“Courage doesn’t grow overnight. It can be a long process. Now I feel like that first mountain is probably the hardest, but it definitely needs to be crossed“. –Greta Gerwig
“勇气不会一夜之间拥有，这需要一个长期的过程。现在我觉得第一座山是最艰难的，但我一定得去翻越它。”–Greta Gerwig （《小妇人》2019版导演）
题外话：
初见《小妇人》，是在高二的时候。那时候学英语兴趣正浓，虽说每天会晨读课文，总想着在课外多读点什么东西。偶然一次在学校附近的书店撞见了它，正中下怀。和《小妇人》的缘分就这样开始了~
那时这本书配有音频，在边听音频边朗读的过程中，慢慢找到了说英语的感觉。那种感觉，不可思议，像在唱歌。晨读对我而言是一种享受，一早起床，直奔操场，跑步、做早操、晨读，一气呵成。放开歌喉朗读起来的时候，活生生感觉到一种欢脱自在。我很喜欢书里的Jo, 自在潇洒有主见，也喜欢马奇四姐妹，仿佛就在她们身上找到了自己家人的影子。前几日找到这本书，封面难掩岁月痕迹，书上笔记缭乱，一时勾起无数回忆。那个每天早起操场模仿朗读精力充沛的自己，似乎近在咫尺。今年又出了新电影，看完依旧喜欢Jo的自在洒脱，也喜欢Meg的温柔持家，更惊喜改编后的Amy不再是个嫉妒好美的爱哭鬼，而是变得落落大方了，Beth依旧喜欢一个人弹钢琴，心中怀着一颗热忱的助人之心。马奇姐妹无论时代怎么改编，都能够随时而变，借助改编的故事发出属于当代女性自己的声音。
Directed by the actress-turned-director Greta Gerwig, this film is the sixth adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s representative work Little Women, which was first published in 1868 and remains popular today. This novel, based on Alcott’s own life experience, centers on the growth and marriage of March sisters from a protestant family in Concord, Massachusetts during the Civil War and Reconstruction Period.
Alcott gave characters space within limited choices, believing that women could do something with their lives besides marriage, which was rather new in America at that time. Greta Gerwig in her adapted film also celebrates this spirit of independence and freedom represented in Jo March. Instead of telling the story in a chronological fashion, Gerwig deconstructs the narrative and creates two separate timelines, She freely jumps from one to the other and back again, using visual cues to let us know whether we're in the early portion of the story or the later one.
Actually, Little Women has been widely adapted into several versions, but none is done in a unique way than Gerwig, who seems to have a good knowledge of the whole story and narrates it skillfully with well-paced flashbacks, emotional peaks and soothing cadences.
Why does this film possess such kind of power that I cannot resist pondering on the topic discussed in it? What technique does the director exactly do to catch the audience's heart?
My tentative answer is, Gerwig parallels the narration of relative or inconnected events together to help provoke us to think deeply. This contrast may produce dialogue on the same topic.
For example, in the beginning, the film adopts the skill of parallel narrative to show the audience the adult life of four sisters: Jo shows her draft to Mr. Dashwood for check; Amy draws her paintings and she is about to marry a rich man to support her family; Meg is faced with financial struggle when she pay for another 50 pounds; Beth plays her piano alone at home. These four scenes, when put together, creates comparison and provoke the audience to think about different choices that March girls once have made decides who they are.
Besides, Gerwig skillfully uses "play within the play" to provoke us into thinking about the topic of so-called "romance love" in the end. In one storyline, Friedrich stops by, then plays the piano, creating a harmonious long-lost phenomenon which Jo indulges herself in and shows Friedrich admiration. Later, she runs to join Friedrich after he left. They hug each other under the umbrella in the rain. In another, Jo and Mr. Dashwood are discussing about which ending better suits the book Little Women in order to sell well. It can be said that the discussion about Jo's ending in the book opens a space for people to think further on what romantic love really is. Whether it is suitable to pursue one's career or to form a family for love? None can answer this question better than ourselves. The choice, lies in us.
