- [Narrator] It's a common saying amongst screenwriters
that you have to grab the audience
within the first 10 pages of a script,
the opening sequence.
That's 10 minutes or less
to form an emotional connection with the main characters
and set up what's at stake in the story.
- I'm not even sure how my writing process works
until I'm asked
to describe it,
but I think it works this way.
- [Narrator] When crafting the opening sequence
for Marriage Story,
director Noah Baumbach had to figure out
how to get the audience quickly invested
in the marriage of Charlie and Nicole.
He accomplished this
by using a simple but effective device.
- [Charlie] What I love about Nicole.
- [Nicole] What I love about Charlie.
- [Narrator] Voice-over narration
from the perspective of both Charlie and Nicole,
each explaining what they love about each other.
So today I want to explore how Baumbach uses this device
to make us care about the characters and their relationship;
to examine the way he establishes an organic visual language
to create a sense of intimacy;
and to look at how this culminates in a surprising reveal
that pulls the rug out from under us,
all in the first nine minutes.
Let's sit down with writer and director Noah Baumbach
and take a look at the opening sequence of Marriage Story.
- Hi, I'm Noah Baumbach,
and this is the opening sequence.
- [Charlie] What I love about Nicole.
She's always inexplicably brewing a cup of tea
that she doesn't drink.
- [Narrator] Before the audience
can get to know the main characters,
the writer has to get to know them.
And this device of Charlie and Nicole
sharing what they love about each other
actually began as a writing exercise for Noah Baumbach.
- I wrote the sequences,
the "What I love about Nicole"
and "What I love about Charlie"
almost as an exercise for myself
'cause I wanted to explore
the kind of ordinary moments of their marriage
but in doing so,
reveal kind of what makes them extraordinary.
I realized I had a device I could use
for the movie at large.
So it became an exercise that at first I gave to myself
and then I gave to the characters.
- [Narrator] This technique is an efficient way
to express exposition,
information the audience needs
in order to understand the story and the characters.
As Charlie and Nicole describe
what they love about each other,
we the audience learn that Nicole sacrificed
a film career in LA to be with Charlie.
- How could you?
- [Charlie] After that movie All Over The Girl,
she could have stayed in LA and been a movie star,
but she gave that up
to do theater with me in New York.
- [Narrator] While Charlie is thriving in New York
as a theater director.
- [Nicole] He moved to New York from Indiana
with no safety net,
and now he's more a New Yorker than any New Yorker.
- [Narrator] It's important to understand
these key differences between the characters
because they will be critical sources of conflict
as the film progresses.
But knowing their back stories isn't enough.
The audience needs to be invested in the characters
and their relationship.
- Sorry.
- Really it was about capturing
in a kind of observational way
these big and small moments.
It was also a way to introduce their world.
- [Charlie] And it's not easy for her
to put away a sock or close a cabinet or do a dish,
but she tries for me.
- [Noah] New York City,
life with a child.
They were just little things,
but in the context of our lives,
they're giant.
- [Narrator] We become invested in their relationship
through this montage of intimate ordinary moments.
But the writing is only one of the tools used
to create a feeling of intimacy
in the opening minutes of Marriage Story.
It also comes through in the free-flowing cinematography.
Noah Baumbach films are usually shot in a formal style.
- But Robbie Ryan, the DP and I,
knew that we wanted to kind of bring some
kind of different feeling and immediacy
to these opening shots
so we did all of that handheld.
- [Narrator] By shooting the opening sequence handheld,
Baumbach makes us feel like
we're dropping on real, organic moments
in these characters' lives.
- Scarlet and Adam and Azhy, who plays Henry,
they were all so natural with each other.
There wasn't a lot of artifice in that;
they could actually just play Monopoly and enjoy it
or get angry for real.
- This is so frustrating.
- They could really find
truth in all these sort of stage activities
that I gave them.
- [Narrator] It's not just the way the camera moves,
but the aspect ratio of the image itself
that creates a more intimate framing,
narrowing the typical widescreen ratio
to focus in on the characters' faces.
Aspect ratio is simply the width to height ratio
of an image.
This ratio can be expressed with two numbers
like 4:3 or 16:9,
or with decimals like 1.66,
1.85,
or 2.35.
- I knew the movie was gonna be about faces
in some ways.
We shot in
a 1.66 aspect ratio,
which is
slightly narrower on the sides than
sort of traditional 1.85
and certainly than widescreen,
because I like the portraiture of it.
- [Narrator] Together, the screenwriting,
acting, and cinematography in the sequence
give us an intimate portrait
of a loving family.
But just as we begin to feel invested
in Nicole and Charlie's marriage,
Baumbach shatters our expectations
with a sudden reveal.
In the final moments of the opening sequence,
we see why Charlie and Nicole
are sharing the things they love about each other.
- [Therapist] Who wants to start?
- [Narrator] They're in mediation for divorce.
- We pull the rug out from under you
after seven minutes of this kind of romantic suite.
- I'm not gonna read this out loud.
- Why is that?
- Because I don't like what I wrote.
- [Narrator] The visual language in this final beat
isolates them from each other.
The camera is no longer handheld.
Instead it's a lockdown in static shots,
placing Charlie and Nicole in separate frames,
showing how far apart they've grown.
- Visually, that was a way to
create a distinction between
this sort of previous life
and that sort of transformative life
that they're having to go through and rediscover.
- Things can get quite contentious.
For it to really work you both have to read.
- I'm not going to.
- It also gives the audience a little bit
of the jolt
that prepares them, I think, for what's lying ahead.
- [Narrator] Together, all this sets up the conflict
for the entire movie
and asks the dramatic question:
What will happen to the life
Charlie and Nicole built together
now that their marriage
is coming apart?
Through the clever use
of Charlie and Nicole's subjective narration,
and by ending with the sudden reveal of their breakup,
Baumbach's opening sequence perfectly sets the stage
for the emotional journey
of Marriage Story.
(piano music)