To many a filmgoer, Greta Gerwig is a staple of a realistic and character-driven strand of the American independent circuit and a recognisable face commonly present in smaller roles in more popular studio movies such as Arthur (2011) and No Strings Attached (2011). In recent years, she has risen to prominence as a key figure behind the camera, earning accolades as a screenwriter and director for her work on the Oscar-nominated films Lady Bird (2018) and Little Women (2019).
She was, in her twenties, the youthful star of the so-called ‘true American independent’ – that being movies not funded by subsidiaries of large corporations such as Fox Searchlight and Miramax – and was a driving force behind the mumblecore movement that brought to prominence a number of writer-directors working in improvisational environments such as Joe Swanberg and the Duplass brothers.
Despite being a prominent figure within the mumblecore movement and earning her stripes as an actor under larger-budget directors such as Noah Baumbach on Greenberg (2010) and Frances Ha (2013), it wasn’t until Greta Gerwig was in her early thirties that the her reputation caught up with her talent. By the time Lady Bird was released, Gerwig had as many as ten writing credits already to her name, five of which were stories or screenplays for feature-length movies. With a credit as co-director already in her repertoire from the 2008 micro-budget romantic drama Nights and Weekends, her semi-autobiographical solo directorial debut cemented her on the path to becoming one of the world’s most-beloved and most-respected filmmakers of this generation.
With bold creative choices and colourful characters exemplifying Greta Gerwig’s legacy on the big screen over the past fifteen years, hers is a catalogue of work that is easy to fall in love with and necessary to evaluate.
This is the Greta Gerwig Essential Collection: a celebration of this woman filmmaker’s capabilities to evoke unique personas, empathetic characterisations, and moving stories across all budgets and screen sizes.
“My true north is talkies about ladies.”
-Greta Gerwig
Nights and Weekends (2008)
Directors: Greta Gerwig, Joe Swanberg
Writers: Greta Gerwig, Joe Swanberg
IFC Films | Film Science
Nights and Weekends was one of the more popular productions of a movement many came to refer to as ‘mumblecore’. Mumblecore was a small independent movement that occurred away from the eyes of the big studios and featured largely improvised personal stories about the everyday lives of its characters, with no issue or task considered too big or too small to put into the finished presentation.
It was called ‘mumblecore’ because, often, the sound quality was poor and the actors would improvise so much and so often that they sometimes failed to make sense. The result was an often maligned but incredibly realistic representation of everyday life through the eyes of the filmmakers, making Nights and Weekends not only the first true insight into Greta Gerwig’s filmmaking sensibility for more developed women characters, but also one of the first widely released movies to take a peer into her soul as a creator of art.
“You kiss harder than I recall… you smell the same.”
Greta Gerwig and co-writer/director Joe Swanberg play the lead characters Mattie and James, making Nights and Weekends a truly personal artistic endeavour in every sense that a movie could be considered one – they are writers, directors, producers and actors.
In the movie, the filmmaking duo play a couple trying to make a long-distance relationship work while each of them tries to forge their own way in the world via studying and/or the development of their career. This is essential to Gerwig’s catalogue for this reason: it is an ultimately personal venture that already has the makings of her true themes as a filmmaker – those being: struggling to understand who you are, wanting to find spiritual fulfilment, and longing to find a place in the world.
Here, those themes and the emotions that the character goes through are incredibly raw, as is the photography, which has since become typical of Joe Swanberg projects. This places the success or failure of the film on the shoulders of its leads, and Gerwig shines under the pressure to deliver an honest and compelling portrayal that shows, even early in her film career, exactly what she is capable of.
In an interesting side note, Joe Swanberg has revealed that the film’s very intimate sex scenes were shot at the end of filming and all but finished any possible future collaborations between the pair due to the arguments caused.
Greenberg (2010)
Director: Noah Baumbach
Writers: Noah Baumbach, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Scott Rudin Productions | Focus Features
“All the men out here dress like children and the kids dress like superheroes.”
Greenberg marked the beginning of Greta Gerwig’s collaboration with writer-director, and future partner, Noah Baumbach, the man with whom she’d go on to make several other films.
“I was thinking this morning that I’ve been out of college now for nearly as long as I was in, and nobody cares if I get up in the morning.”
What Greenberg represented to Gerwig was a coming-of-age. The actress was a lead character in a movie with huge pulling power – mostly Ben Stiller who was fresh off the back of late 2000s hits Madagascar (2005), Night At the Museum (2006), and Tropic Thunder (2008) – and was showcased as a talent, not restricted to being a simple and uninteresting device through which the plot and Stiller’s character were seen. She excelled, and despite the movie panning with audiences, the darkly humorous undertones of the film were appreciated by critics who had begun to realise Gerwig’s potential even under the weight of star power that Stiller had brought with him.
Perhaps most interesting in regards to this Essential Collection is how Greta Gerwig’s somewhat trademarked sense of shameless ownership over herself, her body and her characters was still present in this more glamorous and aesthetically-concerned film in such a way that lost none of her appeal or raw edge.
It is easy to link Gerwig’s performance in this relatively big production to the Gerwig present in the much smaller Nights and Weekends, both in terms of character portrayal and character development. Her character is lost and wanting more from life in both movies, the only major difference being that in Greenberg her character’s partner is also these things, making for a more tragically comic presentation we’ve now come to associate with all Noah Baumbach films.
Lola Versus (2012)
Director: Daryl Wein
Writers: Zoe Lister-Jones, Daryl Wein
Groundswell Productions | Fox Searchlight
Fresh off their success with the understated East Coast independent film Breaking Upwards, in which writers Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein co-wrote, directed and starred, the filmmaking duo were afforded a more comfortable budget for 2012’s Lola Versus. With Gerwig making waves courtesy of Greenberg (2010) in particular, it made logical and financial sense to cast someone with her acting style and drawing power in the central role. In many ways, this marked Greta Gerwig’s return to her routes as a solid lead character actress in an understated East Coast independent passion project, and was reminiscent of her time working alongside the Duplass Brothers and Joe Swanberg.
“I think to love yourself you have to learn to love other people.”
Lola Versus wasn’t very well received, with criticisms of its over-use of ‘quirkiness’ being a major part of this. It was, for all intents and purposes, a well disguised New York rom-com which buried itself beneath a cleverly constructed character study the likes of which Gerwig had always been attracted to as an actress.
The movie’s small budget helped in many ways as the recognisable cast featuring the likes of Joel Kinnaman, Bill Pullman and Hamish Linklater among others, was set up as background noise to the focused character story we were presented with: the personal development of a late 20s woman reeling from the break-up of her engagement.
It was a role typical of her career, only this movie seemed more based in obvious humour and irony than most of her other films, something that Gerwig’s portrayal of awkwardness and doubt leant itself to in a way that makes the character endearing despite the movie lacking in other respects.
Should you want to experience Greta Gerwig’s potential as a leading woman, this would be one of the films to watch, for she offers just a little more quirk and readiness than she does in most of her other performances and is the focus of almost every single scene.
Greta Gerwig has long been a filmmaker who strives to share the troubles of her generation and gender through her art. Her performances have been honest and raw, and seem completely unique to her, while her passion to craft stories of her own seems to take prominence over celebrity and financial success. She is, head to toe, an artist of cinema; a self-titled author of the moving picture art form. Perhaps most importantly, she has striven to achieve her own visions no matter how far away from the studio system they may come to life, and her continued passion to empower women in the industry make her an admirable and inspirational filmmaker whose work outlined in this collection will likely be appreciated by any like-minded reader of this piece for generations to come.
