Todd Haynes' CAROL, adapting Patricia Highsmith's pseudonymous early '50s lesbian romance

oh that's perverse...

KJB and i saw Carol yesterday and he suggested some of Blanchett's mannerisms were reminiscent of Dunaway as Crawford.

(i myself thought CB tossed her head a little too often)

I'll admit that much of my initial wincing comes from the usual crowing over Ms. Flibbity Gibbet's performance.

Does she throw back vodka martinis with a trembling wrist?

there's lots of smoking she gets to fully fly with, of course

p good Frank Rich piece, mostly for the Highsmith stuff

http://www.vulture.com/2015/11/frank-rich-carol-invisibility-of-lesbian-culture.html#

I don't know about 'shallow', but this film is definitely about 'the look', and so consequently about surfaces, and things that are hidden beneath surfaces. By 'The look' I mean not only the decor, cinematography, set dressing, location shooting and especially Sandy Powell's ravishing costume design, but also all the coded glances in the film - the way that gay men and women in the 1950s had to instantly evaluate the other as potential lover, or potential threat (the film is possibly too cool for Highsmith, but it does retain a feeling of menace, of collapse - of the unified self, or the well-ordered life - lurking just around the corner.) So yes, there is a lot of shooting through windows, into mirrors, and so on, but it seems an entirely apposite 'visual strategy' when you're making a film about the way that society (and more pointedly, masculine society) keeps people apart, prisoners of history punished for desire.

It's a great film, imho.

Was just coming here to post this puff-piece on the fashion of it.

i thought that kent jones piece on sirk was rather incoherent; not one of KJ's better essays. i'm not sure what he was driving at except for the truism that an orthodox auteurism will sometimes blind folks to the flaws in director's films. that's not a new observation and i'm not sure what the stakes are when it comes to sirk.

the bigger problem is that "flaws" are in the eyes of the beholder and kent's piece was just too scattered for me to be convinced that what he perceived as flaws were actually such. i think the ending of "there's always tomorrow" is quite credible and convincing, and the feeling of lost opportunity lingers pretty strongly even through the nominally happy ending. i don't think that's reading against the grain; it's just present in the film.

interesting (?) phenomenon of gay directors who make somewhat subversive, formally adventurous early films settling into something like a dull, lacquered prestige cinema in their dotage. (thinking of haynes and terence davies, but maybe also gus van sant in his own way).

you could put a positive spin on this and say it mirrors the mainstreaming or acceptance of gays and gay culture, but that's probably reaching too far.

although with haynes even the 'subversive' material is left-correct in a way that always felt (to me) like he was hedging his bets.

interesting (?) phenomenon of gay directors who make somewhat subversive, formally adventurous early films settling into something like a dull, lacquered prestige cinema in their dotage. (thinking of haynes and terence davies, but maybe also gus van sant in his own way).

You don't need "gay" in that sentence. Ozon and Apichatpong skewer that argument, no? Ozon's recent The New Girlfriend is his most playful and subversive in years, I think.

I know you don't mean it, but your implication is that gay directors have a stronger obligation to subvert.

I need to read the novel. I've read Ripley's Game and A Dog's Ransom in the last month, impressed with their sour brevity, disappointed by how this sour surface hints at tensions that Highsmith isn't willing to suss out. She reminds me of that line of Oscar Wilde: Henry James is a prose Browning, and so is Browning. That's how she strikes me in relation to Bernanos.

GVS has for his whole career gone back and forth between formally adventurous and dull prestige.

or a la Last Days, formally dull

now he's formerly dull

Mildred Pierce had some of Haynes' best work.

yeah, it was a flaky thought.

the only GVS feature i really like is mala noche (cue indie rock guy: "I like their early stuff"). his arty, formalist films aren't any better -- and in some cases significantly worse -- than his more populist stuff.

(i mean, my thought about gay directors was flaky.)

Don't sell yourself short.

interesting (?) phenomenon of gay directors who make somewhat subversive, formally adventurous early films

This is fairly well known (?)

i really lost faith in Cocteau when he teamed up with Danny Kaye

this reminds me that bresson wanted to cast burt lancaster and audrey hepburn in his "lancelot" film -- he wrote to george cukor asking for his assistance in getting a hold of them.

(this is in the early 1960s IIRC, at least a decade before he got the film made, with somewhat less famous leads)

yeah tbh the more i think about it the more i thought this was just fine, i wasn't strongly moved by it, esp compared to FFH or even MP

John Waters' blurb on the movie worth considering: https://artforum.com/inprint/issue=201510&id=56221

Brody lovin' the grain on second viewing

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/carol-up-close

waters's comment was hilarious. "almost reborn"!

why anyone takes brody seriously is beyond me.

that was snotty, sorry. his comments on carol are interesting. the problem w/ brody is whenever i actually know a lot about a subject he's pontificating on (which isn't too often), it's obvious how little he knows/understands. i'd use the word "poseur." so i'm inclined to be skeptical when i read him.

oh thanks Todd for casting this cube of sugar as the "notions salesman"

http://cache3.asset-cache.net/gc/497435376-actor-cory-michael-smith-attends-the-carol-gettyimages.jpg

not gonna watch "Gotham" to see him as the pre-Riddler tho

ok let's try...

http://www2.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/53rd+New+York+Film+Festival+Carol+Arrivals+Cgotsd8Y3ZZl.jpg

ive somehow not read any reviews of this (TH returning to 50s melodrama was enough to make me want to see it). but all the hype and raves made me suspicious, so i wasnt expecting a perfect masterpiece. which was a good thing really as it isnt what people have made it out to be, or perhaps want it to be, so badly.

it lacks the emotional power of sirk or FFH, which is the biggest flaw for me. it does move you in the final few scenes, but even then, not quite enough. it seemed like quite a choppy script. one that maybe had been in the works so long that it had been drafted so many times that there wasnt really very much left (not read the book, so not sure if it is also quite bare like the film, but know haynes and nagy introduced some of their own scenes like the one with the lawyers). weirdly reminded me of in the mood for love in this way (except it wasnt improvised). there was this sort of sketch like approach to documenting their relationship.

the main surprise i had was the graininess of the film, and how it didnt have the sweeping sort of visuals i remember far from heaven as having - this looked almost like a cinema verite filmmaker was drafted into work on a lavish 50s period piece. which was cool in a way, but it felt detached. i never felt involved in any of it until the last 25 mins or so. blanchett seemed hard to really know or feel for, as she was in queen cate mode (maybe this is her character, from what i know the book is more about therese, and i dont know why the film reverses this), and terese, i wanted to know better. its an odd film, reminds me of PTA's recent two, quite icy, feels at a remove, more about the formalism rather than the material. very much a directors film. also quite cerebral for a romance, more about what it doesnt do (ie a love story not from the vulnerable partners end), than what it does. lovely to look at, quite sensual, and maybe an interesting twist on genre expectations, but doesnt quite do enough beyond that for me. as muted as the characters have to be.

"but it does retain a feeling of menace, of collapse - of the unified self, or the well-ordered life - lurking just around the corner.)"

forgot about this - yes, it does this well, and the stuff about sizeing someone else up as a partner too. still not sure the ideas about shooting through windows to reflect fractured notions of self etc etc though, i think it just seemed a way to make it harder to get to know the characters, to make the film a little more self consciously 'challenging'.

which was cool in a way, but it felt detached.

Haven't seen it but that's par for the course with Haynes ('formalism' etc.)

was FFH so detached? i remember it (rightly/wrongly) as being quite unashamedly emotional.

yes, from my seat. it's the same nonfan POV on TH for years, only here it's finally true.

Can't remember FFH specifically but I caught a re-screen of Safe yesterday - cold/distant are all over the design of the film. Just in time for xmas. xp

safe seems a closer fit... carol really made me think that TH is still very much an 'indie' director (with all the flaws/bonuses that come from that), but carol is being evaluated as a pic firmly in the hollywood tradition.

*indie in the 80s/90s sense

i dont think any of the cast deserve oscars though - they work well enough for the purpose of the film, but the real work on this film is the cinematography, the costuming, set design etc. all the stuff the grand budapest hotel won for a while back more or less. if only there was an award for most fully realised aesthetic.

The world of film deserves no less than another award for something or other. I suggest most trascendental experience.

I keep thinking Blanchett's casting is too on the nose in a scary way; I'm wincing in anticipation.

"deserve Oscars" is a phrase i equate with "deserves no anesthesia"

"trascendental experience".

hoping i can award this to the new guy maddin film

was thinking about how it might be that the coldness, and sense of unfullfillment it seems to engender in the viewer (or me at least) might be a way to communicate what the characters feel (their inability to express their feelings for each other openly), or have to endure, but i think that might be over reaching.

is this the same "coldness" that ppl accuse Kubrick of? bcz, i don't know, there aren't puppies?

no, i think the coldness (or 'coolness' as some reviews seem happier with) of carol is to do with the determination to avoid the cliches of romantic cinema (ie emotion) - it keeps you distant from them (perhaps just because there isnt anything much in the script to really get you into their minds or bodies), so its all about tiny micro details and movements/expressions rather than any remotely big larger. i know that is prob what turns a lot of arthouse viewers on, but it doesnt reveal enough i dont think, and ends up as a sort of dramatic/emotional flatline. with kubrick i think the coldness is more about how he directs, that formal austerity, rather than lack of emotional involvement in the story or characters. in carol, i care more about the decor than the lovers.

its all about tiny micro details and movements/expressions rather than any remotely big larger. i know that is prob what turns a lot of arthouse viewers on, but it doesnt reveal enough i dont think, and ends up as a sort of dramatic/emotional flatline

I agree. Finally saw it, and it probably does all it can with the shooting-through-car-windows stuff; some of the dissolves at the beginning, meant to suggest Mara's dislocation, are apposite and eloquent. I was more moved by the last act: Mara partying, disconsolately, in the Village flat with NYT mates. Obv the way she exchanged telling glances (in long shot, of course) with the other lesbian recalled Dennis Quaid and the boy at the Miami Beach pool in FFH, but I like how Haynes drew out Therese's growing confidence as a lesbian: she's getting looks, she's getting sized up, she's learning to like it.

I'm in Eric's camp. I liked it. The interest in furniture and decor and dresses didn't smother me like it did in FFH; he's a subtler filmmaker in some ways now. And, yeah, the performances didn't stand out other than Blanchett's feral gaze and Mara's mask of lust. The thing is, Haynes can do a certain kind of hysteria well: Safe remains my favorite of his movies, and the Veda-Mildred relationship is in that territory.

I wonder if the acclaim wouldn't be so insistent had it been released in March.

Can't remember FFH specifically but I caught a re-screen of Safe yesterday - cold/distant are all over the design of the film. Just in time for xmas. xp

― xyzzzz__, Monday, December 7, 2015 6:22 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well SAFE is rather explicitly modeled on 1960s art cinema that epitomizes cold (or at least 'distanced') and intellectual -- Antonioni, Kubrick's 2001.... in a way that film is nearly as much of a pastiche as FAR FROM HEAVEN.

i admire Haynes, and i used to really, really like some of his films. but with the possible exception of MILDRED PIERCE, they often seem very much like highly accomplished grad-school exercises. they seem like closed systems... they seem designed to be interpreted in the same critical terms that informed their design.

(FWIW the only Haynes film i think is a genuine failure on formal terms is VELVET GOLDMINE, which i could barely will myself through.)

My wife and I watched this last night on DVD. We noted the irony of it being released by The Weinstein Company with Harvey credited as an Executive Producer.

When it was over we both agreed that the story had tremendous potential power, but at every turn the director chose the easiest, most reductive and superficial path to tell the story of his characters. The acting was meant to be subtle, but often strayed over the boundary into stasis. The costumes shouted 1950s glamour as loudly as possible, but costumes and hairstyles are, at best, enhancements to telling a story, not a substitute for one. Even the music was a bland rehash of every movie music cliché. Tbf, the cinematography was mostly decent.

If the point of all this was to convey a sense of the suffocation of his characters' lives then Haynes misunderstood his means for his end and wound up suffocating their story instead.

Didn't have that reaction at all. Maybe seeing it in a theater made the difference for me. I thought that the story was beautifully told and that the acting was great. The grainy 16 mm print on a big screen felt electric to me. And I thought Carter Burwell's score was restrained and perfect.

To me Carol is easily one of the best films of the last 10 years

ok, i see I made my crit clear about the Mara sisters already. just no. They deaden all films.

I agree with Aimless here, while I legit consider Haynes a hero this film was so nothing, to me. I often think of a comment that an ILXor, maybe it was Vegemite girl, maybe not, made re: Mad Men that it was so laconic it was like they didn't even realise they were making a TV show that people would invest in - wildly paraphrasing there but the comment stuck with me and I often think about it w/r/t this film which obv. works on details but is underpowered to the point that it drives me mad with it's pointlessness.

but this, basically

If the point of all this was to convey a sense of the suffocation of his characters' lives then Haynes misunderstood his means for his end and wound up suffocating their story instead.

i want to think this could be an entirely different, better film with another lead. or a choice not to let them be an uncharismatic, blank slate, any woman.

there's a kind of surface ≥ feeling which I can get behind generally but not here. There's a scene in which Carol is putting on nail varnish wich Haynes obviously is very invested in.

i want to think this could be an entirely different, better film with another lead. or a choice not to let them be an uncharismatic, blank slate, any woman.

see i like mara in the role for just that reason - the character is an unformed person. A performer who was doing a lot of interesting & charismatic Acting would have undermined the whole premise imo

I thought Mara’s Therese was kind of a cipher at first and I was interested that he interpreted the characters from the novel in the way he did, with such an extreme imbalance between them in both personality and power.

I know relationships like that though, with power and benevolence shifting as the relationship progresses. I thought it was really moving

and I thought Rooney Mara was great in the end

well, it was the poolboy but instead the shopgirl. And the shopgirl was not interesting either.

lol

yeah i didn't find any part of this film that needed to be predicated on that character being interesting. probably the opposite. i had never really had a good haynes experience but i liked this a lot when i saw it.

I'm still ambivalent (link above) but the performers are fine.

And y'all need to try creamed spinach and poached eggs with an ice-cold martini.

ohhh i see there is a velvet goldmine doc.

"What a strange girl you are. Flung out of space"

Are we to think that lesbians are strange and flung out of space?

i didn't find any part of this film that needed to be predicated on that character being interesting

That is a highly peculiar view. Given this, where did the interest in this film lie for you? In the filmic technicalities or in some element that illuminated the lives of the entirely uninteresting characters? Because, if it is the latter, then it seems to me you found something of interest about the characters. If it is the former, then fine, but a deep appreciation of filmic technicalities is not the sort of audience response that most directors or audiences would consider as indicating a successful film.

Individuals don’t have to be interesting for their stories to be interesting. Hardly anyone is interesting.

So what was interesting for you?

"Are we to think that lesbians are strange and flung out of space?"

What?? It was a memorable line of dialogue from the film

"In the filmic technicalities or in some element that illuminated the lives of the entirely uninteresting characters?"

they weren't uninteresting to me

not going to argue anymore about this

Observing characters that seem like real humans living their human lives can be interesting, even if those characters themselves as individuals are not “interesting people”, like if you met them at a party or whatever. It’s one of the main reasons to watch movies imo. Ymmv I guess but that character and Mara’s performance felt truthful to me, which can be enough for a movie. Maybe it would be more interesting if she were a secret agent or something but idk.

reaallllly don't want to talk much more film here but i will say that as far as the movie is concerned it matters much more that carol sees something in her than that we see something in her.