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| Noah Baumbach |
Made possible by a donation from Katrine & Bill Formby
Rajendra Roy (TFF 2025): "It has been 30 years since Noah Baumbach arrived on the scene with KICKING & SCREAMING (1995), a film that announced a generational talent. It has been 20 years since he established himself as a central figure in current cinema, following the release of THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (2005). With a seemingly effortless ability to shift between collaborative, studio traditions and a more auteurist mode of working, Baumbach has nimbly avoided being locked into any of the industry bear-traps that have ensnared so many of his contemporaries. He is at once today’s Lubitsch or Nichols, and on occasion our Woody Allen or Rohmer."
"Baumbach’s filmography reads like a deeply thought-out “films I would want on a desert island” list: the whimsy and wisdom of his writing collaborations with Wes Anderson, THE LIFE AQUATIC (2004) and FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009), to the piercingly personal MARGOT AT THE WEDDING (2007) and MARRIAGE STORY (2019), all the way through to the smart escapism of his scripts for MADAGASCAR 3 (2012, co-written with Eric Darnell) and BARBIE (2023, co-written with Greta Gerwig). He is the rare filmmaker who successfully embraces the spectrum of cinematic creativity. His vision is liberated from the dogmatic fads of the era, and that has allowed him to flourish. Baumbach’s hugely successful collaborations with Greta Gerwig (on script and on-screen) as well as his
consistent, devoted attention to the women in his scripts and films serve as a welcome counterpart to the “broteur” movies that proliferated in turn-of-the-century cinema. Some of the thornier areas of investigation in his work—the examination of failure, the endless complexities of family and the creative process, the treacherous journeys of self-discovery—are always addressed with a deep, often humorous humanity. This is why we regularly find ourselves smiling during his films, finding the heart in the sometimes-anguished narrative."
"Perhaps the real reason we return to Baumbach, and look forward to new films like JAY KELLY (2025), is because we know that he brings a vulnerability and authenticity to his work that a lesser artist would work to hide. Roger Greenberg, Frances Halladay and Harold Meyerowitz are all title characters in the cinematic lives Baumbach created for them (in GREENBERG (2010), FRANCES HA (2012) and THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (2017), respectively), but they are also deeply human, lived-in portraits of flawed people navigating a world we recognize. Our empathy for these characters, our ability to fall in love with them, is a direct result of a writer-director who loved them first."
–Rajendra Roy (TFF 2025)
This program includes a selection of clips, an on-stage interview and a screening of Jay Kelly in its entirety.
Moderated by Rebecca Keighan,
Visited at Chuck Jones's Cinema, Telluride, 31 Aug 2025.
THE CLIPREEL:
Kicking and Screaming
The Squid and the Whale
Margot at the Wedding
Greenberg
Frances Ha
While We're Young
Mistress America
The Meyerowitz Stories
Marriage Story
White Noise
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