Greta Gerwig has said she watched Jacques Demy's 1964 French musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg — a film where every word is sung, every surface is saturated with color — and understood immediately what Barbieland should be: a world where artifice isn't dishonesty, it's the only language adequate to feeling. Demy's films are devastating precisely because they're beautiful. The same sadness hides inside Barbie.
Federico Fellini's '8 ½' as inspiration for a film that tackles existential crises, but still remains joyous.
— Greta Gerwig · IndieWire - Greta Gerwig on How She Made 'Barbie': ‘It Was a Gigantic Balancing Act’
Fellini's '8 ½' tackles existential crises, but still remains joyous.
Films That Influenced Barbie
