Noah Baumbach (2:31)

No, because we got less money for that because the idea was it was cab money, and we would then all just take the subway or walk, and then we would pocket the rest as sort of a Tip.

David Remnick (2:41)

Well, I think this is especially editing and writing. It's something you can really. You really can learn a fair amount by osmosis. You know, just being around these people and listening to the editorial conversations and that. That sounds like a great gig for a college kid. When I first heard that your grandfather Harold Baumbach was an artist, like the character Dustin Hoffman plays in the Meyerowitz stories, I looked him up online, and there's a Times obit of your grandfather that uses a very striking phrase, says that Baumbach was allergic to success, which it's such an amazing thing to have in an obit. And it occurred to me, wow, that could have been a great alternate title to Noah's movie, because everybody in the movie is struggling with this idea of what it is to be successful. Obviously, Harold Marwitz doesn't think he's been successful enough. And his two sons, one played by Adam Sandler, is not conventionally successful, but he views himself as a successful parent. And his half brother, Ben Stiller, is successful at making money, but doesn't seem to be successful at any kind of human relationships.

Danny Meyerowitz (3:59)

I'm not splitting the time like I did at 15.

Matthew Meyerowitz (4:01)

It was very important to me after our separation that I see you half the time. I wanted to make it up after.

Noah Baumbach (4:06)

Danny and Jean and make it up to them.

Matthew Meyerowitz (4:08)

I made a real effort with you, Danny and Jean. I could have done better, but I don't see anything significant. I could have done better with you.

Danny Meyerowitz (4:14)

Really? Nothing?

Matthew Meyerowitz (4:15)

Oh, come on, Matthew.

Danny Meyerowitz (4:16)

You feel like that all was great? Danny definitely got shit and Gene didn't even get shit. But I got your focus, and that fucked me up in a whole other way.

Matthew Meyerowitz (4:25)

Matthew, we never see each other. Let's not fight.

Danny Meyerowitz (4:27)

I keep thinking I know how to handle you now, but then I see you and I get suckered into your shit all over again. Your career, your jacket. And then when I try to actually help, like today, you won't listen.

Matthew Meyerowitz (4:36)

I don't see how I could be such a bad father. Look how successful you are, right? I could never be the businessman that you are. Okay, I've said to Marina, I don't know who Matthew takes after. I certainly didn't know how to make money.

Danny Meyerowitz (4:47)

That's right. I don't take after you. None of us do.

David Remnick (4:49)

You.

Danny Meyerowitz (4:49)

You had to be the only artist in the family. And it doesn't matter that I make money because you don't respect what I do.

Matthew Meyerowitz (4:54)

What do you mean? My respect for the world respects you because you make money.

Noah Baumbach (4:57)

Ugh.

Danny Meyerowitz (4:58)

I Want to punch you in the nose.

Matthew Meyerowitz (4:59)

I know you think you can treat me this way because of your money.

David Remnick (5:02)

I mean, talk about success and what you're trying to say about it in this movie.

Noah Baumbach (5:08)

Well, it's interesting actually to think about allergic to success. And I'm not sure who came up with that phrase, but allergies are by definition. It means it's out of your control, I guess, in some ways. And I would. Maybe it almost takes away the responsibility from him, you know, as if he was cursed in some way, as opposed to somebody who was more self destructive. But I think in some ways that goes into Dustin's character in the movie. I think is feels in some ways that there is some. You know, whether it's the culture's against him or it's the wrong moment or, you know, the critics or whatever it is at any given moment that's not going his way is keeping him down as opposed to, you know, figuring out what his role in all of this is. But the movie itself, I think I felt was. Was sort of about how we. Ways that we define success, you know, and ways families kind of set the bar in a way, you know, either implicitly or explicitly, and leave it to us to sort of measure ourselves by these standards. And, you know, as you say in the movie, being a good parent isn't really valued by Harold, by Dustin's character. Making money's not even really valued. And it's really. It's all put on art.

David Remnick (6:41)

Right, Right. And none of his kids feel that there's any room for them to be artists.

Noah Baumbach (6:47)

It's something that only he can win at. You know, he can win in the family if he feels like he's losing in the algorithm.

David Remnick (6:54)

Right. So even though he professes in the movie to be disappointed that none of his children are artists, there's really no way he could have ever allowed them to be right. Now, the title of the movie is the Meyerowitz Stories, New and Selected. And obviously you're playing with the idea of a short story collection here, but as I watched it, I kept thinking the movie also shows that each character has a story that he insistently tells himself over and over, almost to survive as consolation. Were you thinking about that as you put the movie together?

Noah Baumbach (7:32)

Yeah. How these stories are both. They become, in the case of Harold, they're soothing. He goes to, you know, lj, his contemporary, who's got a. Who's very successful and has a retrospective at MoMA. And afterward he has to put LJ down and he kind of Goes through this whole thing of what's wrong with the work and why it's popular but not really interesting, you know, and, and I, and I always saw those things. I. That was my direction to Dustin, in a lot of cases was you're soothing yourself. You're you. You're going into a kind of rhythm. Yeah. Rhythmic loop. That, that is very available to you. You know, you have the words for it.

Matthew Meyerowitz (8:17)

Ultimately, LJ is a popular but minor artist. There's a superficial bravora, but there's no unconscious, no discovery. I know you like the bears, but it's the reshuffling of obnoxious cliches like listening to music played. I didn't get to see it. And the video work is embarrassing. I've never forgiven LJ for using Loretta in those pieces. You don't do that to a child. And it's a disturbing commentary on the culture. That truly ordinary work made mostly by his assistance gets reverent reviews from the critics who ought to know better. He's a talented, pretentious enigma. Let me see if there's a can.

Noah Baumbach (8:58)

It's also something I'd wanted to do in a movie for a long time and I've tried it and never found the right context for it, which is to repeat stories, have people tell the same story over again and actually have to like sit through it again or tell the same joke again as well. And this became a great way to do it because it's what we all do in families anyway. Every year you gather around, somebody's telling the same story again and you know, you're both like telling the history of the family. And it kind of can bring people together, but it also can become total obfuscation and changing the narrative.

David Remnick (9:34)

Yeah, it's interesting in the movie how a lot of these stories that we hear characters repeat over and over again, they're actually wrong, you know, and this is the character's attempt to rewrite history so that in some cases so they don't feel so guilty. But there's these wonderful repeated bits, which is something we all know from our own loved ones. You know, hearing the same joke. It's what gives these characters such a lived in kind of feeling. I think another thing about these characters and their stories is, well, all of your movies are, I think of as being full of fast paced dialogue. But what is new in this one is the way characters talk over each other and past each other. None of them are actually connecting. It almost seems like some kind of dissonant jazz where the melodies Never intersect. And again, that's so realistic. And yet I can't think of another movie where the dialogue works that way. Can you. Were you inspired by.

Noah Baumbach (10:40)

Well, I mean, maybe something like His Girl Friday, in a way is maybe like the closest thing. Yeah. Another one of my directions is faster because I do find that the writing or my writing works better faster. I noticed that when I was. Remember starting out and like, sometimes you do like a speed through, like where you're, you know, let's just say it as, you know, let's speed through it as fast as we can or something. Just. And I always felt like, oh, that should be the movie is the speed through, not the. Not when we're actually acting it. We should do the speed through. And so I've kind of design them more that way, I guess, as I've gone. And, you know, a lot of the. If you read the scripts, it's a lot of overlapping dialogue. And it's sort of like what you say is actually. Cause you were saying it's sort of like jazz, but also very realistic. But somehow when we do it, if we do it right, it simulates reality, but it's. To get there is completely artificial.

David Remnick (11:45)

Well, you're known as a director who expects his actors to read every line in the script verbatim. And I'm thinking about your cast here. Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, all people who are known for improvising. Was that a challenge to get them to stick to what was on the page?

Noah Baumbach (12:04)

Not in this case. They were all up for what this was, you know. And Ben, of course, had worked with me before, so he knew. But the problem is if people start adding things, even if they start adding ums and you knows, or things that are, you know, might. Might on the face of it, make it sound more natural for them. It just sounds wrong to me. It throws the whole thing off. It's a rhythm. Yeah, it does. And so it's not out of any kind of, you know, stubbornness or this feeling that I feel like, oh, well, what I've done is better than. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's more like this is the way I know how to do it.

David Remnick (12:45)

No, I read one critic who said was commenting how fantastic Adam Sandler can be when he's not acting in an Adam Sandler movie. I mean, Sandler's incredible. I hope he's nominated for an Oscar for my root stories. But your influence as a director is obviously really. I mean, you can see it. He gives a very different kind of performance than he does in his other comedy movies. How do you account for that or what's your technique with someone like that?

Noah Baumbach (13:17)

Well, it was really, you know, it's all there. He's an extremely warm, sensitive person. And I would say the only, like, hurdle we had in rehearsals was me giving him permission in some ways to be funny, to be himself. I think, like, when we first started, he was reading was very good, but it was more tragic. Yeah, it felt a little like also. It also felt like he was holding back in some way because I think he was trying not to. You know, he didn't want to mess it up. I think he felt a kind of responsibility. He didn't want it to be, you know, maybe in his head, like an Adam Sandler character. But my feeling was it should have a relationship to that guy, you know?

David Remnick (14:05)

Right. In the Myroot stories, the character of Eliza, the college age daughter of Adam Sandler's character, is a college aged filmmaker. And it seems to me that she's the only character in the movie who doesn't seem ashamed. She does her work wholeheartedly, without conflict, and she's. It's almost a redemption, I think of the whole Meyerowitz line of everybody being so tormented.

Eliza Meyerowitz (14:32)

Slap, slap, slap. Sloth boing.

Jean Meyerowitz (14:38)

Gene, that's you with the rabbit.

Gene Meyerowitz (14:39)

You're gonna miss it.

Eliza Meyerowitz (14:40)

Kiss, slap. Something changed inside me that day. The end.

Jean Meyerowitz (14:49)

Jean, you were so good.

Eliza Meyerowitz (14:51)

She's got real chops.

David Remnick (14:52)

I was well edited.

Jean Meyerowitz (14:53)

That's wonderful, honey. I don't know that I've seen a sex scene shot quite like that before.

Eliza Meyerowitz (14:59)

I used deliberately, very harsh, direct light. I want it to appear very unattractive.

Jean Meyerowitz (15:04)

Wonderful mise en scene.

Gene Meyerowitz (15:06)

For my Jeopardy. Parody I did at my office, we just had to use the overhead fluorescents.

Jean Meyerowitz (15:11)

Yours had wonderful mise en scene as well, Jean.

Gene Meyerowitz (15:14)

Thanks.

Jean Meyerowitz (15:15)

And this is your best yet, Eliza.

Eliza Meyerowitz (15:17)

Thanks, dad. I've made eight more since then.

Gene Meyerowitz (15:19)

I'm in five of them.

David Remnick (15:21)

And she's also the only person in the movie who was really taken care of. Do you view her as this redemptive look into the future?

Noah Baumbach (15:32)

Yeah. And a result of Danny's true success as a parent, that he was the buffer between all this stuff, you know, all the sort of legacy of his father and, you know, whatever pain it's caused him, he didn't pass it on to her. And. And yeah, and I thought just that. That she's unashamed and that, you know, art making is not complicated for her. She's just doing it, you know, she's doing it and she's gonna keep doing it. And it's not, you know, with a goal in mind or, you know, she's not. It's just not. She's not hampered by all this other Meyerowitz stuff.

David Remnick (16:27)

Now, you shot this movie on film, but the movie's being distributed by Netflix. I saw it on the big screen. I urge all of everyone at home to see it on the big screen. But do you have any anxiety or misgivings about the idea that a lot of people are going to watch it on a small screen or on a computer?

Noah Baumbach (16:45)

Well, I feel the same way. I mean, I think, you know, I made the movie independently, and I wouldn't know how to not make it for a big screen. I mean, I think that's so much of. So much of what, you know, why I make movies in a way, too. You know, I just think it's such a singular, unique, important experience seeing a movie in a theater. I do. I think. And there's something about having an emotional experience with other people. Yeah. Communal experience in a big, dark room. And that, you know, you're vulnerable in a different way than you are sitting at home with your feet up and, you know, pausing it to go, you know, pour another glass of wine or whatever.

David Remnick (17:27)

Having your phone buzz.

Noah Baumbach (17:28)

Yeah.

David Remnick (17:28)

I just realized that as we've been analyzing all of the details of this family dynamic and the, you know, Tolstoy's unhappy families, that we're making it sound incredibly grim. This is actually one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long, long time. So I just want to make sure that gets across.

David Remnick (17:50)

Writer and director Noah Baumbach talking with New Yorker editor Susan Morrison. Baumbach's movie the Meyerowitz Stories, New and Selected, is out now on Netflix and in theaters. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Thanks for joining us. I'm David Remnick, and here's Erika Jom.

Erika Jong (18:25)

We're sitting on Central Park west and 78th street, and we're right near the Museum of Natural History. And we came here because I grew up right in this area. I grew up in a building facing the Museum of Natural History. And in some ways it was the same, but in many ways, it was different.

David Remnick (18:47)

Zhang is the author of a dozen books of fiction, plus works of nonfiction and of poetry, but none's more famous than her debut from 1973, Fear of Flying, a story about a woman coming to terms with her zipless sexuality. And it was quite controversial at the time. The book reflects Zhang's own life and her upbringing and identity as a native of New York City.

Erika Jong (19:19)

You always see tourists coming out of buses and going to the museum, sort of with stars in their eyes. And I try to figure out where they're from. And you can sometimes tell, but often you can't. Very rarely do you see anyone wearing a sari or a kimono. Everybody is homogenized. That's sort of disappointing in a way. My grandfather, because he was a painter and worked at home, and we all lived together in one of these studio buildings with north light on the other side of the museum. My grandfather often used to take me into the museum on the 77th street side. And there was a hollowed wood canoe, and the light was kept very low in the museum. And I would look up at the canoe with the shadowy figures and become terrified. And Papa said, don't be scared. But the figures, you couldn't see their faces. I know how important grandparents can be. They have more time for you than your parents. They have time to sort of wander with you and go to museums and travel with you. They gave me so many things that became part of my understanding of life. The Museum of Natural History was also very magic to me because I knew that in one of the turrets, Margaret Mead worked. She had her office here. And I always used to see Margaret Mead walking along Central park west carrying a staff that had been given to her by some group she studied. She really understood what it meant to be a woman who wanted children, but also wanted to make her work primary. And in one of her memoirs, I think it was BlackBerry Winter, she said, I went to the library and I looked up all the women I admired. And she said, and I noticed that each of them had one child. And I decided I could do that. And when I got pregnant with Molly, my daughter, I thought, if Margaret Mead could do it and go on with her work, so can I. This is too funny. Little kids like three and four, pushing each other in a stroller. Fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. Okay. This has always been a neighborhood for kids. We used to call it the Planetarium Park. God knows what the real name is. It surrounds the planetarium. There's plenty of greenery for kids to run around on. And maybe that's the good thing about this neighborhood, that there's so many places for children to Play. We're on 77th Street, West 77th street, which is the street where I grew up. The building I grew up in had been built at the turn of the 20th century as a building for artists. My grandfather painted portraits and movie posters for MGM and I painted by his side. As a little girl, I was supremely confident. And I think my confidence came from the fact that I was adored by my grandfather and my father. I never come here without thinking of myself as a child. But perhaps the best part of it was when my three grandchildren from Mali, my daughter Molly Jong Faz, were little, I brought them to the museum all the time. The great thing about being a grandparent is you see your childhood reimagined through the eyes of your grandchildren. I mean, they teach you about the world and you teach them about the world. It's the great reward for getting older, really. Look at these marvelous hydrangeas. They're in the museum park. They're the.

David Remnick (24:11)

Ah.

Erika Jong (24:13)

So it's called Margaret Mead Green. I thought it was called the Planetarium park, but it's been renamed Margaret Mead Green. Good for her.

David Remnick (24:29)

The novelist and poet Erika Jeong In Manhattan, I'm David Remnick. Thank you for joining me this week. I hope you enjoyed the show. And next week, Bruce Springsteen joins us. Have a great Thanksgiving.

Narrator (24:48)

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards with additional music by Alexis Cuadrado. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Turina Endowment Fund.