Baumbach brings ‘White Noise’ to Netflix
“White Noise,” Don Delillo’s now- classic 1985 postmodern novel, of course, is widely revered. But with its distinctive, absurdist style, it’s also long been classified as “unfilmable,” which didn’t deter writer- director Noah Baumbach from taking a try.
A three-time Oscar nominee Baumbach creates smart, insightful comedy- dramas like “The Squid and the Whale” and “Marriage Story.” “Noise” is his first non- original film. He traces its inception to COVID. “When I was reading it by chance with the pandemic I was surprised how relevant it felt at that moment.” He also felt, “Whatever moment was going on, it would feel relevant to that.”
“White Noise” is set in a small Midwest university town where Driver’s Jack Gladney is a professor of Hitler studies, even though he speaks no German. His wife, his fourth, is Babette (Greta Gerwig, Baumbach’s partner in life and often in his screenwriting). Jack’s university colleague Murray Siskind ( Don Cheadle) wants to do a similar studies course — about Elvis Presley.
“Delillo’s novel is a satire of academia and pop culture,” Baumbach, 53, explained. “And how academia has imbibed pop culture so you can have the essential study of Hitler alongside Elvis and search engines take it all in equal measure. I found that amazing about the novel. There’s real humor as well.”
Added Gerwig, 39, “When he started rereading the book I started reading the book and the language! How on fire Delillo was when writing. You want to read sections out loud because it has this inherent provocative quality, you want to share it with other people. Emotionally and intellectually it’s exciting.”
To “find” their characters, “We had long rehearsals,” Gerwig said. “That’s when they became more real; in the novel they were abstract.”
“There was lots of material and we rehearsed it like other movies,” said Driver, 39, of this, his fourth Baumbach movie.
“But this one has moments of theatricality. And it’s personal. It feels like Noah but the style is different and so is the tone. It’s Noah’s perspective on the book and our actor’s perspective on that.”
Baumbach sees “White Noise” as “The story of American culture,” and he references its 1985 publication to the movies he was watching then as an adolescent.
“It was a very formative time for me, the movies I saw then. It led me to do what I do. So I saw this as the story of American cinema.
“I thought of the
80s noirs, the disaster movies, the family on vacation movies — all that’s inside of this because Delillo laid it all out for me. This material called out to me.”