LMGI COMPASS
|
Winter 2020
•
51
When SLM Douglas Dresser/LMGI signed on to help make a new version of Li le Women, it took him a while to realize that
more was at stake than fi nding nearly 40 locations in 14 diff erent Massachuse s cities. "My biggest challenge was honoring
the novel and vision of Louisa May Alco and the legion of fans who loved the March family for generations," he says. "I was
surprised by the emotional response we would get from people who had been inspired by the book when they were younger."
Dresser was determined to create a world that doesn't exist anymore. "It was hard to fi nd, pull out and make authentic,"
he says. "A story that takes place in the 19th century is diffi cult in these modern times. We were creating a world fi lled with
heartache but also with joy, love and family. It was a really great project to be part of."
"It's so inspiring to be in the real places," Little Women
producer Amy Pascal says. "You feel like Louisa May Alcott, the
beginning of American literature and all of American history
are right there in Concord." Pascal spent a lot of time traveling
through Massachusetts with Dresser and his crew, looking for
the right places to fi lm. "The location people were fantastic," she
says. "There were a lot of people in that van, and we were all
tramping around in the mud. If you're not doing that, then you're
not really making a movie."
Former Chairman of the SPE Motion Picture Group, Pascal has
spent much of her career checking out locations. "When I ran the
studio, I made lots of movies in different time periods," she says,
"but I never did something that looked like this." This is the sec-
ond version of the Alcott classic that Pascal produced. The fi rst,
which was released in 1994, was shot in Vancouver and featured
Winona Ryder as Jo, Claire Danes as Beth and Christian Bale as Lau-
rie. "What (director) Gillian Armstrong and (writer) Robin Swicord
were interested in doing in that movie was different from what (di-
rector) Greta Gerwig was interested in doing in this new movie,"
Pascal says. "Greta wanted to do something that was inspired by
her love of the novel—reading it as a child and reading it as an adult
and the different things the novel made her feel as an adult. This
movie is centered around the March sisters—going back in time
to the halcyon days of childhood. It's very much about memories."
The Crane Estate in Ipswich, MA
