Greta Gerwig refused to cut the old woman on bench scene from ‘Barbie’
Greta Gerwig has said she had to fight for a scene in Barbie featuing an elderly woman on a bench to remain in the final cut of the film.
While Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) are in ‘the real world’, they pass by an elderly woman on a bench, and Barbie stops to tell the woman she is beautiful. Gerwig faced pressure to cut the scene because it didn’t add to the plot.
Gerwig stood her ground, however, maintaining that the scene was ‘the heart of the movie’.
“I love that scene so much,” Gerwig told Rolling Stone. “And the older woman on the bench is the costume designer Ann Roth. She’s a legend. It’s a cul-de-sac of a moment, in a way — it doesn’t lead anywhere. And in early cuts, looking at the movie, it was suggested, ‘Well, you could cut it. And actually, the story would move on just the same.’ And I said, ‘If I cut the scene, I don’t know what this movie is about.’
“That’s how I saw it. To me, this is the heart of the movie,” she continued. “The way Margot plays that moment is so gentle and so unforced. There’s the more outrageous elements in the movie that people say, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe Mattel let you do this,’ or, ‘I can’t believe Warner Bros. let you do this.’ But to me, the part that I can’t believe that is still in the movie is this little cul-de-sac that doesn’t lead anywhere — except for, it’s the heart of the movie.”
Gerwig also believed the scene was key to understanding Barbie’s perception of the real world after leaving the utopia of Barbieland.
“The idea of a loving God who’s a mother, a grandmother — who looks at you and says, ‘Honey, you’re doing ok’ — is something I feel like I need and I wanted to give to other people,” Gerwig added to The New York Times about the importance of the scene, which she describes as a “transaction of grace.”
“If I cut that scene, I don’t know why I’m making this movie,” Gerwig added. “If I don’t have that scene, I don’t know what it is or what I’ve done.”
Meanwhile, it looks like Barbie is set to surpass Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which also came to cinemas yesterday (July 21), at the box office. The film has also broken the record for highest-grossing opening weekend for a motion picture with a female director.
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Emma Wilkes
NME
