Frances Ha: Writer / Director Noah Baumbach

Baumbach has always been known for his knack at character complexity. He explored the uncomfortable and awkward plagues of family and adolescence in The Squid and the Whale, garnering an Oscar nod and slew of other awards. In Greenberg, we witnessed Ben Stiller at his most vulnerable, playing an odd man who falls for the fresh-faced Greta Gerwig. Since then, Baumbach has re-teamed with Gerwig to bring us another intimate, hilarious movie, Frances Ha. All in black and white and channeling a French New Wave vibe, the story centers on a twenty-something misfit, Frances (Gerwig) who struggles to keep her best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner) as both their lives grow apart. It’s a coming of age film, what Baumbach does best, set to the backdrop of the ever-ferocious and luminescent New York City.

I was stoked to have a few moments with the beloved writer/director in LA last week. Drinking red wine in a New York boho loft may have been more appropriate than a lavish conference room at The Four Seasons, but hey, I’m not picky. We talked his new DIY way of shooting, his relationship with the late Harris Savides and his newest project with Gerwig (yup, there’s more to come).

ATW: With Greenberg, Frances Ha and many of your other films you’re exploring these sort of child/adults that are outcasts in their society. What about these characters interest you?

B: There are broad similarities, but for me the circumstances with each movie are different and for reasons even I don’t understand I find myself interested in some kind of particular character or city. The character of Greenberg was a character I had been exploring; I had a half written play that had somebody sort of like Greenberg. I wanted to make a movie about Los Angeles and somehow try to convey my experience of that city. The combination of those two things went into Greenberg. With Frances, I wanted to make a movie with Greta again where she’d really be the center of the movie and that felt like Greta to me: joyful and romantic. And I wanted to shoot New York again. My approach starts off in simpler ways and then the complexities or characters come in the process.

ATW: With the screenplay for Frances Ha you didn’t show your actors the complete script! In what ways did this challenge or hinder them?

B: I haven’t actually spoken to all of them. I spoke to Mickey about it! But I think it did liberate them. I was very happy with the results, and it did allow people to just come in and be there for that. Her roommates could just live in that apartment and convey those lives and be those people and not worry about how it served the movie in a broader way; I can worry about that.

ATW: Greta is amazing. Were there certain spontaneous moments with her that you kept in the editing process that were unscripted?

B: It was all tightly scripted; nothing is improvised, so that everything can surprise me. This is what acting is, as far as I understand: you play the text and then the actor transforms it. There should be more freedom for the actor if you’re following the text. That’s hopefully what happens when we make these movies. Greta surprised me constantly! Every take she’s unafraid of falling on her face, there’s nothing you can do wrong. You get great stuff when actors come at it that way. With Mickey too, they’re entirely present. This movie was very rigorously made, though.

ATW: You shot over the course of a year!

B: Yes, a long period of time and we shot many, many takes of every scene.  It’s a real challenge to the actors to be present and alive over the course of 40 takes.

ATW: You’re doing this DIY way of filmmaking, and you’re philosophy of shooting is changing. In what way did this film evolve from past work with bigger studios?

B: With every movie I’ve tried to break the filmmaking process down to its essentials best I can. On bigger movies you have more people, and you can do more. But I wanted to make a movie with as few people as possible, and with technology you can do that now. But I didn’t want to make a grungy movie. I wanted to make something that was beautiful and classical in a way.

ATW: And Frances lives her life in that way, as a romantic, so I loved that it was in black and white. Your past cinematographer Harris Savides past away recently. With this film Sam Levy worked with you. What now are you looking for in that collaborative relationship?

B: Harris introduced me to Sam and we did the tests, and in many ways I really feel Harris in this movie. He was a great friend and collaborator, and he could translate ideas into photography, which is like magic to me. I would talk about how I could imagine how something would feel, and he would do tests and we’d look at them. The essential of it was that he knew what to physically do to capture what’s in your mind.

ATW: And this brings a certain moment in the film to my mind! When Greta cooks her new roommates dinner and when their guests leave, there’s this sort of I Love Lucy moment when the music swells, and they have these pathetic, defeated looks on their faces as they walk away.

B: What’s interesting about that moment is that everyone was dressed like someone in 2013 would be dressed, but the three of them together, one has a tie and a hat, it has this very French new wave vibe to it. It was totally not deliberate, and it was almost like those styles and feelings fell in. Once I saw it on the first take, I made them do it over and over again, and I wanted to get that walk exactly right. It was one of those things that happened in the moment.

ATW: Your upcoming project Untitled School Project also stars Greta and is set at Barnard College, but what can we expect thematically and stylistically?  It’s in color.

B: [Laughs] Uh huh, it’s in color! But I don’t want to talk about it too much because it’s still being formed. It’s sort of something Greta and I wrote after Frances.

ATW: You’re visiting the female dynamic again.

B: Yea, again I find I like to know as little as possible when I start working on things and have some ideas and let them inform everything else.  This was no different, so I don’t know how it’ll end up coming together. It’s just been something we’ve been thinking about. I guess there was more to explore there.