Greta Gerwig, 31, was born in California. After graduating from Barnard College, plans to become a playwright were derailed by involvement in the mumblecore scene. The awkward and naturalistic film genre saw her collaborate with director Joe Swanberg on films such as 2007’s Hannah Takes the Stairs. Her role in Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg (2010) earned her an Independent Spirit nomination for best female lead. She co-scripted 2013’s Frances Ha with her by now partner Baumbach, her part in which saw her nominated for a Golden Globe and a London Film Critics’ Circle award. Her new film Eden, directed by Mia Hansen-Løve, is out now.
1 | CD
A$AP Rocky – At.Long.Last.A$AP
I don’t have my finger on the pulse of what’s popular in music at the moment. I’m not a hip person. I discover music in the way nerdy kids discover music. It’s not like I heard A$AP at the club! I’ve just always really liked him. I felt like A$AP and Kendrick [Lamar] came out at the same time. I love the Kendrick album [To Pimp a Butterfly], too. At.Long.Last.A$AP is A$AP’s second album and it’s beautiful and strange. The song L$D was the first track I heard. I don’t think I’ve heard any song that explicitly sexy since the days of Prince. When I first heard it I thought, This is the sex jam of the summer! It’s got that languid but directed vibe. The way it’s arranged is really lush and vivid.
2 | Book
On Elizabeth Bishop by Colm Tóibín
I love his writing. I love Brooklyn and I recently read Nora Webster. He’s one of my favourites right now. On Elizabeth Bishop is just so beautiful. I feel like poetry is something I love, but I don’t have enough of a knowledge base to appreciate it as deeply as I know it can be appreciated. On Elizabeth Bishop is great because there’s something so special about writers illuminating poetry. I love reading other poets writing about poetry too. Mary Oliver wrote a book called The Poetry Handbook where she broke down different poems and explains why they’re great. But it’s not from the perspective of an academic, it’s from the perspective of a writer. I find that more interesting; they’re more intimately connected with it because they’re building stuff from the same material. That’s how I felt about Colm Tóibín.
3 | TV
Peaky Blinders
I don’t really watch TV. The sheer volume of episodes and seasons that a show has is overwhelming. There is just so much of a show like Mad Men. I’ll occasionally tune back into Season 7 and I’ll think: What, they’re still in that office? Because of that, I really like BBC shows. They will just do six episodes a season. It’s much more approachable. I can wrap my head around watching six hours of content. On a friend’s recommendation, I watched Peaky Blinders in two days. It’s really fun. Cillian Murphy is electric in it. I’ve never felt turned on by men who fix horse races but now I totally am! I spend a lot of time talking about the slow-motion walking shots with my friend. There is always one man pulling a sack of grain across the road. You know there is an assistant director telling him: “Drag that sack now!”
4 | Film
The Apu trilogy
There was a recent rerelease of this Satyajit Ray trilogy. It was made in the 50s. It’s three films about this boy who was changing really rapidly. It’s very emotional. The negative prints of the films were stored in a film laboratory in London. There was a fire in the vault in 1993 and the negatives were lost in the blaze. Damage was done, but they were partly salvaged and sent to LA. Criterion restored the negatives by rehydrating them. They made these new prints and they rereleased it. It was just amazing because the footage was so pristine. It was so beautiful. The restoration was just gorgeous. They showed the trilogy in New York and it was tremendous to be able to watch it on the big screen in the way it was meant to be seen.
5 | Art
Garry Winogrand
His photographs are incredible. They are black-and-white street photography from New York in the 1950s and 60s. Winogrand had this ability to capture these bursts of energy. Looking at a picture by him is like being at a baseball game at the moment when all the bases are loaded and things are about to happen. His photographs feel like a match lit under dynamite, and he had an ability to capture that key moment. When you look at his work it is almost kinetic. It feels like listening to a song and being awoken by it. You really get a contact high from his photographs.
6 | Play
The Flick
It’s a revival of a play by Annie Baker at the Barrow Street theatre, New York. It won the Pulitzer prize for drama in 2014. It’s set in a movie theatre in Massachusetts and the plot concerns film employees who clean up the theatre after the shows. It’s a play that is filled with silences, but it’s incredibly funny and moving. I’d go as far as to say that it is one of the best things I’ve ever seen and that Baker is my favourite playwright at the moment. It’s interesting that she actually wrote the part for the lead actor Matthew Maher. In film that happens quite a lot, but it happens less in theatre, I think because theatre is so transient and authors always try to write things that are “actor-proof”.
