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

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DZ-80: Interweaving Timelines 3 - Little Women

Draft Zero: a screenwriting podcast