DZ-80: Interweaving Timelines 3 - Little Women

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast

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.

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