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In the morning, I listened to the call of my stomach and ate the only five tangyuan left in the house. This is still bought from the supermarket in Chinatown before the "grounding", the last time it was eaten was the Lantern Festival, and the remaining five grains, treasured, intend to eat at the time of "special hunger". Today, the time for "special hunger" has arrived. When will the next time I go to a Chinatown supermarket, I don't know.
While eating out-of-print tangyuan, I watched 92y's push and saw an interview with film historian Annette Insdorf on December 21, 2019, with Greta gerwig, writer and director of "Little Women" and "Miss Bird". And "Little Women" was the last movie I watched before I was grounded. On a cold winter weekend, I accidentally found a gap, so I saw a needle and went to the city cinema behind the department store to see a movie. I didn't expect this movie to have such a long effect, and after a few months of earth-shaking, it has now become a good memory, and it continues to send warmth in the days of fighting the epidemic at home.
Stills from Little Women
I have a core talent, which is to be able to turn anything into a hurry. Watching movies on the weekend should be leisurely, but it turned out not to be. On weekdays, spinning like a top for a week, getting up on Sunday morning and suddenly finding that there is a gap in the morning, this must be used well! So I improvised to go to the movies. Search now and find the most suitable theater, the nearest show is 10:05. There is only half an hour left, is it to give up, or to rush? Without any suspense, I decided to rush!
I didn't have time to eat breakfast, so I quickly stuffed a slice of bread into my bag and rushed over by subway. Ran to 59th Street to get off the bus, planning to find a place to buy a cup of coffee, but did not see the coffee shop all the way, almost desperate, saw a breakfast car diagonally opposite the corner of the movie theater, quickly ran over, spent a dollar to buy a cup of coffee, and then sprinted to the box office, bought a good ticket, and ran upstairs. I didn't want my eating and drinking to disturb other audiences, and at the same time, before the movie began, there would usually be a ten-minute trailer, so I took this opportunity to stand in front of the second-floor window, facing the department store, and gobbling coffee and bread. This kind of sweetened street coffee is not usually drunk, but it is particularly sweet to drink that day, and it is not known whether it is really delicious or the special effect of any supply in the moment of scarcity. Fill your stomach, rush into the screening hall, the small theater, the good seating facilities, the morning field, there are actually many people watching, the heart called the same way!
What a movie! For more than two hours, follow the time train, return to the Civil War period, appreciate the classical warmth, witness the affection, talent, love, pursuit, tenacity, resonate with the values of truth, goodness and beauty, appreciate the fate of kindness and persistence, and also appreciate the clothing, furniture, gardens, beaches, everything! So lifelike characters, so suitable music and light and shadow, so sophisticated that people breathe with the screen, naturally cut, simply can't feel that it is a movie movie, really appreciate! After the death of his little sister Beth, Joe struggled to write a book in the attic, feeling empathy, and couldn't help but think of the time when he was going around different corners of the world and doing his best for the work and hobbies he liked.
I didn't realize that this attic scene had such a deep effect on me that one meditation practice, the host led us to imagine a rainy day, a figure we had stored in our hearts walked into the house, put down the umbrella, took off the coat, we picked up the coat, put it on ourselves, and had the characteristics and strength of the character, what came to my mind was Joe! The window is filled with gentle light and clear air, and she writes selflessly on the desk in the attic, on the floor, in front of the oil lamp, with the most authentic self, embracing family and friends, embracing her talents, loving life, and radiating light!
After watching the movie, Joe, Meg, Amy, Beth, Lowry, Fried, John, Mom, Dad, Aunt, Publisher... There is not a single villain in the whole film, everyone is a good person, and everyone stands so vividly and authentically in front of my eyes, which is the best comfort for the soul in winter. Stand in front of the window on the second floor, where you devoured breakfast two hours ago, look at the cloudy sky, look at the still sparse pedestrians on the road, the city that has not yet fully awakened, and stand still for a moment. I want to immerse myself, freeze in this time, take a look, and then look deeply... However, without staying too long, there is still a long list of tasks to complete, so I put on my coat, tied my scarf, walked out of the theater, and rolled back into the gyroscope of life.
At this moment, "Little Women" screenwriter and director Gerwig is facing my bowl, sitting on the chair on the 92y stage on my mobile phone screen, being interviewed by Columbia University professor, film historian and writer Insdorf.
Insdorf has been the director of the film department at Columbia University for 27 years, reading countless people, small, gray short hair, a red leather coat, black scarf dotted with red and green flowers. Her cross-talk, questions, words and sentences, hands and feet, and even voice, let people sit in the spring breeze, have depth, have professionalism, do their homework in advance, with so many years of professional accumulation, but there is no pedantic celebrity aggressive, lower themselves, humble and rank, really the highest education, respect and admiration. The interview with Insdorf itself, like the Little Women movie, flows naturally, without a trace, just right.
Director Gerwig, 36, grew up in San Francisco, graduated from barnard College in New York, is also an actor and screenwriter, and has appeared in films such as Frances Ha and Love in Rome (directed by Woody Allen). She said that the novel "Little Women" seems to be intertwined with her own life, she read it many times when she was a girl, haunted her heart, read it again at the age of 30, felt that it was very different from what she read when she was 15 years old, more modern than in memory, and immediately felt a sense of urgency for adaptation and shooting.
However, she was still unknown at that time, and after writing a few drafts, she turned to the creation of "Miss Bird" and put it on hold. "Miss Bird" is Gerwig's first independent film, which was released in 2017 and was a great success, winning the 75th Golden Globe Award for Best Picture, Best Actress, and also nominated for Best Screenplay, followed by nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress at the 90th Academy Awards, making Gerwig the fifth female director in Oscar history to be nominated for Best Director.
Director Greta Gerwig spent five years busy with "Miss Bird", established a reputation, and the dream of "Little Women" resurfaced, and finally had the opportunity to pick it up again. Gerwig's Little Women has a breathtaking cast: Saoirse Ronan, who plays Joe, is "Miss Bird"; Emma Watson, who plays Meg, who is Hermione in Harry Potter; Fluence Pugh, who plays Amy, the protagonist of "The Microphone Lady" and "The King of the Extraterritorials"; the mother laura dern, who has portrayed too many brilliant mothers; and the timutée chalamet who plays Lori, is "The Lawrathée Chalamet". Miss Bird", the star of "Henry V", the 17-year-old elio he portrayed in "Call Me By Your Name", I don't know how many hearts have been crushed...
Meryl Streep also came to Gerwig and played the role of aunt. When it came to talking to her, both Gerwig and Insdorf admired her. Insdorf said Meryl came to 92y for two interviews and was sitting in Gerlwig's current chair. Gerwig said Meryl was the smartest person she'd ever talked to, with a shocking amount of intelligence, character and professionalism. Before filming began, she had a lunch with Meryl, who talked about the impact of the Little Women novel on her, the ideas for the story, the characters and the creation, which gave gerwig a new understanding of Little Women. Gerwig said that every scene of Meryl must be thoroughly prepared, the hairstyle and makeup must be completely in place, and as soon as she enters the scene, she will sit accurately in the most appropriate light position, and all the lines have been memorized in her mind. Her example, which also silently inspires everyone else to enter the role as quickly as possible, is the best example of leading by example.
Insdorf mentioned that in the film, after completing the manuscript, Joe wisely and bravely asserts his rights and negotiates copyright and manuscript fees with publishers, which allows the audience to see that women not only talk about home and love, but also understand the economy. Gerwig said, yes, in the words of Virginia Woolf, "For a woman to write a novel, she must have money and a room of her own", poetic independence based on intellect, and intellectual independence, independence based on the basis of life, the question of origin is not why there are no great female writers, but, as Woolf asked, "Why are women so poor". While studying the life of Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, she read the story of "left-handed writing": Louisa, when she was a girl, had to work on weaving and making up for herself during the day, weaving and making up for it in her mind, writing it down in the dead of night, and sometimes writing with her left hand because her right hand was bleeding because of the puncture of weaving. As an expert in French cinema, Insdorf sees the shadow of the New Wave master Truffaut in scenes such as the protagonist reading letters to the camera, and asks about Truffaut's influence on gerlwig films. She feels that the film "Little Women" is not only telling the story of Joe and his family, but also consciously commemorating the process of storytelling itself, depicting the publishing, printing, and binding process of Joe's book with heavy brush and ink, how to get off the printing press, load the red cover, print the gilded title, and become a living thing standing in front of the audience, that is, an example.
Gerwig was certainly delighted to hear such a confidant's interpretation. She said that making a film is like writing a thesis, to peel off layer after layer of meaning, and at the same time, like Truffaut, to make the audience feel that the film is light and inactive, lighter than the air. The novel "Little Women" is the author Louisa's portrayal of herself, Louisa's own life experience, Joe in the novel, the novel written by Joe in the novel, the Joe played in the movie, the Joe in her mind as a director, her own experience, the Joe seen by the audience, the audience's own experience... The film is like a kaleidoscope, a multi-prism, so that this layered relationship refracts each other. As a screenwriter, she is adapting her (Luisa), Louisa is writing about her (Joe), Joe is writing her (she in Joe's novel), and she is like creating a Cubist work, reflecting "she-she-she-she", and this refraction and transformation is so fascinating!
At this point, Gerwig's eyes shone brightly, reminding me of the kind of light Joe had when he was writing in the attic. Yes, gerlwig, who is talented and thoughtful, full of love, persistence and devotion to movies, is not Joe in "Little Women", and not Louisa who wrote the "Little Women" novel! I sat in front of my phone screen and watched the interview intently for nearly an hour, then got up to wash the bowl, made a cup of coffee, returned to my desk, turned on the computer, and began a new day of pursuing financial and intellectual independence.
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