Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women,” and Damon Lindelof’s “Watchmen”

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2019

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Greta Gerwig tells David Remnick that her adaptation of the novel “Little Women” didn’t need much updating for 2019: the world hasn’t changed as much as we might think, she says. Isaac Chotiner talks with Jack Goldsmith, the conservative legal scholar whose new book is a surprising and personal account of a man who was regarded as a suspect in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. And the creator of HBO’s “Watchmen” tells Emily Nussbaum about the uncomfortable process of learning to write about race.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:10.6	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:14.1	Greta Gerwig started out as an actress, mostly in a lot of indie films.
0:18.3	But two years ago, she made her debut as a solo writer and a director,
0:22.1	and the debut was amazing. The film was Lady Bird, a coming-of-age story about a young woman
0:28.0	trying to navigate and graduate high school, leave home, get out of town. It's a beautiful film,
0:34.5	and it got Gerwig nominated for an Oscar for Best Director.
0:38.7	Her new movie has been eagerly anticipated, and maybe that's even an understatement,
0:42.9	because the cast includes Merrill Streep, Emma Watson, Searsher Ronan, and Timothy Shalameh.
0:50.6	It's Gerwig's own adaptation of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott's classic novel.
0:56.1	Hi, nice to see you.
0:58.0	How's everything?
0:59.9	Little Women comes out later this month on Christmas Day,
1:03.8	and I talked recently with Greta Gerwig.
1:06.4	So it's got to take a certain amount of, I don't know, nerve or something to take on a book that's so beloved that's been adapted before for film, I don't know, a number of times.
1:18.6	Seven.
1:19.5	And make it your own.
1:21.3	Yeah.
1:21.7	Tell me how all this started and what the thinking is going into it.
1:26.6	Well, this book was my book.
1:31.1	It was the one that I loved and lived through,
1:35.0	and I couldn't really distinguish between what the March sisters went through
	...

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