Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum attracts ‘Little Women’ with Meryl Streep
When the most American of landscape designers, Frederick Law Olmsted, drew his plans for Arnold Arboretum, he couldn’t have imagined it would double as a Paris park in a film version of an acclaimed literary work of his time. But on Wednesday, Columbia Pictures used a portion of the Arboretum to film a scene for its take on Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 “Little Women.” “Where else could you possibly film anywhere in the country that would have the feeling of a 19th century European park?” asked Arboretum Director William (Ned) Friedman, the Arnold Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. “When you look at the environment here you are transported in time. Olmsted created these landscapes for the ages.” “Where else could you possibly film anywhere in the country that would have the feeling of a 19th century European park?” — William (Ned) Friedman, director of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University ...