New York Film Festival: Todd Haynes may be one of the most renowned, under-appreciated filmmakers in the United States today, at least as far as arthouse and mainstream audiences and viewpoints go. As the director of “Safe,” which essentially launched Julianne Moore’s career, “Velvet Goldmine,” which looked at glam rock and sexual identity, the repressed Douglas Sirk-ian sexual desire of the 1950s-set, “Far From Heaven,” and the kaleidoscopic Bob Dylan anti-biopic, “I’m Not There,” and many more, Haynes is a huge figure in cinema despite only having eight features under his belt in nearly four decades. And his films are routinely accepted in the global Olympics of film festivals like Cannes.
READ MORE: Spend Over 1 Hour In Conversation With Todd Haynes
Haynes may be a filmmaker by trade, but he studied semiotics in university, and so it not only makes him an incredibly thoughtful conversationalist, but also a keen observer of human behavior and desire, who can find deep significance in some of the most minute and subconscious gestures. This affinity for nuance comes to the fore in his latest film, “Carol,” a masterful, gorgeous, and intimate love story about two women, Therese, played by Rooney Mara and Carol, played by Cate Blanchett. Haynes often uses female protagonists and looks at identity, often sexual, through the lens of culture. “Carol” is set in 1957 and though it shares some of the Eisenhower ‘50s era sensibilities of his earlier film, “Far From Heaven,” which also looked at sexual identity and repression, it’s ultimately a completely different movie in its aims and concerns.
Adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s novel, “The Price Of Salt,” “Carol” is really just a beautiful and classical love story, but one that plays with the very perceptible notions of desire, longing, power, and scary vulnerabilities as it applies to falling in love. It’s an impeccably crafted movie and a deeply-felt one too; perhaps no movie this year (or this decade for that matter) charts the nervous, exciting, and near imperceptible palpitation of the fluttering heart with such lie-detector specificity and precision like “Carol.”
As the film screened at the New York Film Festival this week, Haynes was joined by NYFF Director of Programming Kent Jones for an absorbing chat about “Carol,” Haynes’ career, his explorations of identity, desire, the radicalness of glam rock, Dylan, and the recent death of cinematic innovator and Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. It was a fascinating talk, especially for fans of the insightful Haynes. Here’s many highlights and if you like, you can listen to the entire conversation at the end of page two. “Carol” opens in limited release on November 20 and the auteur will be back for a terrific all-encompassing Todd Haynes retrospective that runs from November 12-29 at the Film Society Of Lincoln Center In New York.
[iw-blockquote]’I haven’t really approached [a love story] as a discipline as a filmmaker and I always want to give myself some kind of assignment.”[/iw-blockquote]
The Influence Of David Lean’s “Brief Encounter” & The Idea of Giving Himself The Assignment Of A Love Story
“I did look at a lot of films for ‘Carol’ and I started as I often do by looking at films from that era, but very quickly I realized that that wasn’t very relevant to this and I wasn’t interested in repeating the Sirk-ian, studio system kind of filter [from “Far From Heaven”] on the style of this film. One of the very first films I thought of when I read the adaptation and the first draft of the script was “Brief Encounter” and I started thinking of great love on film and I thought, ‘ok, wow, this is something that I haven’t really approached it as a discipline as a filmmaker,’ and I always want to give myself some kind of assignment, something I feel like I can learn from each time.”
Point Of View Is Key To The Love Story Of “Carol” Though It Changes From The Novel
“It all started to make sense, because the nove,l ‘The Price Of Salt,’ is entirely rooted in the point of view of Therese, the character Rooney Mara plays in the film, and like most Patricia Highsmith novels, they’re all locked all inside a single mental state and this was no different. And I drew very interesting parallels to that tendency of hers. But it just made me thing of point of view, because as soon as I read the first draft of Phyllis [Nagy’s] script, it opened [the point of view] up and we all of a sudden had access to Carol freely that we didn’t have in the book.”
“The best love stories on film are rooted in the point of view of the more woundable, more vulnerable, more amorous party.”
Vulnerable Woundable Parties
“I just wanted to really very conscious of how we enter Carol’s world initially, what that means, but trying to structure the whole film around point of view. And the best love stories on film are rooted in the point of view of the more woundable, more vulnerable, more amorous party. In this case it’s mostly Therese through the story, but what’s so interesting about the [screenplay], that isn’t reflected in the subjectivity of the novel is that that changes over the course of [the movie]. For people that know ‘Brief Encounter,’ it begins in that refreshment stand in the train station and you’re introduced to secondary characters in the story and in the background you see two people having a conversation. And you’re like that’s Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard and you you’re like, ‘Oh, they look like extras in their own film.’ And then a loudmouth gossip friend [shouts] ‘Laura!’ and interrupts and you realize an important conversation has been interrupted.”
The Perils Of Falling In Love & Stealing Directly From David Lean
“What’s so interesting about [the opening of ‘Brief Encounter’] is immediately you’re questioning who’s story is this? And you get deeper her story, her point of view, her narration that she conveys to her husband and her brief encounter which is ending that day is retold in real time. And so i thought, oh wow, that’s such a beautifully structuring device because you then travel through the entirety of the narrative to explain what that conversation was about, what we missed and you replay it at the end of the film and the importance of it and what that interruption meant.”
“We want everyone to look like patrician, Hollywood backlot extras like robots. Nothing remotely connected to the real Hartford in 1957.”
“But in ‘Carol’ at the end… I lifted that right out of ‘Brief Encounter,’ by the time we come back to the hotel scene in ‘Carol,’ they’ve shifted their statuses in the relationship and Therese who was this young, vulnerable subject very much in formation before our eyes, who fell in Carol and was hurt and developed defenses, protections, limits, and has changed the way she looks and has grown up. And all of a sudden Carol has sacrificed a lot in her life, reevaluating the meaning and value of this very special girl that she met and is now coming back.”
“But it was about shifting points of view and aligning yourself with the person who is more in peril in love. Love relationships do shift and we only remember the times when we’re in peril. So it was really about love stories that were rooted in one of the subjects’ sides that I looked at a lot and gleaned from a lot.”