Noah Baumbach Talks LCD Soundsystem’s Influence On ‘Greenberg,’ Greta Gerwig Jokingly Jabs At Mumblecore

We know James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem fame is scoring Noah Baumbach’s “Greenberg” but how did this collaboration come together?

Baumbach recently took to a Berlin press conference to discuss the events surrounding their unlikely union. The director revealed that he was inspired by Murphy upon hearing the LCD Soundsystem track “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down,” a track whose titular sentiments were shared by Baumbach himself and the protagonist of “Greenberg.”

“[It’s] a song about aging, about feeling like you are losing your edge,” Baumbach noted, adding that the track “became another voice for [him] in the movie.” He took the opportunity to bring Murphy on board to write the score for “Greenberg” which he couldn’t be more pleased about admitting “this is the first time where I made a movie that I feel the score is a real part of the movie.”

The film centers on a directionless forty-year-old recovering from a nervous breakdown who heads out to Los Angeles to spend a few weeks in his successful brother’s hillside home while the family is away on vacation. There the protagonist, played by Ben Stiller, quickly connects with his sibling’s young, overly accommodating personal assistant, played by Greta Gerwig.

“Greenberg” also marks the progressive rise of Gerwig from the independent mumblecore scene into the female lead of a film by the Oscar-nominated Baumbach.

“There are elements of a love story there,” she says of the story. “But for me it was a very well told story about two people who are just going through their lives. If I wasn’t in this movie, I would go and see it and all my friends would see it and then we’d talk about it a lot. Noah chooses his words so carefully, every scene reads like a short story or a play.”

“I wanted it so badly, I was scared. I just feel great that now I am in real movies,” Gerwig jokingly jabbed, intentional or not, at mumblecore before throwing in that it was “not that the other ones weren’t.”

I’m sure the Duplass Brothers would love hearing that. “Greenberg” hits theaters March 26th.

LCD Soundsystem – “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down”