DZ-80: Interweaving Timelines 3 - Little Women

Listen to explore non-chronological structures can make work thematically resonant.

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!

Thanks to Chris Walker for editing this episode.

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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CHAPTERS

• 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

FILMS

• LITTLE WOMEN (2019) — (w) Greta Gerwig, Louisa May Alcott (d) Greta Gerwig
• LITTLE WOMEN (1994) — (w) Louisa May Alcott, Robin Swicord (d) Gillian Armstrong

SCRIPTS

• Study the script: LITTLE WOMEN (2019) — Greta Gerwig, Louisa May Alcott

SHOT ZERO DEEP DIVES

• Art of the Title Sequence: LITTLE WOMEN

LINKS

• Listen: Scriptnotes, Ep 433: The One with Greta Gerwig

EPISODES IN THE INTERWEAVING TIMELINES SERIES

• DZ-78: Interweaving Timelines 1 - Destroyer
• DZ-79: Interweaving Timelines 2 - The Social Network
• DZ-80: Interweaving Timelines 3 - Little Women

RELATED EPISODES

• DZ-78: Interweaving Timelines 1 - Destroyer
• DZ-79: Interweaving Timelines 2 - The Social Network

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Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2021/dz-80/