Starting off in very experimental features Todd Haynes has always made a filmic habit to focus on the unsung on  film. Whether they be those literally oppressed in society, or the deeper levels of those grand extroverts we all love, or even at times the little voices forced to silence by the business monsters of the world. However my title too eliminates so many other wonderful films of Haynes oeuvre, primarily his first major work, 1995’s Safe.

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Safe (1995)

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When it comes to the completely paralysing and life altering nature of the context of the current pandemic, one can be easily scared off by returning to Todd Hayne’s first major work Safe, written and directed by Haynes. Wes Craven upon release called it “the scariest film of the year”, I can only imagine what the horror master would feel if it were released today. In actuality I can only imagine what everybody involved would think of the film in the context of today. I got a genuine shiver down my spine when Julianne Moore first walked onto the screen wearing a face mask. With this little pre-amble however, I would like to return to the film to its already period based setting and original context, with Haynes purposefully shifting the setting of the film from the release time of 1995 to the previous decade, sometime in the mid 80’s. An unmistakable choice to place the suffering of our lead Carol in the context of the fear and paranoia that surrounded the deeply tragic AIDS pandemic. In the case of Safe our lead Carol is a privileged and previously unaffected housewife who is suddenly overcome by a terrifying and scarily unknowable disease that seemingly is making her allergic to her environments, specifically the chemicals and pollutions that have only grown more and more rampant since the early 1900’s. Hayne’s tale plays as a tragedy and whereas some could see Carol as a symbol of white upper class privilege, and that her disease is simply the natural tragedy of anyone of her ilk who uses and abuses so many products and the like. However I really do find that the film works best with Carol as an innocent. Although her privilege does lead naturally to a greater fall from grace, leading to the overall arc of her character to be all the more devastating, the film works best for me when we see Carol as a completely random person totally devastated by the climate changes around her (that she most likely was oblivious to prior to them wholly eroding her life). Moore is of course sensational and brings a painfully haunting fragility to the Carol that we first meet, that makes the rest of the film nothing short of a pure horror as we feel the tension of knowing within ourselves just to what extent this disease, whether it be genuine or perhaps even psycho-somatic, continues to erode this poor woman. A pure modern tragedy that frankly set both Moore and Haynes on their way to two incredible careers.

Velvet Goldmine (1998)

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This psychedelic genre and decade spanning glam-rock gay fantasia is the sort of thing that takes a couple of watches to really get into the knucks and crannies off. The film takes much of it’s dialogue from the writings of Oscar Wilde and even opens positing that the writer was an alien dropped from the stars to bring pop idolatry to the masses sometime in the future. The film eventually becomes a tale mostly inspired in its framing and structure by Citizen Kane, even with some very funny and clearly knowing winks to the imagery of the iconic feature its aping.  The film is frankly rather messy in the best possible way, it’s many characters, musical montages and mosaic/collage-esque editing clashes of the three chief storylines is enough to make one’s head spin. On a first watch of course there is plenty to grasp onto, beyond the larger scope of the piece that comes to reer its head in ones mind after multiple viewings. The music and overall direction and look of the thing from Haynes is a piece of wonder, we are immediately transported to a mythic glam rock world that strikes a fine balance frequently between the brutal realism of the true time and the fantastical over-indulgence and performance of the idea of the thing. The other chief factor immeditaly graspable is that of the array of stellar performances, ranging from our chief male triptych to the sublime supporting cast beyond them. That chief male triptych consists of Jonathon Rhys Meyers, as a rock god Brian Slade of a more Bowie-esque style, Ewan McGregor, as a desperately anarchic Iggy Pop style performer, and Christian Bale, as a Meyers obsessed ex-glam rock kid and present day reporter. Toni Collette, Eddie Izzard and Michael Feast all deliver sideline performances all largely in awe of the power of Meyers and McGregor – and they really are something to marvel at. Haynes in his script plays fast and loose with the facts and myths of many glam-rock figures of the time, but mainly David Bowie, who famously decided against allowing his music to be used in the film for a myriad of reasons. The film really is of course a lot more than a cheap “replace name” job on a Bowie biopic script, with its focus on myth and legend, aswell of course it’s interweaving narratives and figures surrounding the ‘Bowie’ figure, rather than the film consisting solely of that regular bland biopic formula. The film overall is a seriously heady trip that blows a viewer away the first time one watches it, one could even go as far as to say it’s intangible, but the feel and mood it sets sticks with a viewer and seriously effects them during and after watching the film. A marvelously sensorial motion picture.

Far From Heaven (2002)

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I think for me the key difference between Haynes work before the 2010’s and his work during that decade is a key usage of pretence. Safe is a different matter perhaps, although it does still incorporate an element of period setting (which of course all of the films of the 2010’s do too, which makes this whole point entirely redundant). However a key double bill for me in Haynes catalogue and frankly my two favourite films of his would be that of Carol and Far From Heaven, both explore forbidden love stories in the 50’s, aswell as attitudes surrounding homosexuals during the time, however there is one key difference (beyond plot mechanics and character focus), that of the fact that Carol is presented with an absolute focus on a touching realism and a grain in the film quality to add to the texture and tangibility of the piece. Whereas Haynes chooses to tell the tale of Far From Heaven via the styling of a Douglas Sirk melodrama released during the 50’s, whether it be in the sets or in the extreme lengths regarding lighting and lens that cinematographer Edward Lachman went to in shooting the film. Julianne Moore works with Haynes once more as Cathy Whitacker, in a role written specifically by Haynes for Moore, as a housewife who in rather quick succession discovers her husband of many years is a closeted gay man (played with a stunning power by Dennis Quaid), before becoming close friends (with even later the possibility of love) with her new black gardener. The great strength of Haynes choices with the film is that beyond the visual literacy of the film nobody leans into the melodrama styling of the thing, the performances are wholly naturalistic and all the pretence comes from the forced social pretences of the time. Moore exhibits this stoic power to a tee and as we see her give in to her desire and her own genuine emotions we can only feel the deepest pain for her. Dennis Haybert as the gardener Raymond similarly exhibits a kindness and power that naturally lures in Cathy’s character, there is just something so simple about the man, he is without a harsh bone in his body, but even he cannot give in to his own emotions due to both a care and devotion to his daughter aswell as the tortured societal issues of the time. As wonderful as Moore and Haybert are however and this is still for the majority their film, not enough good things can be said for Quaid’s tragic performances here as a man completely devoured by his own love and desire in a time that simply would never allow it. It’s a beautifully tortured portrait. That is the masterstroke of the entire piece as a matter of fact, this film can use profanity and can be more vulgar and more explicit when it chooses to be, allowing for the Sirk pretence to be all the more impactful and effecting. All in all when it comes down to it Far From Heaven may very well be Haynes best film, it’s certainly one of my favourites.

I’m Not There (2007)

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This transcendental, elliptical piece of majestic work is an oddity in all forms, especially in that of the Biopic. Soon we will reportedly receive a more straight forward biopic of Bob Dylan with Timothee Chalamet, directed by James Mangold, however I would always prefer my Dylan to be obtuse, rather than acute. I’m Not There tells the many tales of Dylan in a mythic sense, choosing to instead never once utter the man’s name and rather show us the many facets of an individual primarily through six different strands or short stories, each somewhat resembling a specific time or myth in Dylan’s life or in the cannon of Dylan’s legacy. In each ‘Dylan’ is portrayed by a different name and by a different actor, some resembling the singer-songwriter to a tee and others a more metaphorical approach, specifically in the case of Woody, played by Marcus Carl Franklin, himself a black child. The first and only appearance of Dylan’s name, bar the credits, is an early title card stating that the film (written by Haynes and Oren Moverman) is “based on the music and many lives of Bob Dylan”. The poster sold itself with the immediately intriguing and star-stating tagline; “Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger [and] Ben Wishaw... are all Bob Dylan”. Now one can very easily start patting themselves on the back and comment that the modus-oporandi of the film is to get to the heart that “we are all Dylan”, whether we be storytellers or simply lost. However although that clearly is a strand of the film, I really do feel Haynes is hear zoning in on the notion of American myth making in a modern climate. It’s no mistake I feel that Gere’s Dylan persona is simply Billy the Kid, without many things obscuring that fact. Hayne’s work here is similar to his earliest feature 1991’s Poison, where multiple strands and multiple tales come together to elaborate on one singular theme. Here it is instead to elaborate, explore and perhaps attempt explanation of one man. An inconceivable task for many, never mind someone as polarising and mythic as Dylan. In the visual sense when it comes to straddling many different filmic styles, this is perhaps one of Hayne’s most accomplished works. With just how far this film does go out there, one would be remiss to not make the simple comment that it’s a wonder the whole thing actually comes together and works anywhere near as grand as it really does. In regards to performances, all six lead performances are superb, each perfectly distilling some brand of mimicry and embodiment with a very singular focus on the metaphors that there personas’s emulate. Beyond the lead six however there are similarly many a wonderful turn, Bruce Greenwood, David Cross and Charlotte Gainsbourg all stand out. With Hayne’s dear Julianne even showing up for a small turn as a pseudo Joan Baez figure. All in all I’m Not There is perhaps as complex and un-understandable a piece of work as the figure it is putting through the kaleidoscope, however of course when a very talented filmmaker is looking and dissecting a genius, you can expect something rather intriguing and perhaps profound. I’m Not There is indeed both of those things and so much more. Dylan’s latest single comes to mind when trying to encapsulate Dylan and this film; I Contain Multitudes.

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Thus far Haynes most fruitful period for output has been the 2010’s and we will look at those projects promptly in our next article.

-      -   Thomas Carruthers