‘White Noise’ director Noah Baumbach doesn’t like to think about death

Noah Baumbach, the director of ‘White Noise’, doesn’t like to think too much about death, despite the central subject of his most recent film being impending death.

“I try not to think about it as much as anyone else does,” he tells Friday exclusively at the 60th New York Film Festival Opening Night.

The 53-year-old New York native was on hand to present his most recent film “White Noise,” which is based on Don DeLillo’s acclaimed novel.

Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig.
Baumbach tells us that accepting death could mean living life to the fullest.
Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock

Adam Driver plays a college professor whose comfortable suburban life is turned upside down when a nearby chemical leak causes ‘The Airborne Toxic Event’, forcing him and his family to flee.

“I really feel like something that I took out of the book and out of the movie is that in some ways, accepting death might be a fuller life,” he says. “So I saw the structure of the film as these people getting closer to death but also starting to open up to the concept of a more open life.”

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Baumbach directed and co-wrote the screenplay for ‘White Noise’.

©Netflix/Courtesy of Everett Colle

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Baumbach directed and co-wrote the screenplay for ‘White Noise’.

©Netflix/Courtesy of Everett Colle

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However, unlike the characters in the film, the director of “Marriage Story” admits that he hasn’t quite mastered that same idea in his life yet.

“I can say that intellectually for sure,” he confesses. “Emotionally I am always frustrated with what I can do. The movies are always smarter than you… I’m a smart kid, but I can be wiser in a movie than in life.”

Jodie Turner Smith.
Jodie Turner-Smith caught the eye on the red carpet at the film’s New York premiere.
Patrick McMullan via Getty Image

Also at the premiere were the stars of the film, Greta Gerwig – who is Baumbach’s real-life partner and frequent collaborator – Adam Driver, who reluctantly posed for photographers, Don Cheadle and Jodie Turner-Smith.

Photographers were disappointed when the reunited couple Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor skipped the red carpet.

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