Todd Haynes Talks Mark Ruffalo Collaboration, Making ‘Carol’ & Banned Film ‘Superstar’ — Berlin Film Festival
During a talk held in Berlin’s Hebbel am Ufer theater, Berlinale jury president Todd Haynes shed light on how his filmmaking craft evolved from Superstar and Safe to Carol, as well as how Mark Ruffalo brought him a career-changing script.
Held in conjunction with Berlinale Talents, the evening opened with a clip of Haynes’ 1995 film Safe, starring Julianne Moore — a film which Haynes picked out as one of the most formative experiences of his career.
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“I would like to preface this by saying that I think three films inaugurated my career, and all three of them dealt with illness and pathology,” said Haynes. “They are Superstar, Poison and Safe, and each film approaches those themes in very different ways”
Haynes elaborated on his inspiration behind the still-banned film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter, made in 1987, where he used Barbie dolls to narrate the life of Karen Carpenter, set to The Carpenters’ music.
“People would write off The Carpenters because it was the early 1970s and rock and roll was still the vital form of music. Everyone thought they were just happy, a little meaningless, corny American brother-sister team,” said Haynes. “It was an opportunity to look back at that time with so many layers and so much weight of the culture, not just the way we look back at that time of the Vietnam War and Nixon, but also who Karen was and what she represented.
“This idea of using Barbie dolls and having this almost superficial, faux-innocent approach to something was my way of replicating the thought that they’re two dimensional, that you think this is going to be a joke, and actually, there’s so much to everything,” added Haynes.
“You think it’s going to be the joke in the movie, but there’s so much more to it. That’s how the movie surprised the audiences and me, in the audiences who came to it.”
However, due to Haynes’ use of the Carpenters’ music in his film without their prior permission, the film was removed from circulation.
“Of course, the film ultimately got banned and it remains banned today because we did not get the clearances. Also, the same with Mattel, I got patents to the Barbie body parts from Mattel to show me that they owned Barbie’s body,” said Haynes. “Ultimately what women already struggled with, in dealing with somebody else owning their bodies, is what’s being played out in so many different ways.”
Haynes also shared about his early filmmaking influences, as well as the dual cultural movements of experimental filmmaking and genre work taking off during that formative period, pushing Haynes to develop a hybrid style with his collaborators that he referred to as “experimental narrative.”
“What was influencing me at that time was David Lynch and the ironic way he was inserting himself into genre,” said Haynes. “At the same time, I was just trying to get a film of mine shown anywhere.
“But people would say, ‘We don’t understand what you’re doing here. What is the story? What is the tone? The tonal question was one thing, the narrative question was another. And this was something that forged the creative alliance that Christine [Vachon] and I found in each other. We met in college and started working to produce what we called ‘experimental narrative’ and it was in this sort of spirit that we embarked on.”
Haynes then shifted to talking about his 2015 film Carol, starring Cate Blanchett. He emphasized that the film was an interrogation of the romance film genre, and the power dynamics embedded in relationships.
“To me, Carol was my first attempt to really examine the love story and try to understand how great love stories operate. It meant so much to me — about who is looking and who is the desiring half, who is the more amorous part of the love story and who is playing the vulnerable part,” said Haynes.
When asked about his parting advice for filmmakers working their way through the industry, Haynes said: “For the practice of filmmaking, I guess it is about always feeling like you are a student of the medium and that even the things that you feel you’ve achieved or explored deeply, there’s going to be another place to turn to that will strip you naked once again, make you scared, make you curious and make you lean in to what other filmmakers are doing.”
Haynes then elaborated how Mark Ruffalo was that creative spark for him, and how Ruffalo pushed Haynes to do something far out of his comfort zone.
“Mark Ruffalo came to me with early draft of Dark Waters, which was just so utterly unlike the kind of movies that I’ve been associated with, the sort of exposé of a lawyer taking down and challenging criminal practices on a farm,” said Haynes. “He didn’t know how much I was an obsessive and passionate lover of the paranoia in this case and those exact stories weren’t listed as part of my work then.
“There are always going to be other pockets of desire and inspiration that aren’t necessarily the thing that people attach to you and the very fact that he came to me led us down a whole other fantastic path,” added Haynes.
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