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The Sunday Read: ‘How Noah Baumbach Made “White Noise” a Disaster Movie for Our Moment’

Jon Mooallem met with the director Noah Baumbach to discuss his latest film, an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel “White Noise.” The pair explore the recent chain of personal and public events in Baumbach’s life, including the toll of the coronavirus pandemic and the death of his father, and how this “routine trauma” has affected his work, and why it prompted him to create a discombobulated, “elevated reality” for his film in the vein of David Lynch, the Coen brothers and Spike Lee.
Duration
47m
Broadcast on
04 Dec 2022
Audio Format
other

Jon Mooallem met with the director Noah Baumbach to discuss his latest film, an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel “White Noise.”

The pair explore the recent chain of personal and public events in Baumbach’s life, including the toll of the coronavirus pandemic and the death of his father, and how this “routine trauma” has affected his work, and why it prompted him to create a discombobulated, “elevated reality” for his film in the vein of David Lynch, the Coen brothers and Spike Lee.

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This podcast is supported by TikTok. Sometimes the most interesting discoveries are the ones you weren't looking for. That happens every day on TikTok. A science experiment can spark a whole new interest. A recipe you stumble upon can become a meal you make for the people you love. And a restaurant you've never heard of might become your new favorite spot. That's the thing about TikTok. Follow your curiosity and see where it leads. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. (gentle music) - I'm John Moilem, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. This week's Sunday read is my story about the filmmaker Noah Baumbach, who started adapting the Don de Lille novel white noise into a film during the pandemic. I went to London in the spring when Baumbach was editing the film and then met up again with him this summer as he was scoring the movie with the composer Danny Elfman in New York. The filmmaker Noah Baumbach started hurtling through Hollywood's award season in late 2019 and tanned him with his partner, Greta Gerwig. Baumbach's 10th feature film, Marriage Story, and Gerwig's Second and Adaptation of Little Women were both radiating with a claim and the couple spent that December, January and February attending event after event. Everywhere they went, they shook hands and hugged and scrunched close together for group photos. They leaned in nearer to people's faces to hear better in noisy rooms. They breathed in, breathed out. They dined indoors. Along the way they were informed that the Chinese theatrical releases of their films were being pushed back, then canceled altogether. After the Academy Awards were a marriage story and Little Women were each nominated six times, the actress Laura Dern, a close friend of Baumbach's and Gerwig's who appeared in both films and won an Oscar for Baumbach's, wanted them to join her on a vacation in Santa Barbara, California to decompress. Baumbach, who by nature seems quite compressed, just wanted to fly back home to New York,

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Jon Mooallem met with the director Noah Baumbach to discuss his latest film, an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel “White Noise.” The pair explore the recent chain of personal and public events in Baumbach’s life, including the toll of the coronavirus pandemic and the death of his father, and how this “routine trauma” has affected his work, and why it prompted him to create a discombobulated, “elevated reality” for his film in the vein of David Lynch, the Coen brothers and Spike Lee.