The Filmmaking Style of Director Greta Gerwig
Most of director Greta Gerwig’s films bear plenty of indications of her signature directorial style. After acting in a series of films for around a decade, the young filmmaker burst onto the scene with her first solo project Lady Bird in 2018, Gerwig has quickly become one of the filmmakers to watch.
Lady Bird was nominated for a jaw-dropping five Oscars, with Gerwig being the fifth female director to ever receive a Best Director nomination. Her second major directorial project, Little Women, released in 2019, received six Oscar nominations. In 2020, her next project was announced—Barbie, a live-action film about the popular toys that will star Margot Robbie.
While Gerwig is relatively new to the industry as a director, screenplays and directing style have already secured their place in Hollywood history.
For young filmmakers, Gerwig is undoubtedly an excellent source of inspiration. In this film style guide to Greta Gerwig, we’ll be delving into her singular filmmaking style and highlighting some of the ways she manages to create her famously straightforward yet moving films.
Greta Gerwig’s Career — Greta Gerwig Movies
Greta Gerwig began working in the film industry as an actor. To date, she’s appeared in 25 films. Frances Ha and Mistress America are two films that Gerwig co-created with her partner Noah Baumbach. She has co-written five films so far. However, Lady Bird, in 2017, was her first solo project.
While Gerwig’s unique stamp has been on almost every film she’s been a part of, it was in Lady Bird that viewers got to see her style in action for the first time. The film tells the story of a high school girl’s coming of age. It’s a deceptively simple story, that packs an undeniably nostalgic emotional punch. The film stars Saorse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet.
Her second directorial project, Little Women, was based on the classic novel by Louisa May Alcott and tells the domestic tale of four sisters growing up during the American Civil War in New England. For this film, Gerwig welcomed back Ronan and Chalamet from Lady Bird, and added familiar faces like Laura Dern, Emma Watson, and Florence Pugh to her cast.
With only two films under her belt as a director, it’s surprising how many common stylistic tendencies have already emerged. Let’s take a look at the “Gerwig style” in a little more detail.
Director Greta Gerwig’s Film Style
Let’s take a look at Greta Gerwig’s directorial style and her director’s trademarks.
Influences
Direct Greta Gerwig has spoken about how these films and directors influenced her movies:
- Singin’ in the Rain – Dance sequences
- Mike Leigh – Characters who appear briefly that feel like fully formed humans
- François Truffaut – Period pieces that feel modern
- Vincent’s Minnelli – Musical theater quality, colours, heightened feel
She has also cited Woody Allen, Joan Didion, David Bowie, David Cronenberg, Barry Jenkins, and Frank O’Hara as inspirations.
Storylines, Characters, and Themes
While Lady Bird and Little Women are seemingly quite different at first glance, they share many themes and character types that make them both quintessentially Gerwig in style. Lady Bird is a contemporary story about a teenage girl in Sacramento. Little Women, on the other hand, is a period film set in the 1800s. Despite being set in different time periods, the films have a lot in common.
Young Women’s Coming of Age in the States
In both Lady Bird and Little Women, Gerwig focuses on female characters who are growing up in the States. Both films show the struggles these characters face as they grow up and transform into adults.
Meaning in the Mundane
Gerwig doesn’t tend to set her films in grandiose settings. Both Lady Bird and Little Women are set in domestic, family-oriented settings.
The Artist
Many of Gerwig’s characters have artistic sensibilities and her films are often about “the artist” figuring out how to exist in the real world.
Family
Family relationships, particularly mother-daughter relationships, play a significant role in Greta Gerwig movies.
While these Gerwig-ian themes may be inspiring to you, they might also not be your “thing.” Nevertheless, if you want to take a page out of Gerwig’s book, always start with subject matter and themes that you are passionate about. While Lady Bird was a semi-autobiographical film, Little Women was based on a classic novel. As Gerwig once explained, she was “hell-bent” on directing the film. It’s clear she had a clear vision and passion for the film, and her confidence certainly paid off.
Pacing and Dialogue
In Greta Gerwig movies, the director uses recognisable themes in addition to her signature pacing and dialogue. Both of her first films have a very real and unaffected feel, largely thanks to the “real world” dialogue and its fast-paced execution.
When it comes to character dialogue, Gerwig is determined to present characters that speak like real people. In order to understand how people speak in the real world, Gerwig often transcribes strangers’ conversations. People don’t speak in full sentences, so this technique has allowed Gerwig to get a better grasp of how humans express thoughts through words — hence hyper incredibly unique, hard-hitting scripts.
Rhythm and pacing are also key to Gerwig films. In Lady Bird, the rhythm is quick, and as The New York Times pointed out, most humour comes from the way characters undercut and interrupt each other. In other words, characters in Gerwig films don’t wait patiently for the other character to complete their thought.
This technique is utilised with great effect in Little Women. In fact, the cast apparently spent weeks rehearsing scenes in order to confidentially interrupt each other during filming. This creates a decidedly authentic version of reality, where family members all speak at once, and characters form thoughts and sentences that naturally cut into other lines.
Cinematography
In terms of cinematography styles, Gerwig tends to favour a decidedly “unshowy” look, as pointed out by The New York Times — most shots are still and well-framed and still, meaning that the audience doesn’t actively focus on the visual artistry of the camera, but more on the characters and the dialogue.
In Little Women, the visual style is a little more noticeable. The cinematographer Yorick Le Saux explained that with this film, it was shot in 35 mm to give it a bit of graininess and texture. In the sequences showing the girls as children, Le Saux used imprecise long, wide shorts with a moving camera to show the family as a unit. In the later sequences, the shots are more still, with each character getting their own shot. This was intended to show the discrepancy between their togetherness as children, and their more separate adulthood.
Le Saux went on to explain that Gerwig tended to focus on the actors during the shoot, and let him get on with organising shots and lighting. Because Gerwig comes from an acting background, it’s easy to see why she gravitates towards her actors on set.
While Gerwig doesn’t have a defined cinematography style, it’s clear that she works closely with her cinematographers in the lead up to the shoot to make sure that the camera movements and shots demonstrate the mood and atmosphere of the film.
Acting Style
Gerwig comes from an acting background, so, as La Saux explained, she enjoys working with actors on set when she is directing. Her hands-on approach to directing actors has resulted in some standout performances in her first two films. Apparently, Gerwig encourages her actors to make the characters their own by incorporating elements of their personalities into the performance.
The combination of Gerwig’s direction and her realistic scripts mean that the acting style in her films tends to feel incredibly truthful. In fact, it’s easy to believe almost every actor in her films in their individual roles.
Mumblecore
Greta Gerwig is often linked to the “mumblecore” genre. The genre was a movement of films that had low budgets, few production values, and almost always showcased the young, contemporary Americans on their journey to adulthood. These filmed have a DIY, indie feel, and often champion realism in terms of acting.
While Gerwig has certainly moved on from her early indie films onto much larger budget productions, some of the values remain, and the attention to realism, wit, and American youth remains in her newer films.
Greta Gerwig’s Filmmaking Process
So, what does Greta Gerwig as director and Greta Gerwig as screenwriter actually do in her preparation period and when she gets on set? Here are a few tips on how to emulate Gerwig’s unique filmmaking process.
Preparation for Directing
When it comes to preparing to direct her films, Gerwig tends to focus on the actors. She spoke to Backstage about directing her first solo project, and said that at the time, movies “felt very far away from me.” She became familiar with the filmmaking process by working both in front of and behind the camera. She explained that as an actor, she would take “copious notes” about what the various crew members were up to on set. She’s the perfect example of an actor-turned-director who learned her craft while working on film sets.
Because she comes from an acting background, it’s not surprising that Gerwig is all about working with the actors in a rehearsal setting to create believable relationships and fine-tuned dialogue pacing. For Lady Bird, she and the cast spent two weeks at Gerwig’s apartment in Los Angeles rehearsing scenes and getting to know one another.
For Little Women, the cast also had an intensive two-week rehearsal process with Gerwig. They apparently learned about life in the 1860s, took etiquette and dialogue lessons, and took a field trip to the author’s home. They also spent time rehearsing the fast-paced overlapping dialogue.
If you’re hoping to take inspiration from Gerwig as a director, the best place to start would be as an actor and use rehearsals — one of her director’s trademarks — to help your actors create realistic characters. “A lot of directors spend a lot of time getting very good at technical things and imagining things visually, but they’ve never really learned how to direct a scene,” she told Screen Daily. “The benefit of acting is that you know what you are asking of someone and you know how bloody hard it is. It’s also vulnerable and scary. So many directors just get an actor on set, and they haven’t talked to them, they haven’t looked at them, and they say, ‘Ok now, do it.’ Your actors are the lifeblood of the movie. It doesn’t matter how good a shot looks, the lifeblood, the thing that people will connect to, is these people.”
Writing Process
When it comes to writing, Gerwig told Backstage that it’s a lot of self-doubts. Apparently, she often begins with a flash of inspiration or a fragment of a conversation she overheard on the bus, and then simply starts writing. By the sounds of things, her writing process is organic and fluid, and she doesn’t worry too much about themes or structure as she goes.
Building a Team
For Gerwig, the filmmaking process only works if she has a reliable team around her. Casting is imperative for Gerwig. She is careful to cast people who she thinks can convey fully formed, three-dimensional characters. It’s clear that Gerwig has found actors that she feels understand her stylistically and artistically in Saoirse Ronan and Timothee Chalamet, who has appeared in both of her major directorial projects.
Creating a Professional, Productive Vibe On Set
Gerwig is careful to keep her set relaxed and playful. However, according to Screen Daily, Gerwig is also keen to make the set feel professional. She always ensures every crew member wears a name tag on set. She says this creates a more personal, friendly working environment when working with a large production team.
Final Thoughts on Director Greta Gerwig
Greta Gerwig is fairly new to the world of directing, but she’s already earned her flawless reputation as a filmmaker. Her distinctly thoughtful films are known for their deceptively simple storylines and their impeccable acting. If you’re keen to take a note out of director Greta Gerwig’s book as you embark upon your career as a filmmaker, consider how you can support your actors and place them at the centre of the process.
