Welcome to Commentary Commentary, the place we sit and hearken to filmmakers discuss their work, then share essentially the most fascinating components. In this version, Rob Hunter revisits Greta Gerwig’s billion greenback toy industrial with the commentary for Barbie.
When you consider films primarily based on children’ toys, it’s most definitely so-called boy toys that come to thoughts like G.I. Joe, Transformers, and such. The highest-grossing one, although, belongs to the women. Greta Gerwig‘s Barbie is a big hit walking the line between an honestly critical comedy and a toy commercial, and there’s a bit one thing in it for everybody.
While the bodily Blu-ray launch doesn’t embrace a commentary monitor — boooo — Gerwig recorded one for the iTunes launch — boooo — that has now made its method to HBO Max — cool. So maintain studying to see what I heard on the commentary for Barbie.
Barbie (2023)
Commentator: Greta Gerwig (director/co-writer)
1. “First of all, yes, we have our pink logo,” she says, including that’s was fantastic of Warner Bros. to allow them to modify the studio’s opening brand for the movie.
2. They knew they wished to open with an homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), however provided that they “could do it with the utmost integrity.” The Kubrick property allowed them entry to the unique panorama plates. They additionally favored the concept some audiences may momentarily suppose they’d entered the mistaken theater. Unrelated, the visions that Barbie has of the human lady she’s related to have been known as “The Shining” on set, persevering with the Kubrick connection. She provides later that the large boardroom desk within the Mattel constructing is a Dr. Strangelove reference “except we made it a heart.”
3. Gerwig is a giant Helen Mirren fan and requested the performing legend to relate the movie. “I thought it gave a sense of gravitas to what will be very silly proceedings.”
4. The big plastic legs are modeled on Margot Robbie‘s legs.
5. The sequence displaying all of the totally different human Barbie dolls was designed like a Busby Berkeley musical with every mannequin on their very own spinning Lazy Susan.
6. She shouts out the improbable manufacturing design — legit a number of the yr’s greatest — by Sarah Greenwood. A variety of time was spent deciding on colours, brightness ranges, the mix of 2D/3D parts
7. The shot the place Barbie (Robbie) seems to be right into a mirror that isn’t truly there may be lifted from Jerry Lewis’ The Ladies Man (1961).
8. Barbie waves to the pilot after which some astronauts, and when she says “Yay, space!” it’s Gerwig’s absolute favourite factor. “It just feels like it captures something wonderful and dorky and genuine about Barbie.”
9. “Allan (Michael Cera) is the most tragic figure in Barbieland,” and that’s one thing that Gerwig and Cera felt was precisely proper for the character as not everybody will get their fantasy.
10. Barbie’s huge dance celebration was designed and choreographed with solely the bottom of the Dua Lipa music prepared because the precise monitor wasn’t accomplished but. Lipa truly sat within the sales space and sang “to the picture.”
11. In Barbieland the boys dance for the women, however a number of the actors have been frightened about their dance expertise. “No, you’re gonna be perfect,” replied Gerwig. “The imperfections of it is what makes it charming.” The background characters each right here and in different group scenes are literally dancers. “They stand in a way that people like me don’t stand, it’s just a heightened quality.”
12. Gerwig and Kate McKinnon have been buddies since they have been eighteen years previous and roommates in faculty. “When I met her I thought ‘she’s the most talented, funny person I’ve ever met,’ and I was right.” Weird Barbie (McKinnon) is susceptible to random splits, they usually achieved it with each a gymnast double and a faux leg that McKinnon may transfer into place.
13. She loves in films when somebody “explains” the plot or downside with some huge, severe, fake-science speech, so she confirmed McKinnon a supercut of scenes from a number of movies, “and I said ‘I want you to explain it all like this level of authority but it’s just gobbledygook.’”
14. Gerwig is a giant fan of The Matrix (1999).
15. “There are so many things our art department did that I didn’t even realize until we were there.” Unrelated, Gerwig doesn’t point out the map in Weird Barbie’s home that brought about the movie to be banned in Vietnam as a result of its obvious eight-line illustration of China’s “nine dash line” territorial declare.
16. She reveled within the movie’s results work as she and her staff did as a lot as doable utilizing “old school” sensible results and methods, albeit with CG assists. From miniature units to 2-D dioramas, it was each painstaking and rewarding. “I have a great love of painted backdrops.”
17. Robbie felt genuinely self-conscious and uncomfortable through the Venice Beach rollerblading sequence as actual individuals have been staring in disbelief. ‘They look bananagrams.”
18. Gerwig praises everybody within the movie, however she has essentially the most compliments for Ryan Gosling‘s performance. So yes, she probably understands why he got the film’s sole Oscar nomination for performing. “He’s a real comic genius.”
19. The older girl sitting on the bench beside Barbie is Ann Roth, legendary costume designer from stage and display. “I thought that she had the most marvelous, beautiful face. Also, she doesn’t take crap from anyone.”
20. Mattel’s workplace house is predicated across the movies of Jacques Tati. “He does these incredible corporate spaces in Playtime, and also, there’s a lot of influences from Mon Oncle.”
21. “I felt that it was really important that we criticize Barbie very articulately, from a character who has a very legitimate point of view.” That character right here is Sasha, performed by Ariana Greenblatt, who got here in, auditioned, and instantly intimidated each Gerwig and Robbie. The scene
22. She wished Ruth Handler’s (Rhea Perlman) room to really feel like a David Lynch creation. The kitchen itself is predicated loosely on the one which Gerwig grew up with.
23. Gerwig by no means anticipated to shoot a automotive chase, not to mention for a Barbie film, however she praises 2nd unit director George Cottle for being improbable at his job and for working via it so nicely along with her and the cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto. “As people who are great at making films, so much of it was just, like, playing with little cars on a table. It almost demystifies it.”
24. They truly made some Ken Mojo Dojo Casa homes as toys, and Gerwig tried to persuade Mattel to place them into manufacturing on the market.
25. She confirmed Robbie and Gosling Howard Hawks’ Twentieth Century (1934) with Carole Lombard and John Barrymore as a reference “because I think they’re just so funny when they fight.”
26. Earlier cuts featured Gosling’s Ken singing “Boys Just Want to Have Fun” for 3 minutes straight whereas Kingsley Ben-Adir‘s Ken danced beside him, however “it stopped the movie completely.”
27. She’s by no means recognized within the movie, however the character at Weird Barbie’s home “who kind of looks like a 19th century somebody” is definitely meant to be Proust Barbie.
28. Gloria’s (America Ferrera) huge speech to Barbie about what it means to be a lady on this world left most of the girls on set crying and a number of the males emotional. “On one hand it’s totally ridiculous. She’s talking to brainwashed dolls in a dollhouse. And on the other hand it feels like she’s speaking directly to us.”
29. Say Anything (1989) is one among Gerwig’s favourite films.
30. “I love adults sitting with their feet dangling,” she says, and provides that she thinks she’s included it in each film she’s made.
31. Ken’s mink initially simply fell to the bottom after being thrown, however Gerwig’s stepson advised that it ought to get a freeze-frame with identify similar to Barbie’s garments did earlier.
32. Gerwig noticed images of a really pregnant Emerald Fennell on-set for Promising Young Woman (2020), after which noticed her pregnant once more whereas accepting her Oscar. “I was like, ‘You’re such a badass, and you’re so wonderful, and you’re never not pregnant. And I think you should be Midge.’” Midge, after all, is the mute, pregnant Barbie.
33. the house film montage on the finish is made up of clips from forged/crew members. “I wanted it to be a reminder this movie is made by people.” Billie Eilish wrote the music “What Was I Made For?” after seeing solely thirty-five minutes of the movie.
34. More films she names as references embrace Jaws (1975), The Warriors (1979), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Singin’ within the Rain (1952), Grease (1978), Heaven Can Wait (1978), and The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Best in Context-Free Barbie Commentary
“This little nugget’s face is the best.”
“All the little girls were very sad to smash the dolls, which, I understood that.”
“When I first wrote this I thought ‘Oh no, am I actually going to do a 2001 parody? But then I pitched it to my therapist who thought it was hilarious, so here we are.’”
“Issa Rae as president still makes me smile.”
“We decided nobody knows what ‘beach-off’ means.”
“America is really the heart and soul of the movie.”
“I’ve seen this movie hundreds of times, and I can’t watch it without laughing at Ryan.”
“In a way, I think the movie is always about kind of doing the thing and undercutting the thing at the same time.”
“Ryan playing guitar and singing is one of the top comic moments of all time.”
“This is so strange, but I love it so much that I’m just going to believe that other people will love it, too.”
Final Thoughts on the Barbie Commentary
Some of us really feel as if Barbie, the forged, and the filmmakers have been snubbed with the current Academy Award nominations, however practically one and half billion {dollars} on the box-office is its personal type of satisfying. It’s an excellent film with fundamental concepts introduced in participating, nicely crafted methods, and it’s additionally fairly darn humorous every now and then. Gerwig’s commentary makes it very clear simply how a lot thought and work went into the movie’s writing, preparation, and execution, and you may’t assist however love the response that the world has given the forged, the crew, and Gerwig herself.
Read extra Commentary Commentary from the archives.
Related Topics: Barbie, Commentary Commentary, Greta Gerwig
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