Greta Gerwig's Barbie watchlist

the 33 films she named as influences on Barbie, Letterboxd made her sit down and explain all of them in 2023. this is the 15 I'd start with.

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The Wizard of Oz (1939)

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

the color layering - multiple shades of pink sitting in one frame without fighting each other

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

her favorite film, full stop. the dream-ballet-inside-a-dream-ballet is basically the blueprint for the Ken sequence

The Red Shoes (1948)

All That Jazz (1979)

a masterpiece by her own description, especially the audition sequence

His Girl Friday (1940)

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

was already one of Margot's favorites before Gerwig brought it up - Hepburn's arc from composed to vulnerable maps onto Barbie's

The Ladies Man (1961)

Jerry Lewis's continuous camera move through a cutaway dollhouse - the see-through mirror gag comes straight from this one

The Earrings of Madame de... (1953)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Grease (1978)

The Truman Show (1998)

Peter Weir called her before she started shooting and walked her through how he'd done it - directors helping directors

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)

Almodovar's color layering, start here if you want to see where the pink math comes from

The Godfather (1972)

"a triumph of Robert Evans and Coppola's aesthetic genius" - her words, credited to both of them, not just a Ken reference

Playtime (1967)

it's on the 33, the whole plastic-world thing comes from Tati

suggested by @remywatches

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