For many cinephiles, “Barbie” is already one of the absolute highlights of the current cinema year. And that’s no wonder, after all, we don’t seem to be expecting a pure advertising event for the cult toy doll, but an intelligent, socially critical and wonderfully bizarre comedy. Director Greta Gerwig is partly responsible for the high expectations. In the past she managed to build up a large fan base with pearls like “Little Women” or “Lady Bird”.
Greta Gerwig Has Now Revealed How To Best Prepare For Her “Barbie” — And The Judging Platform compiled a list of 33 titles that inspired her while working on the project. Besides the expected entries after the first trailers, such as “The Wizard of Oz” or “2001: A Space Odyssey”, there are also a few unusual films that no one expected.
A bit of “The Godfather” and a lot of music
The list immediately reveals one thing: Greta Gerwig knows the history of cinema very well. The director of legendary musicals such as “Singin’ in the Rain”, also known in Germany as “You Shall Be My Lucky Star”, Michael Powell’s touching ballet film “The Red Shoes” or the Gene Kelly romance “Ein Americans in Paris “. With “Grease”, “Saturday Night Fever” and “Behind the Limelight”, some of the most influential musical films of the 1970s are also represented.
One of the filmmaker’s biggest influences appears to be French director Jacques Demy, known for his song and dance performances. With “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”, “The Girls from Rochefort” and “The Photo Model” it is mentioned three times in the watchlist.
But at all performances in “Barbie” there is not only dancing and singing, but also a lot of laughter. The comedy genre is considered with Jerry Lewis’ gossip “I’m still available”, the screwball comedy “The Night Before the Wedding” or Tim Burton’s unusual “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure”.
But Gerwig also has a few movies on her list that probably no one expected: In addition to Peter Weir’s “The Truman Show,” the director seems to have been preparing for “Barbie” from works like the Mafia landmark “The Godfather,” the suspense Masterpiece “The Courtyard Window” or Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi adventure “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”.
With “Fellini’s Ship of Dreams” even Federico Fellini, the surrealist magician of Italian cinema, is represented and the former “enfant terrible” of the Spanish art landscape Pedro Almodóvar made it to the watchlist with the tragic comedy “Women on the verge of nervous breakdowns”.
And that wasn’t even all the movies. Here you can see the whole watchlist. Gerwig also explains her decisions in the following video:
Let’s see how many of these influences you’ll see in Barbie when it hits theaters everywhere on July 20, 2023 (and in previews on July 19, 2023). We have already seen the film and we are very happy. The official FILMSTARTS review lists so strong 4 stars with the short and concise conclusion: “Cult film with announcement.”