Greta Gerwig attends AFI Festival 2023
John Kobaloff/Getty Images for AFI
There’s a scene in a movie starring Paul Reubens Pee Wee’s Big Adventure Which finds its distinctive character embarking on a vagabond adventure. He hops on a train to sit alongside a grizzled, toothless man known as Hobo Jack, and they sing camp songs until Pee-Wee suddenly becomes nervous at this moment. Disgust radiates from his face and he makes a rash decision to jump off the moving train and fall into the dirt below. The entire scene lasts 53 seconds.
“It’s an incredibly committed, short joke that requires a lot of effort and I think it took root somewhere deep inside me,” Greta Gerwig explained from the stage inside the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood on Thursday evening during a screening of Tim Burton’s 1985. The film as part of the AFI Festival. Very popular Barbie As part of her directorial duties, the director made a guest appearance at the Los Angeles-based festival, which has commissioned her to curate a selection of films to be screened this year.
These five films include Bob Fosse’s film All that jazz Starring Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange and Anne Reinking, directed by Vincente Minnelli. An American in Paris Starring Gene Kelly, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger A matter of life and deathWim Wenders Wings of desire Starring Bruno Ganz, and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure Starring Robbins, who passed away on July 31.
Gerwig provided both A matter of life and death And Pee Wee’s Big Adventure Tonight. Gerwig, who wore a red velvet dress designed by Gucci with an ornate jacquard print, described the train scene as “wonderful” before revealing that her relationship with the film is personal. “As a writer and director, when you go back and look at things you loved and then you realize they were always great. It’s so funny and special and innovative that it makes you believe in comedy and cinema and how profound this kind of silliness is.”
Its screening at the festival was a homecoming after screening her previous films Lady Bird And little Women There in recent years. Gerwig also served on the short film jury in 2010. But her appearance this year is especially significant because she has achieved the massive success of Barbie Starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. The Warner Bros. release became A cultural phenomenon that grossed north of $1.4 billion in revenue.
You mentioned Barbie During her introduction, she said that when she set out to make the film, she thought of “those wonderful comedic confections” on display Pee Wee’s Big Adventure And how it allows you to “access something that is not available”. She said she loved the movie as a child without understanding all the reasons.
“I knew nothing about why it shined, why it was so beautiful. I loved it and it gave me happiness and it made me feel free,” Gerwig continued. “And that was the thing that gave me permission to experience the truth that you can only get to when you move into absurdity, which is what Paul knew him as a performer. And he knew it in the same way that Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton knew it.
She called both Robbins and Burton “geniuses” and the film a “cold classic.” Gerwig was welcomed to the stage by AFI President and CEO Bob Gazzaley, who noted the importance of screening the film inside China’s TCL where he hosted the famous theater. Pee Wee’s Big Adventure The world premiere was in 1985.
“Which also makes this evening even more special,” Ghazala continued, revealing that three members of the film’s creative team were in the theater including co-writer Michael Warhol, the actor who played Kid No. 2 on a bike, Brett Fellman, and “ “The only Diane Salinger who plays Simone.” She received enthusiastic applause, and when the applause ended, she said she knew Robbins was looking down on tonight’s festivities.
After her remarks, Gerwig, who was introduced by AFI President and CEO Bob Gazzaley, moved to another stage in the complex to introduce A matter of life and death. The 1946 film, produced by the filmmaking team of Powell and Pressburger, is about a British wartime pilot who cheats death and then must plead for his life before a heavenly court.
Gerwig’s comments at that theater focused less on the absurd and more on the power of cinema. “They give me a sense of freedom,” she said of the feeling she gets while watching their films. “I feel like whenever I watch a Powell and Pressburger movie, it’s a shot of adrenaline and a reminder that movies can be anything you want, and you can do anything you want. When the lights go out, anything is possible.”
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