DZ-80: Interweaving Timelines 3 - Little Women

How can interweaving timelines elevate the emotional experience for the audience? In our final part, part 3, of our Interweaving Timelines series, we — Chas, Stu & Mel — take a deep dive into Greta Gerwig's 2019 adaptation of Little Women. In her adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's iconic novels, Greta chose to interweave the seperate timelines of Little Women and it's sequel, Good Wives, to create a thematically and emotionally potent work. This differs from all the other adaptations, which have chosen to keep the chronological storytelling of the source material. We compare Gerwig's choices and their resulting effects with Gilliam Armstrong & Robin Swicord's more faithful (and chronological) 1994 version. It's almost like a scientific experiment! Stay tuned! SPOILERS ABOUND! Audio quotations used for educational purposes only. Timestamps indicated below. Chapter markers included in the mp3. Thanks to Chris Walker for editing this episode. RUNNING ORDER 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:00:37 - ScriptUp Sponsorship 00:02:00 - Little Women - 2019 vs 1994 00:06:35 - 2019's Interweaving Timelines 00:15:29 - Summarising the plot points 00:31:39 - Initial contrasts with chronological telling 00:35:32 - Laurie's Proposal 00:54:10 - Amy and Laurie's courtship 01:03:34 - Beth's Death 01:26:44 - Book burning and ice skating 01:36:51 - How the structure expresses theme 01:44:06 - Key Learnings and Wrap Up 01:59:02 - Backmatter LINKS Watch: Little Women (2019) screenplay by and directed by Greta Gerwig Watch: Little Women (1994) screenplay by Robin Swicord and directed by Gilliam Armstrong Read/Listen: Scriptnotes, Ep 433: The One with Greta Gerwig RELATED EPISODES DZ-78: Interweaving Timelines 1 - Destroyer DZ-79: Interweaving Timelines 2 – The Social Network This episode brought to you by ScriptUp – https://www.scriptupstudio.com – use promo code DZ10 to get 10% off. Many thanks to all our patrons but particularly to Randy, Garrett, Bjorn, Jessie, Khrob, and Sandra. They’re good humans. Please considering rating or subscribing to us on Apple Podcasts or sharing us on the Social Medias! We like finding new listeners. We are @stuwillis and @chasffisher on twitter. And you can find @draft_zero on Instagram and Twitter.

Om Podcasten

Two emerging screenwriters – Chas Fisher and Stuart Willis – try to work out what makes great screenplays work. Discovering what it takes by analysing what successful writers put on the page.