Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1189824
www.postmagazine.com 37 POST NOV/DEC 2019 Oscar BUZZ And stole every trick in the book? (Laughs) "Yes, I think that's what being a director is. You have to be greedy and take every great idea anyone has. I had so many ideas about how to approach this, and I just kept pulling more and more in from everyone." What did Saoirse Ronan bring to the role of Jo? "She actually told me she'd be playing Jo when she heard I was doing this, which was a very Jo thing to do! She really understood Jo and she's such a film- making partner and had so many great ideas, even down to Jo writing in a military jacket. She came up with that, as Jo wanted to be a boy in the book, and fight with her father in the Civil War. And she said that for her, the way Louisa and Jo write is like a military campaign. They're taking over space and occupying territory with force, which informed how we shot all that writing stuff. That's just one small example of what she brought." It was quite a coup getting Meryl Streep. I assume you made her audition? (Laughs) "Yes, it was touch and go there for her, but she won me over. We had lunch and she told me 'I'd like to play Aunt March, the battle-axe,' and she also had great insights into the character and the whole position of women back then. She said, 'You have to make the audience understand that it wasn't just that women couldn't vote or have jobs — it's that they couldn't legally own anything. Everything be- longed to the husband, so who you married was the choice, the only choice. You could leave a marriage but you left with nothing, not even your children.' And that really struck me." Where did you do the post? "It was at Harbor in New York, and we were there while we shot, and as we shot on film, we had that one day lag while Kodak processed it. Then for the second half of the edit we moved into a house. We did the sound mix on the Warner's stage in New York, and then some on the Sony lot, and for the DI we did a Dolby Vision pass here at Dolby in LA and then the rest of the DI at Harbor with colorist Joe Gawler. There's so many passes now." Do you like the post process? "I absolutely love it, and especially the editing. I love every part of the filmmaking process, and I do enjoy the euphoria of the set, but editing is so intimate after spending months with a lot of people, and it's just like writing again, and very satisfying as it's so slow and thoughtful, and you're making the film." The film was edited by Nick Houy. Tell us how it worked. "He was on the set a bit and we'd watch dailies on Sunday night and make sure I had all the angles and coverage needed. But I don't look at assemblies as I find them terrifying. And if I don't know how it's built, I don't know how to fix it, so with Nick, we start at the beginning, with the first shot, and work through it from there." What were the main challenges of editing this? "There were so many. We had to balance so many different characters and storylines and timelines, and little changes we made would have giant ripple effects. And we had to set up right from the start a sense of where the film was going and what we were up to, and layer a lot of stuff in, like when Dashwood says to Jo, 'Make sure the heroine is either married or dead by the end.' That broadcasts to the audience, 'We're doing a thing here.' It's a hint that the movie's in charge, that the audience is invited to take the journey with the characters. And I love the fact that it's so twisty and turning and that every scene has so many storylines going on. It's complicated, and it took a lot of fine tuning. And Nick is always game to keep trying things, to keep working, and while it felt a bit like Whack-a-Mole, we'd continue to refine it and start to feel that the film had its own life and logic." Can you talk about the importance of music and sound? "They're so important to me, and I'm very involved as so much of who I am as a filmmaker is to do with rhythm, both in the music and dialogue. There's a lot of music in this, by Alexandre Desplat, who did an amazing score, and I get quite neurotic about all the sound. We did an Atmos mix and also a 5.1, and spent a lot of time making them match." Are you going to direct again? "Yes. I'd act again, but my priority is writing and directing now, as long as people will have me." Check out more Oscar coverage online — including interviews with Little Women DP Yorick Le Saux and editor Nick Houy — at postmagazine.com. Post took place at The Harbor Picture Company. Alexandre Desplat provided the music.