On Friday, Noah Baumbach’s well-praised film, Marriage Story, is to be released on Netflix (it has been released to select theaters, a month ago or so and is getting quite a few Oscar nods from various film festival critics). I have always enjoyed Noah Baumbach’s quirky, yet heart-felt films. Much to my husband’s chagrin, I pulled out my TV show choice trump card (“We’ve been watching A LOT of football lately, don’t you think?”) and so last night, he and I watched The Squid and The Whale, a movie which I had seen several years ago, but wanted to see again, before eagerly lapping up Marriage Story on Friday. Both movies are semi-autobiographical. The Squid and the Whale is loosely based on Noah Baumbach’s parents’ divorce and is shown from a teenager’s viewpoint. Marriage Story takes a lot of its own material from Baumbach’s own divorce from the actress, Jennifer Jason Leigh.
I have been reading a lot of reviews about Marriage Story and I came across this particular quote from Noah Baumbach, that struck me, enough to put it in one of my flowing “quotes and interesting thoughts and inspirations and things to write about” notebooks. He says this about Marriage Story, his upcoming film:
“In a way, I feel talking about the movie, and hearing what other people think about it, helps me to understand it better myself.”
I LOVE that quote because that is how I feel about my writing. When readers or friends or most often, my husband, comment about something that I have written, I can’t tell you how much my own thoughts and interpretations and emotions, come together even more so, in that very moment. I think that is why it is so precious as a writer, to feel heard and validated and understood. Sometimes someone will say something about what I have written, and I will think to myself, “Yes!! That is exactly what I was trying to convey and I didn’t even know that, myself, until NOW!” As a writer (and probably for any kind of creator or artist), that is one of the BEST feelings in the world.
It is nice to be praised. On the surface, it is feels good to collect “likes.” It is certainly lovely to feel noticed and appreciated. But it is glorious to have your own intuitive learnings and yearnings, to be interpreted back to you, by someone taking in and then describing and clarifying, your own creation back to you. By telling you the meaning, and the nuances, and the understanding, that they found in your creation, you fully understand the depth of your creation, even more so. I believe that when this electrifying dynamic happens, this is what creative connection is, in its truest, most profound form. And that, at its deepest core is truly why, authors want to be read, and artists want to be seen, and dancers want to be felt and musicians want to be heard . . . . . Creation wants us to remember that we are all connected.