Adaptations and the Shifting Form of Little Women
Two of the most popular adaptations of Little Women are the films directed by Gillian Armstrong and Greta Gerwig, released in 1994 and 2019, respectively. Despite the shared form and content of these adaptations, they could not be more different from each other in how they recreate the text. One could even argue that they do not truly share form, at least not in terms of genre, because both films do not fit into the same category. Armstrong’s film was marketed as a family-oriented, nostalgic Christmas film. Although Gerwig’s film was also a Christmas release, it was never meant to be a purely nostalgic film. Amy Pascal, a producer on the film describes Gerwig’s original pitch:
The ambition and dreams you have as a girl get stomped out of you as you grow up. It was about the kinds of conversations that we all have about commerce and art and what we have to do to make things commercial. (Pascal, as quoted in Sandberg, 2019).
Armstrong’s film carries a tone of nostalgia, of idealized domesticity, of joint homes and families in a world where “broken homes” were becoming the norm. In the words of journalist Marshall Fine, she created a film that “manages to be traditional without being conservative” (Rioux, 2019, p. 130). Armstrong, as well as the screenwriter, Robin Swicord, were also wary about linking the film to feminism, which in the former’s words had received “irreparable amounts of bad press” (as cited in Rioux, 2019, p.131). The film included new and original dialogue, which served to make overt certain progressive ideas from the subtext, but in this process, the film loses a part of what made Alcott’s work emotionally compelling in the first place.
In Alcott’s novel, Marmee (the mother) is a stabilizing influence on the girls, but rather than being relegated to the role of the preacher, she is a fully fleshed out character who feels anger and despair and speaks to her children from her own experiences. The Marmee of the 1994 film, however, is the all-wise preacher who talks at, rather than converses with her children. This creative decision changed the tone of the film and made it come across as preachy, shifting it further away from the original work. The movie also does not show the audience as much of Jo’s struggles, and her resistance to the gender norms of the era, including the famous line where she declares that she wishes she had been born a boy, is absent. (Rioux, 2019, p. 134). One of the most powerful scenes in the book, where Jo and Marmee discuss her struggles to control her anger is entirely omitted. Although both Jo and Marmee have sections of the film’s proto-feminist dialogue, the films fails to take from Alcott’s text what was truly original and progressive —her criticism of marriage, the way children are educated into their gender, the challenges to the sentimentalization of motherhood — are all virtually non-existent.
These decisions seem odd at first, considering that the period it was made in was more progressive than the 1860s. However, when you look at the economic, political, and social fields, some of Armstrong’s decisions can be given more context. As Rioux writes, the 1990s were characterized by “culture-wars” in which “traditionalists and progressives argued over everything from science to the economy to art and women’s roles” (2019, p.130). Women felt uncomfortable calling themselves feminists, and conservatives argued for a return to “family values”. Armstrong was especially eager to convince men that there was something for them in the film too, and her aim was to appeal to all sections of the audience (Rioux, 2019, p.131). To include the criticism of marriage and gender norms from Alcott’s work would likely alienate a section of her audience, and the result is a work of art that is more of a family Christmas movie rather than a coming-of-age film.
Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation of Little Women may share its source material with the 1994 film but the similarities end at that. Where Swicord’s writing dulls and omits some of Alcott’s powerful scenes, Gerwig adds to the intensity of the original, resulting in a film that captures what the novel could only say between the lines. The 2019 film tells the story through multiple timelines, shifting between the ‘present’ where the girls are grown, and the ‘past’, where the girls are still children. The timelines are differentiated by their colour - the past characterised by its warm-toned nostalgia, and the present consisting of colder, more bluish tones.
Laura Dern’s Marmee is full of life from her first scene, exuding motherly warmth, but also the chaos of someone who has flaws, of someone who is real. When Jo talks to her mother about her struggles to control her anger, Laura Dern’s Marmee and Alcott’s Marmee become one as she says to her daughter, “I am angry nearly every day of my life” and explains her own struggles to be patient when life encourages anything but.
Judith Fetterly, a literary scholar, wrote about what she felt were the darker undercurrents of Alcott’s children’s novel. She argues that while the overt message of the novel favours self-sacrifice on part of the women, the novel contains more subtle messages about the lack of real alternatives to marriage, especially for women (as cited in Rioux, p.180). Gerwig’s film embraces Alcott’s progressive portrayal of marriage, drawing from her other works to add layers to the original text. In a particularly poignant moment, Jo regrets turning down Laurie’s proposal, and Gerwig’s dialogue flows with emotional intensity, as Saoirse Ronan’s Jo exclaims,
I care more to be loved; I want to be loved. I just feel, like women, they have minds and souls as well as hearts, ambition and talent as well as beauty, and I’m so sick of being told that love is all a woman is fit for. But… I’m so lonely! (2019, 1:42:25)
Gerwig’s work highlights the darker undertones that Fetterly talks about, by rewriting Alcott’s original dialogue to express the same kind of loneliness people experience even today. To be unmarried (and single) while more accepted and not at odds with being able to love, is still a lonely thing. Just as Jo watches her sisters find love and family, as one’s immediate circle moves on to that phase of their lives, one can feel the same kind of loneliness that Jo does in the 1860s.
Armstrong and Swicord’s film ends with Professor Bhaer proposing to Jo in the rain, followed by a kiss that echoes the classic romantic ending. Bhaer is also instrumental in the publishing of Jo’s own book, unlike the original text. Gerwig on the other hand takes Alcott’s frustrating ending and turns it on its head. Towards the end of the movie, it seems like Jo is about to marry Bhaer, chasing after him in the rain. However, at the pivotal moment, the film cuts to Jo sitting in a publisher’s office, negotiating an offer for her novel. Echoing Alcott’s life, she is pushed to marry her heroine off, but she retains the copyright to her novel. Following this is a parallel set of scenes. One echoing the novel, where a presumably married Jo runs a boys school with Bhaer, and the second being Gerwig’s own addition, a scene where Jo watches her book being printed and bound. The film switches between the two, with the former concluding with the entire family gathered to celebrate Marmee’s birthday, a scene coloured with the same warm nostalgia of the past. The film then switches to the colder tones of the present, with Jo holding her novel in her arms, quietly smiling before the screen cuts to black. Gerwig’s Bhaer is not instrumental in the publishing of Jo’s book, and her clever use of form suggests that Jo ended up unmarried, just as Alcott originally wanted.
Gerwig takes a culturally produced piece of work and integrates the habitus of the social and cultural fields of today, and continues the process of production, adding new meaning to the work through the power she has been endowed with, creating new boundaries that go beyond what Alcott had to work within.