Director: Greta Gerwig
Editor: Nick Houy
The pairing: Houy and Gerwig are longtime collaborators, having shared credits on “Little Women” (2019) and “Lady Bird” (2017), and he notes, “She’s extremely collaborative. She has this innate sense of what she wants the story to be.” But, he adds, “she gives a lot of freedom to try things.”
Surprise! Toward the end of the film, when Barbie (Margot Robbie) meets her creator Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlman), the script originally said Barbie should see “images of life in a Malick-y way,” referring to “Tree of Life” director Terrence Malick’s frequent use of small shot details to represent a bigger picture, Houy explains in an email. He tried stock footage, but it didn’t click. Instead, he pivoted and obtained “personal home movies from myself, my family and our crew’s families, including old home movies and modern iPhone videos” to illustrate the real world and its human complexities. To Houy and Gerwig, this felt “the most natural and told the story best.” There’s even a flash of his own daughter included.
Vanessa Kirby and Joaquin Phoenix star in Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon.”
(Aidan Monaghan / Apple TV+)