Better In Your Head?--LITTLE WOMEN

 

Spoiler Alert: there's actually a lot of women.

THE BOOK-Written by Louisa May Alcott, released 1868/1869

THE MOVIE(S)-Directed by George Cukor, written by Sarah Y. Mason & Victor Heerman, released 1933

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, written by Sally Benson, Andrew Salt, Sarah Y. Mason & Victor Heerman, released 1949

Directed by Gillian Armstrong, written by Robin Swicord, released 1994

Directed & written by Greta Gerwig, released 2019

THE STORY-Insofar as occupying a multi-story Colonial in the American Northeast qualifies as "struggling," the March family struggles indeed. While her husband serves in the Union Army, cherished matriarch Margaret imports lessons of faith and forgiveness, of charm and charity, upon her four daughters: compliant Meg; arty, self-centered Amy; kindly Beth; and temperamental tomboy Jo. The ladies act out original plays, party with well-off neighbors, and pay it relentlessly forward. Prestige, romance, birth, death, how are you not familiar with the story already?

MIND THE GAP-Every version of Little Women is a fanciful backwards glance. Huge dresses! Heavy hair! Heavy dresses! Huge hair! Exemplary elocution! Jaw-dropping acts of selflessness! Through feminist lenses of varying curves, sisterhood is frivolity, frivolity is freedom, domesticity is an insidious poison, Jo's a dyke clearly, so just throw Professor Bhaer Meg's way. For purposes of this blog, I approach the text as a mere reader. I can't get so ensnared in furtive sighs and insightful pauses.

Guaranteed to chafe certain generations, but remember--the world's best stuff is soft and pink.

I rank the "talkies" thusly, best to least: 2019, 1949, 1994, 1933.

Katharine Hepburn's Jo remains my favorite portrayal of my favorite sister; besides being a hammerhead shark of an actor, she's closest of all contenders to Alcott's character as written: "tall, big hands and feet." Unlike many Jo devotees whose fandom is driven primarily by their inability to deal with the fact they're really Amy deep down, I was Jo March. A wanna-be writer, an unrepentant slang-slinger. (No dude drama, though, as I was much too homely.) Even though she proved more Cameron Frye in a Red Wings jersey than 2pac in a Red Wings jersey, I still love Jo. Mistakes are like bowel movements--everyone makes them.

Amy. No field too long for that cunt. 

Winona Ryder's pretty passions aside, the first Little Women adaptation directed by a woman is more careful than colorful, often cute and rarely cutting.

Described variously as "bold," "arrogant," or "unnecessary," the latest (last?) take disturbs the veil masterfully, reveling in gorgeous ambiguity, a steel pinata cloaked in fine silk. Nearly every risk it takes pays off, and the box office returns were quite sweet. 

Can't wait for the conclusion of the "Saoirse Ronan desperately out-acts Timothée Chalamet in a Greta Gerwig film" trilogy!

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Even in 1985, Little Women struck me as a story of Cespedesian absurdity. Catch a falling star, save it for a snowstorm, incinerate a life's work, settle for perpetual leftovers. Pure sisterhood. Louisa May Alcott was not a powerhouse prose stylist, but she was a superior storyteller. Once upon a time, I ate it up. Baby Snoopy at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm, snuggled behind the jug, that was me with this book. It poked my belly, tugged my earlobes and tickled my tear ducts. Of the re-imaginings, only the 2019 version manages that last one.