By Nick Davis
Translator: Qin Tian
Proofreading: Easy two three
Source: Film Comment (November 11, 2015)
Have you ever wondered how such a concrete, coherent tone of a Todd Hines film was formed? The cast and crew interviewed for Carol often refer to the accumulations that Hines had accumulated during the preparatory phase: music, paintings, photographs, films, and other aesthetic factors that influenced the style, audiovisual, and overall style of Carroll's films.
One of the interesting things about watching Hines's films for audiences often comes from the underlying meanings that Hines confers on them, such as the presentation of love passages in Jean Genet's work in Poison (1991) or the kaleidoscopic homage to Fellini, Godard, Richard Leicester, and Robert Altman in I'm Not There (2007). Even when Hynes's homage seems most direct and obvious—as in his most famous homage to Douglas Serke, Far from Heaven (2002), these meanings always reveal subtle qualities and are more groundbreaking contributions.
Poison (1991) Poison (1991)
In November and December, viewers can watch a series at the Lincoln Center Film Association titled "Todd Haynes: The Other Side of the Dream" to explore Hines's creative process, which will run from November 18 to 29. In addition to Superstar Carpenter (1987), Haynes also screened and linked his films in double- or triple-film combos, which inspired Hines in terms of text and structure.
Todd Hines avoids talking about the connections that existing critical discourse to his work and some films, so don't expect to see at the festival a picture of "Far from Heaven" with "DeepLy Locked in a House of Sorrows" (1955) or "Unharmed" (1995) with Kubrick's work. In addition to shooting his latest film, Carol, with a fresh eye, Hines also selected some feature films, documentaries and experimental images that are difficult to see on the big screen for his DVD set.
Safe and Sound (1995)
Film Review interviewed Todd Hines in Chicago last month about his reasons for choosing the films, as well as the vivid stories behind them.
Q: If people come to the show every night, they may find that some of the films you choose resonate with more than one of your own. For example, I love the connection between Reckless Moments and Far from Heaven, but I also see the connection between Sea Of Lust and Carol, where blackmail becomes a narrative anxiety. And the same is true of the image of women, who simply do not listen to men's orders and thus solve some of the major difficulties in life. When was the first time you watched Sea Demon?
"Lust for the Sea" (1945) "Lust for the Sea" (1945)
Todd Hynes: I've seen this movie very early on, I saw it in college, in Mary Ann Dorne's class, and the first time I saw it, it touched my nerves. The maternal power in the film is so strong that it is closely related to the role of Mildred. Whether it's in Carol or Far from Heaven, it's very important when I think about how I approach love stories. Lucia in Reckless Moments has a strong sense of self-preservation, she is so "belligerent" to hide her son's body, protecting her daughter's sense of morality and the whole family, firmly avoiding the influence of external forces.
Reckless Moments (1949)
All along, Joan Bennett's performances have been superb. She's a very cool woman. It was she who led to the birth of classic productions by directors such as Fritz Long and Max Ofes. There's a particularly bizarre moment in Reckless Moments, where James Mason plays the blackmailer, who for the first time expresses his feelings for Lucia. He called her from the pharmacy —
Q: Tell her not to worry about the money he's been worrying about —
Todd Hynes: Yes! But instead of cutting to Lucia, the camera pushes toward James Mason, and suddenly, the music starts. In that moment, you'll realize that the film completely endowed with a romantic theme that we didn't expect. Mason is closer to the audience than the women in the entire film. It's a strange shift – maybe not entirely successful, but it's really fascinating and worth noting.
We see that Lucia still sets up so many obstacles to Mason's pursuit that any emotional reaction makes it clear that this emotion is out of bounds, both for her and for him. But in the final scene of the movie, she still speaks out about her emotions. Oh my God, that shot. The height of this lens is unattainable. In Far From Heaven, I borrowed a scene from Joan Bennett crying in bed. Unless someone, like me, is a downright nerd to study the relationship between these two scenes, no one will care.
Q: I watched Reckless Moments when I was in graduate school, and it was a double-film run with "Want to Rob and Get Lost," a few months before the release of "Far from Heaven." So when I watched the shot of that bed in Far From Heaven and the scene you shot of the black maid who was also named Sybil, I had more feelings. I don't quite remember the connection between Reckless Moments and Far from Heaven, but I think I must be reminded of a dream I had.
Far from Heaven 2002
Todd Hynes: Yeah, I think the people who made Rob And Get Lost resisted the temptation to "copy" Reckless Moments, and they did a lot better than I did.
Q: I also don't know how lucky I was to see Reckless Moments, which is also hard to find on DVD in the United States.
Todd Hynes: Other works by Marx Orfels of that period were equally difficult to see, not easy to find. In addition, Barbara Bell Godis, who starred in Ofels's "Horror of the Sea", is so good. However, the easiest films to be seen by people now are probably "Letter from a Strange Woman", but as a director's overall work, the previous films are so important and precious.
A Letter from a Strange Woman (1948)
Q: I also want to talk about the rare films of the middle of the last century, I just watched Ruth Ogin and Maurice Engel's "Lovers and Lollipops" (1956), and although it wasn't Carroll's target film, I thought it might have shot one of the most authentic children in the history of American cinema.
Todd Hynes: Everything about that movie was amazing. First of all, it's completely post-dubbed, and it's well-matched — even with a child's voice. You really can't see it, I don't know how they did it. In addition to that, of course, the film is also a remarkable documentary work of the mid-50s, but the film also has a real artistry: it is shot from the child's point of view, and the heroine sees through the window and doorway, which you can see in Carol.
Carol (2015)
I also like Gerald S. O'Rocking played the male protagonist, he did not really become famous as an actor until he was in his teens and twenties. But most importantly, I found the role of this mother so fascinating that the kind of femininity she had wasn't present in Hollywood movies at the time, and certainly wasn't there in the social life of the time. Look at those scenes in Lovers and Lollipops, where a woman waits in an empty house, and she thinks Aloeline's character isn't coming—yet she's sitting at a simple table, very calm.
For us, in Carol, such a scene makes it a very useful reference to that era, not to mention the whole scene of the toy department in Macy's and the beautiful view of the streets of Manhattan. Even the chalk drawings on the brownstone porch you see in Lovers and Lollipops —
Q: And the Chinatown scene —
Todd Hines: Yeah, there's chalk in that scene too! The scenes shot by Ruth Ogin in the film are strikingly consistent with the famous photographs taken by Helen Levitt, in which children scribble with chalk in the middle of the street. Helen Levitt is another artist who inspired us to create Carol. I loved the picture so much that I added a line of attribution so we could borrow it from Carol, and when Carol spoke to her boyfriend Richard through the window, she said, "I like all your chalk drawings." This is entirely out of my selfishness, a "tribute". But I want to do it.
There was no direct connection between Lincoln Center Film Society's series, such as Fassbinder's Fox and His Friends (1975) and Poison. I know people will always put my films together with Fassbinder and Syke's, but I don't want to put them in places where people might expect them.
The Fox and His Friends (1975)
Q: "Safe and Sound" seemed like a turning point in your work, and then Syke's film style seemed to have gradually influenced you. When you were filming Safe and Sound, did you consciously think about Spring Wind and Autumn Rain (1959)? Or are you getting more and more influenced by Syrk now?
Todd Hines: I didn't deliberately go to see Spring Breeze and Autumn Rain when I was making Safe and Sound, although I was always interested in Syke's identity as a bystander, and he always ended his films with an unreal reunion ending, which was a clever approach. I know that this may be more classicly presented in "Deep Lock spring light and a courtyard of sorrow" or "Heaven and Earth Can't Be Desolate" than in "Spring Wind and Autumn Rain". You know, in contrast, despite the reliance on Syrk's work, Far from Heaven doesn't have that Syrk-esque ending. It brings only a more sincere, compromised, sadder ending, and a palpable sense of loss.
But "Safe and Sound" does have a Syrk-esque ending, in which Carol, played by Julianne Moore, looks better and better, but by the end of the film, the audience has accumulated too much sad information about Carroll's acceptance of identity rules, and even the new identity rules she accepted in the Wrenwood community. When she says "I love you" in the mirror, it should make the audience feel that something has been solved, but in Safe and Sound, all the audiovisual language should be telling the audience that nothing is solved. For me, that's a Syrkian expression.
Q: Another surprise at the show for the audience came from Bob Dylan's film Eat the Document, a very different documentary about Dylan's tour, which is very different from Don't Look Back. Obviously, "Don't Look Back" is more well-known. Which of these two films do you think is more important to you?
Don't Look Back (1967)
Todd Hynes: I haven't watched EatIng Documents in a while. Dylan cut the first half hour of the film, and I think Robbie Robertson cut the rest. It's so fragmented, like an anti-festival festival film, that seems strange and different. Do you remember the scene where Dylan was pulled off the stage? In retrospect, you can hardly remember which part of the movie they took place in.
That being said, the clip of Eat File is really great. The camera is high and almost creepy, capturing a hint of weirdness in the world that belonged to Dylan at the time. Then there's the scene where Dylan sings a song in a hotel room, which we use in I'm Not There. It was the only record of him singing that song live. There are a lot of such detailed scenes that you can only find in this obscure, somewhat depressing movie, and you won't find it anywhere else, and I think Dylan has always been very ambivalent about this movie. And for what reason, no one knows.
Q: The show will also show "I'm Not There" and one of your early short films, Assassin: A Film About Rimbaud, which I don't want to call a depressing film, I'm eager to find its resources, but find it hard to find, and I'm certainly not the only fan of the film.
I'm Not There (2007)
Todd Hynes: It's a film that I can watch in a relaxed state. Still, I find some parts lyrical. I've always loved this movie because it's a story about translation: Rimbaud is constantly being stolen by artists and writers who covet Rimbaud's work and keep it for themselves. As a result, multiple voices superimposed on top of each other reading a translation of the same poem — and also the original French — are highly mythological moments for his work.
One will surely see Fassbinder's influence in this film, including some stop-motion shots, as well as a shot from a burning card from Sailors of Fog Harbor. There are other experimental shots, or I convert shots that have had a different impact on me. For example, after showing a photograph of the poet Paul Verlaine Rimbaud, the camera pans in the room, which is very Laura Murvie and also Peter Warren. Then I found my then-boyfriend and I posing in Fassbinder' pose, staring blankly at the scene. There are a lot of frame-by-frame shots, a lot of punk elements, and a shot of Henry Miller who is obsessed with Rimbaud, so Henry Miller becomes a way of thinking about everyone's overidious identification with Rimbaud, including me.
Sailors of Foggy Harbor (1982)
Q: Has anyone suggested adding Assassin: A Movie About Rimbaud to your DVD set as a special inclusion?
Todd Hynes: I think I should do that. I really wanted to put this film together with some other images, but there seems to be no image that can match it in style.
Q: We did the interview in Chicago, which is also the city where Roger Ebert is located. I want to ask you a question about Flying Over the Valley of Beauty, and you associate it with your really wonderful short film, Doti Gets Spanked, which I often tell my students about, and that's probably the one I talk about the most about you.
Dotty Gets Spanked (1993)
TOD HINES: When I was in Chicago, I always missed Roger Ebert so fondly. I think the documentary about him that came out last year was really touching and gorgeous. He was so kind, I remember the scene when I took Far from Heaven to the Chicago Film Festival, and he really loved the film.
But what I want to tell you is that when I first met Roger Ebert, he didn't take Poison seriously at all. I can't remember if I met him at a film festival or at the Independent Spirit Award that year. I walked over to him and said, "I know you don't like my movies, but I like you." I think there was also a bit of "malice" in my sentence, because I heard that he was not entirely satisfied with the film "Flying Over the Valley of Beauty" based on his script. Maybe I did it wrong, maybe his feelings about my films have changed over time. But even then, Flying Over the Valley of Beauty wasn't as revered or taken seriously as it has been recently.
Flying Over the Valley of Beauty (1970)
But did you know: Flying Over the Valley of Beauty is an amazing movie. Especially at the editing level, the editing rhythm of "Flying Over the Valley of Beauty" is fast and strange. Almost no line in the film is spoken in one shot, and it is immediately interrupted by the next shot. There's so much more to this movie to praise: the wonderful soundtrack, the montage shots, all the side plots, the party scenes, where the lesbian love story is incredible, but it's actually sincere and heartfelt.
The original rough cut version of the film was about three hours long. So you can imagine someone in the editing room saying, let's keep all the shots and make the audience feel like this is a movie that doesn't stop. In this case, it has its own rhythm completely, and I think it's great.