Movie studios have been touting “modern spins on classic stories” ever since the times got modern and the stories got classic. But what does that philosophy mean in practice? A simple update to the current year’s fashions and tastes? A whiz-bang filmmaking approach that’ll keep the kids interested when the epic and literary won’t do anymore? Alterations to centuries-old source material to suit contemporary politics? (I think we’ve seen enough Robin Hood movies to know how this can go wrong.)
The more thoughtful the better, and that’s where Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” finds urgency and ease in equal measure. In committing the story of the March sisters to film for the seventh time in Hollywood history, the writer-director of “Lady Bird” foregrounds complicated dynamics of finance, feminism, and authorship that might fly a little lower in Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel and certainly do in other movie adaptations of the book. Likewise, Gerwig doesn’t wildly transform antagonistic characters like Amy (Florence Pugh) or Aunt March (Meryl Streep) but rather affords them dimensionality beyond villainy or caricature.
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We could have the same discussion (and do in the podcast below) on a craft level. Gerwig’s editing and staging choices infuse new energy into speeches we’ve heard given by Katharine Hepburn (1933 version) or family squabbles that feel more stately in the hands of Gillian Armstrong (1994). In search of that context, we also revisit the “Little Women” of 1994 and 1949 on today’s “Be Reel.” We discuss the Jo March of Winona Ryder and the Amy of Elizabeth Taylor while observing these adaptations sort out their own era-driven versions of the classic American novel.
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