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After weeks of high-budget lurid pink publicity, it’s easy to forget that Barbie director Greta Gerwig is the indie writer and producer behind Frances Ha, Little Women and Lady Bird. Now, Gerwig has revealed the films that inspired the candy coloured sensation. One of the most prominent influences is The Wizard of Oz, the 1939 Judy Garland classic which a US Library of Congress exhibition described as “America's greatest and best-loved home-grown fairytale”. Gerwig said during her interview with Letterboxd it is an “extraordinary, beloved” movie. “It does something which I wanted to emulate which is these incredible sound stages and these painted skies, and this sense of authentically artificial, which I think is very beautiful and emotional. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “In our movie we have the pink brick road instead of the yellow brick road … and we executed it like they would have done in the 30s and 40s.” However, another important influence is a less obvious one: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a 1964 musical romantic drama film written and directed by French movie icon Jacques Demy. Greta Gerwig’s Official Barbie Watchlist www.youtube.com The film centres around two young lovers in the French city of Cherbourg, separated by war. It is entirely sung-through, similar to a musical or an opera. Gerwig said she “loved the use of colour” in the film. “The surrealness of the colour was a big part of it”, she added, saying that Barbie’s use of “five different shades of pink or red in one shot and not have it overwhelm anything” was influenced by the film. Other films on the list of influences include Saturday Night Fever, The Truman Show and The Godfather (yep, you read that right). Of Saturday Night Fever, she said: “I always had a sense of wanting this to be a movie with an amazing soundtrack. “Saturday Night Fever obviously has this incredible soundtrack by The Bee Gees. I had watched a documentary about them and was so touched by The Bee Gees and Barbie seemed so disco to me. Actually in her heart. Because Barbie and disco are a little bit dorky, in the best way. “It had that quality and Saturday Night Fever was a kind of movie that was driven by music but was not a musical.” The whole list is as follows: The Wizard of Oz The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Saturday Night Fever The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart The Godfather Grease 2001: A Space Odyssey The Truman Show The Young Girls of Rochefort Oklahoma! Model Shop An American in Paris Singin' in the Rain The Red Shoes A Matter of Life and Death All That Jazz Heaven Can Wait Women on the Verge of a Nervous BreakDown His Girl Friday The Philadelphia Story Gold Diggers of 1935 Twentieth Century The Ladies Man Rear Window And the Ship Sails On Wings of Desire The Earrings of Madame de… Close Encounters of the Third Kind Modern Times Pee-wee’s Big Adventure Mon Oncle PlayTime Splash Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Margot Robbie has recalled the time she faked her own death because she didn't like her babysitter. The Barbie star opened up about the hilarious event to Zoe Ball on BBC Radio 2, which saw her cover herself in tomato ketchup and lie on the kitchen ground with a knife. The nanny's reaction made it worthwhile for Robbie, who ran out of the house screaming. "We got a new babysitter," the actress told Ball. "And I wanted my old babysitter back, Talia, who was like sixteen and I thought she was so cool." Robbie added: "And then we got this much older lady in and I was just not happy about it." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The final straw for Robbie was when her new nanny asked her to take a bath. "She told me to go have a bath and I didn’t want to, and she was very cranky and I thought, 'I’m going to show you,'" she joked. "And so I got a big kitchen knife and the ketchup and I lay sprawled out naked on the tiles, covered myself in ketchup and put the kitchen knife. "And I waited for like 45 minutes for her to find me. But, it was worth the wait." Ryan Gosling, who plays Ken in the hotly anticipated film, chimed in and said, "you produced your own death," to which Robbie admitted she had. Robbie went on to share another incident to prove she was a "dramatic child". "I also once practised like a pratfall on the cinema stairs at the shopping centre where I’m from," she told the BBC. "People started calling an ambulance so, I guess I was a bit of a dramatic child." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Margot Robbie has confessed to a cruel prank she pulled on a babysitter as a child, which resulted in her faking her own death. The Barbie star admitted being disgruntled about the prospect of getting a new babysitter, and decided to get her own back. "I wanted my old babysitter back, Talia, who was like sixteen and I thought she was so cool", she told the BBC. She then admits: "I got a big kitchen knife and the ketchup and I lay sprawled out naked on the tiles, covered myself in ketchup and put the kitchen knife there." The babysitter reportedly ran out of the house screaming. We don't blame her. Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

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Andrew Tate's house arrest has been extended, so he's passing the time by posting videos of himself riding his Bugatti...scooter that is. The disgraced influencer uploaded the clip to Twitter, of him riding around the house on his electric scooter, joined by a number of people along the way, all riding the same one. It comes after he confessed to buying 10 'Bugatti scooters' after his Bugatti cars were seized in a raid by Romanian police. Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

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