Where to Start with Noah Baumbach
In the 21st century, few filmmakers have been an emblem for the traditional New York independent film style popularised in the late 1960s and 1970s quite like Noah Baumbach. Over 14 feature films, 8 have been set in New York state, with a further three either partially set in the state or following characters that have commuted from there.
This particular strand of American cinema is best known for films like Midnight Cowboy, Mean Streets and Annie Hall, and is revered for its naturalistic dialogue, its grounded presentation, and its often exceptional performances. Rooted in the art of the highly respected theatre scene of New York City itself, these films fight against many of the traits of American cinema popularised by the far more melodramatic and formulaic west coast Hollywood studio system. They avoid huge narrative swings and the often black-and-white views of good and evil, and they instead embrace stylings that create the façade of being more naturalistic, despite being equally as well thought out and often more rehearsed. The New York independent sees itself as an art form reflecting life and all the art that has preceded it, looking at the Hollywood studio system as more “theme park rides”, as famous proponent Martin Scorsese once said.
Across all of the scene’s most critically successful films, and Noah Baumbach’s films specifically, dialogue is key. Baumbach’s lines are like bees buzzing around his narrative hive, the characters rotating in their delivery of honey; each contributing important lines or moments of performance that exemplify the filmmaker’s message or further the film’s purpose. His films are often darkly comedic, and lean into the absurdity of loving relationships, focusing primarily on characters who have yet to find inner peace or come of age, even if that age is middle aged and therefore older than what would be considered “normal” in the Hollywood system. He has tackled divorce multiple times, noting (in an interview with The New Yorker) that he was “expecting more laughs” for his tense breakout hit The Squid and the Whale, a film based upon the real-life divorce of his parents. He earned an Oscar nomination (for Original Screenplay) for that work, as well as his fellow divorce drama Marriage Story (Original Screenplay and Best Picture), released 14 years later (2019) and apparently based upon moments from his own divorce in the early 2010s. Each film exemplifies his abilities as a fantastic writer of dialogue and a director who can pull great performances from his actors.
It is perhaps through his partnership with Greta Gerwig that Baumbach has found the most universal appreciation, their work between Greenberg (2010) and Barbie (2023) bringing about six feature collaborations, including the beloved Frances Ha (2012) and Gerwig’s own Oscar-nominated film, the aforementioned Barbie. Together, they have officially co-written three films, though each admits to helping the other on projects they aren’t credited on. This collaboration, alongside his partnership with Ben Stiller (present between Greenberg and The Meyerowitz Stories) and his burgeoning relationship to Adam Driver (Frances Ha, Marriage Story and White Noise, plus cameos), have forged the impression of a filmmaker with a highly specific vision; one who trusts only a few to pull it off.
Now one of the industry’s most trusted writers and a renowned actor’s director, Noah Baumbach is a filmmaker who has become important to know. His films can be transportive, and are always immersive, each promising situations, conundrums and moments that will forever be identifiable to anyone living in the real world. His work is timeless in that sense, both hyper-contemporary in how it captures the anxieties of our current existence, and classic in its presentation and universally accessible themes. Where to begin with more than a quarter of a century of work this easy to identify with can prove daunting, but in this Guide we light the way, encouraging you to plot your own route through one of the century’s most respected filmographies. This is Where to Start with Noah Baumbach.
1. The Squid and the Whale (2005)
There’s a tragic comedy underpinning Noah Baumbach’s take on two children dealing with the separation of their parents. The comedy is best exemplified by the youngest in the family dealing with all the upheaval like a middle aged man going through a crisis – losing sleep, making phone calls, and drinking scotch. But there’s a tragedy in the isolation that allows such a circumstance, and something altogether more downbeat about child actor Owen Kline delivering these moments than Macaulay Culkin doing effectively the same things in Home Alone. It’s all in the tone of the piece, and if there’s one thing you should know about Baumbach, it’s that he’s amongst the very best around at setting the tone of his pictures.
The Squid and the Whale was based on some of Baumbach’s own experiences in adolescence, with Jesse Eisenberg’s older sibling character (and lead) Walt Berkman being effectively the stand-in for Baumbach himself. It’s a typical New York drama filled with long scenes and lots of dialogue, still cameras, and busy frames. Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney, known primarily for respected comedic turns during this era (Daniels for Dumb & Dumber and Linney for The Truman Show), deliver sombre moments and emotional beats as effectively as they deliver deadpan or darkly comedic ones, at times even merging the two approaches. Their work is enhanced by Baumbach’s theatrical approach to direction, the camera sitting uncomfortably in the presence of the film’s characters in awkward moments, as well as Baumbach’s intense and prolonged rehearsals that ensure every drop of meaning is squeezed from each and every letter on the page.
As would become central to his work moving forward, The Squid and the Whale presents the uncomfortable truths of lives and situations, and specifically of people and their relationships. We witness awkward conversations between parent and child about whose house is “home”, and are turned inside out by the second hand embarrassment that comes from watching the older brother of the family naively champion his self-perceived intelligence. We understand the nuances of the parents’ disagreements, and feel as disjointed as the children in how the parents attempt to present the changes caused by their life-altering separation as positive, or not as bad as we might think. It’s heady, meaningful, relatable cinema; it’s very Noah Baumbach.
2. Frances Ha (2012)
It’s difficult being a self-described artist in your twenties. You lack the foundations needed for balance and composure in important moments, and stretch pay cheque to pay cheque at your less-than-ideal job just to get by. It’s not very glamourous, and for that reason we don’t see it very accurately represented on the screen that often. Frances Ha is, however, one of the great examples in 21st century cinema – a film worth celebrating for its relatability first-and-foremost, but for its ingenuity perhaps more importantly.
The second of Baumbach’s collaborations with Greta Gerwig, and the first upon which Gerwig acted as co-writer, Frances Ha tells of a group of 27-year-olds sifting through the everyday nonsense of their careers (or lack thereof), love lives (or lack thereof), friendships (or lack thereof), aspirations, motivations and so on. Gerwig stars as the titular Frances, a dance instructor with aims of making it big as a dancer despite some obvious hurdles. She’s philosophical, arguably pretentious, but between little moments of pure inspiration and the very grounded friendship she holds with Sophie (Mickey Sumner), we see a person who may not be real but is very much true – true to ourselves, someone we know, someone we wish to know.
Having to explain to people how you’re stuck in one place in life, or feel like you aren’t growing as a person, are universally relatable moments of anguish and embarrassment, and through Frances’ impassioned monologues and the bits of said and unsaid feelings we bear witness to, we see both a flawed and deeply relatable human being as well as a genuinely inspiring, moving film character. She is you, your friend… everyone, but she’s bathed in rich black and white cinematography and she’s dancing her way through New York City. It’s frighteningly contemporary and equally classic – it’s realistic dialogue and characters with true motivations in one hand, it’s relatable quotes and fascinating visual storytelling in the other. It’s Noah Baumbach’s most relatable film, and arguably the very best place to begin with his work.
3. Marriage Story (2019)
Noah Baumbach returned to The Squid and the Whale’s themes of broken family, not knowing your place, and specifically the effects of divorce, in his late 2010s offering that was released as a part of his multi-film partnership with Netflix. Marriage Story, solely written and directed by Baumbach and reportedly based on some of his own experiences divorcing from his ex wife, is filled to the brim with capital A acting moments and proudly boasts some brutal exchanges of dialogue that exemplify the troubled conflict within any falling apart marriage. Importantly, it is equally sumptuous and wholly cinematic in its visual presentation, and boasts moments of hope and love and passion to rival even the great stage plays whose influence it wears proudly on its sleeve.
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson star as two halves of a relationship that has come to an end, and we join them in the midst of their separation. We witness the relative simplicity of their falling out of love overlap with their legal commitments to each other and their child, and how quickly and seemingly uncontrollably a very simple matter is morphed into something much worse. As with a lot of Baumbach’s work, there’s an element of the ethereal – each character is separated by words left unsaid, by their chosen career choices (Driver’s Charlie being a theatre artiste and Johansson’s Nicole being a well-paid television actress), by their respective locations on the USA’s east coast (for Charlie, in New York) and west coast (for Nicole, in Los Angeles). They are at odds as if eternally destined to be so, like a tragedy written in the stars.
The piece is bullet pointed by voiceovers of the two characters confessing what they like and dislike about each other. Baumbach told The New York Times that he believed the film’s introductory voiceover acted “as sort of like an overture for a musical,” looking to establish the themes and the rhythm of the movie before it begins. It’s a unique authorial stamp that instantaneously engrosses you in these people’s lives, and is perhaps everything that a would-be fan of Baumbach’s work would need in order to know that they’ll enjoy the rest of his films.
This is the work of a master craftsman intent on creating relatable, lived-in worlds, and it feels so alive as a result. There are New York influences all over this film, despite it being largely set in Los Angeles – from the momentum carried by the score by Randy Newman (Toy Story) to dialogue-heavy long takes and a tangible sense of spontaneity (albeit carefully constructed) – and the performances across the board are simply phenomenal (Driver and Johansson were both nominated in the Lead Actor categories at the Oscars in 2020, while Laura Dern won for her performance as lawyer Nora Fanshaw). There is a solid argument to be made that all of what Baumbach’s career was made up of was best exemplified by this film, and with that in mind it is a great place to begin with a deep dive into the cinema of this great 21st century auteur.
Recommended for you: Greta Gerwig: The Essential Collection
Noah Baumbach is a filmmaker with such a defined style that if any of his work listed above proves to be a hit to you on a personal level then it is likely you will enjoy the rest of his filmography. In the case of Frances Ha particularly, Mistress America (2015) may prove to be a noteworthy second step, while The Squid and the Whale would perhaps be best accompanied by The Meyerowitz Stories (2017). For Marriage Story, the filmmaker’s first collaboration with Greta Gerwig on Greenberg (2010) may prove most useful.
Whichever way you choose to define your path through this unique and important filmmaker’s work, there is love and pain and rich artistic intent to be found.
