 
but also memory, like Fellini’s 
“Amarcord” or Truffaut’s “400 
Blows.” Films that are both about 
childhood and about the loss of 
childhood.

Do you think “Lady Bird” 

will have that same effect on 
someone that feels they live in a 
place of cultural insignificance 
and they need to leave — that 
their life will start once they go 
to New York or L.A.?

I hope it does. I hope that it 

connects to people who are from 
the cities that are less documented 
than in a New York or L.A. or San 
Francisco, or Chicago. Because I’m 
interested in those cities and those 
stories and those places. I think 
there’s a lot of richness there and a 
lot of things that we don’t get to see 
and that’s what I’m always looking 
for when I go to the movie theater 
and hope that in a way someone 
will watch this and feel like they 

can make a film about the place 
that they’re in and not feel like they 
have to leave in order to make their 
artistic statement.

The music in the film was very 

influential to the entire story. 
What went into choosing the 
specific music that you did of 
the time period and whittling it 
down to the certain songs that 
you actually ended up choosing 
in the film for it?

Music is such an important 

part of what I think it means to 
be a teenager and how you form 
your identity, and your taste, and 
imagining an adult life for yourself. 
And so I was very careful about 
the music that I chose in the movie 
because I didn’t want it to just 
be music from the year 2002, I 
wanted it to have music from the 
’90s, because in 2002, it’s before 
the streaming and all the other 
stuff, and you really got your music 
from the radio and people were 
still playing the hits from 10 years 
earlier or seven years earlier on 
the radio. So that was important 
to me. And I would be remiss not 
to mention my collaborator (John 
Brian), who wrote the music for the 
movie; I wanted it to feel like it was 
pop music at the time that teenagers 
would listen to, and that it also had 
this old-fashioned movie score. 
That combination was something 
that I was very interested in 
capturing. I was so lucky that he 
was willing to collaborate with me 
on that, and then also that all these 
artists gave their permission to use 
the music.

2017 feels like the year of 

the woman director — why is it 
that this coming-of-age story, 
that’s focused more on the 
female experience, would be so 
important?

Well, I agree with you; I think 

that this year has been an amazing 
year for women in film. I think that 
the directors who’ve had films this 
year whether it’s a big blockbuster 
like Patty Jenkins with “Wonder 
Woman” or Angelina Jolie (with 
“First They Killed My Father”), or 
Maggie Betts with “Novitiate,” or 
Dee Rees with “Mudbound”; it’s 
just an extraordinary year and to 
be part of that conversation is very 
meaningful to me.

And I think in a way, the story 

is a story that is so universal. But 
because there’s been a lack of female 
creators that it’s one that’s less 
documented than male coming-
of-age. I love male coming-of-age 
stories and I have nothing against 
them, but I’m always interested to 
see what the female version of that 
is, like what is “Boyhood,” but for a 
girl? What is the “400 Blows” but 
for a girl? And I felt that I had not 
seen that as much as I wanted to. So 
I wanted to make something that 
was about not only a young woman 
but about a mother and a family 
and a place.

As a female filmmaker, do you 

feel like there’s an expectation 
portrayed in this relationship, 
and how do you portray these 
relationships realistically for all 
of their complexity and nuance?

Well, I’ve made it a goal as a 

writer and now as a director to 
tell stories about women that the 
primary emotional relationship is 
one between two women. And in 
this movie, it’s between a mother 
and a daughter.

I don’t feel pressured to tell 

those stories. If anything, I feel like 
they’re stories that are somewhat 
harder to get made or ‘green lit’ 
because they’re not — they don’t 
have a genre. But I think they’re 
important to tell because I think 

that these windows into the lives of 
girls and women, to steal a phrase 
from Alice Munro, that we don’t 
get to see if there aren’t female 
writer, directors and creators.

So for me, I love doing it and I 

don’t suspect that I will only make 
films about that. I’m sure I’ll make 
a lot of other films. But it was a 
deliberate thing on my part. And 
then in terms of making it realistic, 
I think I never want to turn away 
from the darkness, but I also don’t 
want to make villains, ever, with 
my characters. So I don’t try to 
present perfect people, nor do I 
ever want my filmmaking to take 
my characters down. I want them 
to be allowed to be flawed and to 
be loved.

“Lady Bird” has been getting 

so much media attention for 
being so critically acclaimed, 
with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes 
and everything. What’s it like 
to have such a personal film 
that’s also your debut be so well-
received?

It’s amazing to have it be 

received like this. Because I know 
how much love and care and effort 
every single person who worked 
on this film put into it, and that’s 
from all of the casts and the crew 
and the production team to our 
distributors, A24. Everyone has 
pulled so hard for the film and put 
so much into it and to get that love 
back is just extraordinary. It’s also 
completely intimidating but it’s 
great. It’s a good intimidation.

When so many films put 

romance at the center stage, 
what was it about friendship 
rather than romance that you 
thought was more interesting to 
tell?

Well, I love romance just as 

much as the next person, and I 
certainly love romance in movies. 
But I think romance, especially 
heterosexual romance, has got a 
lot of great movies. We’ve got a 
lot of good ones about that. And I 
didn’t feel that it was particularly 
for me at that moment. It felt like 
I was interested in emotional 
relationships that were just as deep 
and vivid and filled with love and 
complexity, but that aren’t just 
heterosexual romance.

And I like taking things that are 

cliché and putting them in another 
capacity. Like, for example, when 
her mom drives back to see here 
at the airport, everybody knows 
the scene and the romance where 
someone circles back and runs 
through an airport to find someone 
they love. That tends to be between 
a man and a woman. And I wanted 
to take that cliché but make it 
between a mother and a daughter 

STEFFI CAO
MiC Columnist

LITTLE STONES

‘Little Stones’ returns to 
Ann Arbor with a twist

The University of Michigan’s 

School of Education will be 
screening 
the 
award-winning 

documentary 
“Little 
Stones,” 

directed by Sophia Kruz, an alum 
of the University. The film finds its 
way back to Ann Arbor, after being 
released in March of this year, but 
this time with an exciting twist. 
Kruz, in conjunction with Darin 
Stockdill, the design coordinator 
for the School of Education’s Center 
for Education Design, Evaluation 
and Research, and the School of 
Education, will host a workshop 
for teachers to debut a curriculum 
used in conjunction with the film 
in both schools and communities 
nationwide. 

“Little Stones” is a documentary 

that features four women in 
different 
third-world 
countries 

who use the arts to fight against 
gender inequality in their country. 
Indeed, the documentary tells the 
story of Panmela Castro, a graffiti 
artist using her craft to speak 
out against domestic violence 
in Brazil; Sohini Chakraborty, a 
woman in India who uses dance 
to help victims of self trafficking 
reclaim their bodies; Fatou Diatta, 
aka Sister Fa, a Senegalese rapper 
using hip hop and rap to speak 
out about the practice of genital 
mutilation in West Africa and 

Anna Taylor, an American fashion 
designer who gives impoverished 
women in Kenya jobs making 
high-fashion clothing. Kruz, in an 
interview with The Daily asked, 
“Who doesn’t like art? I think that 
(there is an) inherent humanity in 
art that draws people in a builds 
community, and you can channel 
that positive energy into fruition.”

This documentary strives to go 

beyond a simple screening by giving 
its viewers solutions and tools 
to become more educated in the 
matters presented in the film and 
ways that its viewers can become 
active in the dialogue against 
gender violence internationally.

“I think it’s so important to tell 

not just stories about the problems, 

but to tell stories about solutions so 
you can inspire people, and then 
once people are inspired to find 
ways that they can get help,” Kruz 
said. “Everyone has something 
that they’re good at. It may not be 
graffiti, but it might be you’re a 
really good chef and you care a lot 
about refugee issues. So you could 
be hosting dinners for refugees in 
your community.”

The 
creative 
team 
now 

announces their new addition to 
the documentary: an educational 
toolkit, which will be presented 
during a teacher development 
workshop 
at 
the 
School 
of 

Education on Dec. 9.

The educational toolkit was 

developed by Stockdill and a team 
of two undergraduate students and 
a high school student. It includes 
three parts: a curriculum geared 
toward high school students, one 
geared toward a larger community 
setting and a third section that 
serves as a resource for those who 
want to take further action.

“It’s a very powerful and moving 

film. It has great potential to be 
interesting and engaging and 
entertaining, at the same time, it 
is very educational and it has a lot 
of potential to develop student’s 
thinking about an important topic: 
gender-based violence,” Stockdill 
said.

ISABELLE HUSSLAND

Daily Arts Writer

School of 
Education 

presents “Little 

Stones” 

School of 
Education’s 
Schorling 
Auditorium

Wednesday, 

December 6th @ 

5:30 p.m.

Free

FILM INTERVIEW

PREVIEW

I hope that it 

connects to people 

who are from 

the cities that are 
less documented 

than in a New 
York or L.A. or 
San Francisco, 

or Chicago. 

and transform it that way.

Many 
of 
the 
characters 

in 
“Lady 
Bird” 
have 

autobiographical 
similarities, 

but they’re not exactly the 
same as your own story. Can 
you talk a little bit more about 
writing from your own personal 
experiences?

I always start from a place of 

something that I know where it’s 
close to my heart. And with this 
movie, I wanted to write about 
Sacramento because I’m from 
Sacramento. And I wanted to write 
about Catholic schools because I’ve 
been to Catholic school for high 
school.

But I find this: It’s almost always 

they (the stories) start with some 
kernel that’s real and then very 
quickly the characters spin out and 
become their own people and the 
events of the film have their own 
shape and form that’s outside of the 
events of my life.

And I think for me, it’s more, 

the impetus is starting from a 
place of familiarity and letting 
that be the thing that allows me 
to invent. It might not always be 
that way in my writing, but that’s 
sort of where it tends to begin. 
But it takes very odd paths and 
I think someone in the product, 
people might think that there are 
things that autobiographical that 
aren’t, and they might think that 
something is invented which is 
actually autobiographical. Because 
I’m not just writing one character, 
I’m writing a lot of characters. So 
sometimes I’ll hide a little piece 
of something that I know is real 
in a character that you wouldn’t 
suspect and things like that.

I 
like 
filmmaking 
that’s 

personal, I like writing that’s 
personal. And whether or not it’s 
actually real is it’s not in my case. 
But it’s never mattered to me as an 
audience member, or as a reader, 
or as a consumer of arts, what 
the connection was to the actual 
autobiography. It always seems to 
be separate to me.

What advice do you have 

for people that might feel that 

same way as Lady Bird: not 
directionless, but having so 
many directions they’d like to go 
but can’t decide?

I think when you’re 17, like Lady 

Bird is 17, I don’t know that many 
17-year-olds with a very clear 
direction. I mean, they’re always 
the ones who are great athletes or 
they know exactly what they want 
to do, but I think the vast majority of 
17-year-olds are figuring it out. And 
I don’t think that’s an indication of 
they’re never going to do anything. 
I think that’s an indication of being 
open and curious and looking for 
what the things will be.

I think in terms of picking a 

direction, I think this is something 
another writer said, Elizabeth 
Gilbert, in her book about writing. 
She said you’re always — you always 
are going to be okay if you just 
follow your curiosity. Sometimes 
people say follow your passion. 
But she said that’s a very difficult 
thing to do. What if you don’t have 
a passion? That’s a pretty tall order, 
to follow your passion.

But if you follow your curiosity, 

the worst thing that could happen 
is you live a life investigating your 
curiosities and even if you never 
find a passion, it doesn’t mean that 
you haven’t had a very interesting 
life.

What’s your process like in 

creating all these characters 
that felt so relatable?

I think one of the reasons that 

I’m interested in dramatic writing, 
in writing that is going to be said 
by actors, whether it’s in theater 
which is my first love, or now in 
cinema, which is my adult love, 
is that I’m always interested in 
the way words fail us and the way 
that we use language not to say 
what we mean. I think people do 
that all the time. And I think I’m 
always interested in the language 
underneath the language.

And so many of the scenes with 

“Lady Bird” and her mom, I mean 
her mom wants to tell her “I’m 
so scared” and she can’t say that 
because it’s hard to say what you’re 
actually feeling particularly when 

that feeling is fear. So you say a lot 
of other things. You say that your 
role is not picked up, or you say that 
— you fix it on something else.

And I think so much of who I am 

as a writer is a person who likes to 
listen. And I think one of the things 
that’s great about New York, is that 
you’re always in this circumstance 
where it’s very easy to listen to 
people talk.

And mostly people use language 

to not say what they mean at all. 
And I’m always fascinated by that. 
And I think one of the reasons for 
me that the ending is so moving is 
that “Lady Bird” is finally able to 
use her language to say what she 
means and she means that thank 
you and she says thank you.

Are you surprised by how 

universal 
the 
Sacramento 

experience seems like it is based 
on how well “Lady Bird” is 
doing?

Yes! 
I 
mean, 
it 
is 
really 

extraordinary because I’ve always 
been a believer in the more specific 
you make something, the more 
universal it will be. So I didn’t want 
to make it any town. I wanted to 
make it this town and this people 
and these people. Because I think 
the truth is that through that 
specificity, people would have a 
greater likelihood of connecting 
to their own life and their own 
hometown and their own families 
and where they’re from and 
where they’re going. And I didn’t 
expect though how much so many 
people would say to me I’ve never 
been to Sacramento, but I have a 
Sacramento in my heart. And it 
makes me incredibly pleased and 
also it’s also kind of incredible that 
everybody can understand it.

But I think that, you know, that’s 

always been this thing that I love 
about movies, is they could take 
you into world you’ve never been in 
and you’ll never be able to go in and 
you feel like you know it.

***

“Lady Bird” is playing now at the 

Michigan Theater.

Read more online at 
michigandaily.com

