Curtain Call: Noah Baumbach on Making Divorce Cinematic
When it comes to building a genuine relationship between characters on-screen, how do you capture the feeling of a shared history? How much begins with what’s written on the page, and how much relies on the chemistry between actors or the way the camera frames their bodies in space? Recently I got a chance to talk with writer-director Noah Baumbach about these questions in relation to Marriage Story, one of the most acclaimed movies of the past year. Baumbach’s latest film chronicles the painful divorce of Charlie (Adam Driver), a New York theater director, and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson), an actor starting a new chapter in Los Angeles, both vying for custody of their young son. It’s a sharply constructed drama that draws on everything Baumbach has learned through his own moviegoing and filmmaking about how to evoke the heartbreak and humor of everyday life. During our phone conversation, we chatted about how his favorite films, his collaborators, and the influence of Stephen Sondheim guided him in the making of this movie.