Lady Bird (2017)- Review & Analysis & Inspiration

In my as-yet-unnamed portfolio project, I intend to explore parent-child relationships, being a teenager, and the difficult realities of adolescence. But, to be quite a bit more frank and quite a bit less lofty, I envisioned a first line of dialogue and a car, filled to the brim with a tense parent-child relationship. Which immediately brought me back to the (extremely memorable) opening of Lady Bird (2017), which is just over three minutes in length. 

This is a film that I have seen probably four or five times in its entirety; but I really wanted to note and record some of the technical details that I want to include in my film opening to achieve similar dramatic effects. Additionally, I watched a few of writer-director Greta Gerwig's commentaries and interviews with news magazine Vanity Fair about the writing, direction, and production process behind Lady Bird. 

To begin with, I thought the voice-over of the initial dialogue in order to keep the focus on the initial two-shot was really effective in establishing a sort of tentative, intimate tone to the relationship between Lady Bird and her mother, and in my storyboard, I think I will also use a similar technique. My current plan for the opening shot of my piece is a close-up on Charlie looking out of a window, and their best friend’s mother saying something to them. However, while I think the complete stillness of the shot works well in the excerpt to establish a sense of being frozen, static, or unchanging, I want to establish that Charlie is hanging onto a sense of home or stability while going through a transitional period, so if possible I want to have as little actor movement as possible but with the movement of the car reflected in the actor’s eyes and possibly in the shot if windows are included.

Also, not only did I appreciate the Joan Didion quote as setting up a major theme of the film, which is Lady Bird’s relationship to her hometown of Sacramento, but I noticed that other coming of age films also use quotes onscreen. Such as in The Half of It, artsy quotes about love, life, place, angst, and other themes from well-known works of literature seem to be popular as the first thought in a teen drama or coming-of-age film. I think that my quote should set up a theme of loss and relationships changing; for that reason, I want to open my film with a quote from Richard Siken’s poetry collection The War of Foxes, from the poem The Worm King’s Lullaby.

“Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.”

Yours always,

Clover Fields

Sources:

Nast, C. (n.d.). Greta Gerwig Explains the Inspiration Behind “Lady Bird.” Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/video/watch/greta-gerwig-explains-the-inspiration-behind-lady-bird

Nast, C. (n.d.). Greta Gerwig Explains Why Creativity is Mysterious. Vanity Fair. Retrieved February 19, 2023, from https://www.vanityfair.com/video/watch/toronto-international-film-festival-greta-gerwig-explains-why-creativity-is-mysterious#intcid=_cne-watch-pages_0c321820-7a8f-492b-b226-0e6a1d07396f_similar2-3

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