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vardathemessage) wrote2005-05-15 01:51 pm
vardathemessage) wrote2005-05-15 01:51 pm
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Cinematic Details
After thirty years one year of being immersed in trivia about Velvet Goldmine we've probably covered most aspects of the film but heaven knows that Todd's multilayered, well-read mind has included some reference or quote that has slipped by us. We'll continue to update any earth shattering discoveries. We'll also be working on corrections and hope to create some kind of index, so stay friended.
Additionally, after a year of being immersed in trivia about Velvet Goldmine, we're experiencing a bit of a withdrawal – perhaps you minskys are too. Here's a little 'methadone' in the form of more films to explore. During the course of the year we've mentioned many films that have left their mark on Velvet Goldmine or influenced Todd Haynes. In his own words, Todd explains some of his Early Cinematic Influences (from Cinema Papers, December 1998). This fascinating article provides some inspiration when we're thinking what to rent or add to our Netflix list.
American independent filmmaker Todd Haynes, the man responsible for Poison (1991), Safe (1995) and, most recently, Velvet Goldmine, talks about early cinematic experiences and influences on his own work:
The films that influenced me as a kid were films that kids are taken to see when they're my age. The first one was Mary Poppins [Robert Stevenson, 1964], my very first movie when I was three, and I almost had a psychotic obsession for Mary Poppins. There's probably a lot about that film, and a lot about film in general, that really deeply affected me, and made me respond by wanting to create things in response to it. I would draw pictures and play or perform the songs; relive the experience in all these different ways. It definitely inspired me creatively, and I guess that's my point; something about seeing films at that age got my motor running. And that would continue; there'd be certain films that would just really penetrate me.
It's funny, a lot of them were English in theme. The next one was Romeo and Juliet, Franco Zeffirelli's film [1968]. I went through a massively romantic period; I was a little Shakespeare freak as a kid. I was probably so insufferable to be around, so pretentious.
Later, films that definitely hooked me were films that probably came out of the 1960s drug culture, experience movies like Performance [Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, 1970], Women in Love [Ken Russell, 1969], A Clockwork Orange [Stanley Kubrick, 1971], and 2001: A Space Odyssey [Stanley Kubrick, 1968].
They were films that I thought a lot about in making Velvet Goldmine, because they invited you to go somewhere you'd never seen before. I think that was responding to a youth culture that wanted that and created that experience. They really wanted to be surprised and challenged, and, unfortunately, I don't feel like those kinds of films are made so much today. I was hoping that Velvet Goldmine might rekindle some of those feelings of mystery, and excite the imaginations of young people that see it.
I loved Hollywood films like Citizen Kane [Orson Welles, 1941] and Fritz Lang, but, moving into college, I would discover Fassbinder's work, who remains my most favourite filmmaker. His Angst essen Seeie auf [Fear Eats the Soul, 1973] is my favourite of his films.
There are so many, and they're so different and varied, and the whole body of work is so astounding. But I was still very much into Hitchcock and Douglas Sirk. I also saw Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles [Chantal Akerman, 1975] in college; that remains a real pivotal film for me, as well. I love Nashville [Robert Altman, 1975], Lola Montés [Max Ophüls, 1955] and also a lesser known film by Max Ophüls, The Reckless Moment [1949], with John Bennett and James Mason, an amazing internal melodrama that I particularly adore.
I have unintellectual passion for a film like Picnic [Joshua Logan, 1955], which has a profound effect on me; I start sobbing from the opening credits through to the end. It definitely touches me in some bizarre way. I also love certain experimental films like Blow Job by Andy Warhol [1963] and Un Chant d'Amour [A Song of Love, 1950] by Jean Genet.
~
The following article from the Brown [University] Daily Herald of Monday, April 14, 2003, gives us a little more insight to Todd Haynes:
Director Todd Haynes, [class of] '85, talks on his upbringing and artistic influences during Q&A session Friday
By Dan Poulson and Adam Hundt
A strong interest in feminism and melodrama contributed to the creation of his film "Far from Heaven," director Todd Haynes '85 explained in a question and answer session held Friday in Upper Salomon.
Moderated by Department of Modern Culture and Media Chair Michael Silverman, the discussion covered Haynes' first filmmaking experiences and the career path he took after graduating from Brown, which eventually led to a Best Screenplay Oscar nod for "Far from Heaven." The discussion was one of several weekend-long events sponsored by the MCM Department that dealt with Haynes and his work.
The Q&A opened with a screening of Haynes' 1993 short film "Dottie Gets Spanked," the story of a young boy and his obsession with a sitcom actress. As the director later explained, some of the personal touches in that film came directly from Haynes' own experiences while growing up.
"The first movie I ever saw was ‘Mary Poppins,'" he said. "And I became absolutely obsessed with it. I felt a very strong need to respond to it, in some way creatively. Many of the children's drawings you see in ‘Dottie Gets Spanked' are my own from that time." He added that the use of color in that film in part influenced the color schemes in "Far from Heaven."
Haynes also talked about his upbringing in Sherman Oaks, Calif., and his introduction to filmmaking at the progressive Oakwood School. It was there he became friends with the actresses Elizabeth McGovern ("Ordinary People") and Jennifer Jason Leigh ("Fast Times at Ridgemont High") and appeared in student plays with both of them. "I played the Romeo to her Juliet, the Death to her Everyman," Haynes said of Leigh.
While at Oakwood, Haynes also turned one of his creative writing assignments into an experimental super-8 short film, "The Suicide." With help from "some friends of friends," Haynes and a companion were able to get a chance to edit the film in a professional editing studio, he said.
But despite Haynes' childhood proximity to Hollywood, he said he never felt the need to pursue a filmmaking career there. "I didn't really appreciate the Hollywood studio hierarchy. I was really turned off by the idea of climbing the studio ladder," he said. His fascination with New York during his childhood visits there convinced Haynes to go to college on the East Coast, and eventually to Brown, because he found the open curriculum attractive.
It was as an undergraduate in MCM that Haynes was exposed to filmmakers he would find deeply influential. In particular, Haynes singled out the movies of Douglas Sirk, Nicholas Roeg and the German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Like Haynes' "Far from Heaven," Fassbinder's 1974 film "Fear Eats the Soul" was directly inspired by Sirk's melodramatic tearjerker "All that Heaven Allows," which used gender roles and the domestic environment to critique suburban contentment.
Haynes acknowledged that, while "Far from Heaven" is most overt in its references to Douglas Sirk, he agreed with Silverman's comment that many of his own films have had a strong melodramatic edge.
One of Haynes' first student productions was "Assassins: A Film Concerning Rimbaud," which explored the life of the French poet Arthur Rimbaud. Set during Rimbaud's lifetime, Haynes remarked that "it was really fun to make Providence look like 1870s Paris." Following his graduation from Brown, Haynes filmed "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story," a movie that depicted, with Barbie dolls as actors, the singer Karen Carpenter's struggle with anorexia. "‘Superstar' got a lot of attention in the media and was being written about a lot," Haynes said, which helped it to get distribution in theaters. After the controversy and success of that film, Haynes formed Apparatus Films, a production company that included fellow Brown graduate Christine Vachon '83.
Created during the beginnings of the independent film movement, Apparatus financed a number of films, including Haynes' own "Poison," a movie based on the writings of Jean Genet that dealt explicitly with the AIDS epidemic. That film also reflected Haynes' involvement in the AIDS awareness organization ACT UP.
"I can remember being in New York and seeing the "Silence = Death" posters everywhere, and that really piqued my interest. I saw something in the discourse about AIDS that really needed to be interrupted. I felt there had to be some sort of conduit for that intervention, and at that time it was Jean Genet," he said.
"Poison" was a landmark in the New Queer Cinema of the 1980s and 1990s, creating controversy because it received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, but was released with an NC-17 rating.
Haynes also discussed his 1998 film "Velvet Goldmine," a dark portrayal of the glam-rock era in London. When asked whether he talked with any glam-rock musicians about the film, Haynes recalled a phone conversation he had with punk rocker Iggy Pop. In Haynes' film Ewan McGregor played a character loosely based on him. "Iggy was like, ‘Yeah, I saw your film ‘Safe' the other night, man. It was a packed house, and you could have heard a pin drop,'" Haynes said. "Coming from Iggy Pop, that was a great compliment."
Additionally, after a year of being immersed in trivia about Velvet Goldmine, we're experiencing a bit of a withdrawal – perhaps you minskys are too. Here's a little 'methadone' in the form of more films to explore. During the course of the year we've mentioned many films that have left their mark on Velvet Goldmine or influenced Todd Haynes. In his own words, Todd explains some of his Early Cinematic Influences (from Cinema Papers, December 1998). This fascinating article provides some inspiration when we're thinking what to rent or add to our Netflix list.
American independent filmmaker Todd Haynes, the man responsible for Poison (1991), Safe (1995) and, most recently, Velvet Goldmine, talks about early cinematic experiences and influences on his own work:
The films that influenced me as a kid were films that kids are taken to see when they're my age. The first one was Mary Poppins [Robert Stevenson, 1964], my very first movie when I was three, and I almost had a psychotic obsession for Mary Poppins. There's probably a lot about that film, and a lot about film in general, that really deeply affected me, and made me respond by wanting to create things in response to it. I would draw pictures and play or perform the songs; relive the experience in all these different ways. It definitely inspired me creatively, and I guess that's my point; something about seeing films at that age got my motor running. And that would continue; there'd be certain films that would just really penetrate me.
It's funny, a lot of them were English in theme. The next one was Romeo and Juliet, Franco Zeffirelli's film [1968]. I went through a massively romantic period; I was a little Shakespeare freak as a kid. I was probably so insufferable to be around, so pretentious.
Later, films that definitely hooked me were films that probably came out of the 1960s drug culture, experience movies like Performance [Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, 1970], Women in Love [Ken Russell, 1969], A Clockwork Orange [Stanley Kubrick, 1971], and 2001: A Space Odyssey [Stanley Kubrick, 1968].
They were films that I thought a lot about in making Velvet Goldmine, because they invited you to go somewhere you'd never seen before. I think that was responding to a youth culture that wanted that and created that experience. They really wanted to be surprised and challenged, and, unfortunately, I don't feel like those kinds of films are made so much today. I was hoping that Velvet Goldmine might rekindle some of those feelings of mystery, and excite the imaginations of young people that see it.
I loved Hollywood films like Citizen Kane [Orson Welles, 1941] and Fritz Lang, but, moving into college, I would discover Fassbinder's work, who remains my most favourite filmmaker. His Angst essen Seeie auf [Fear Eats the Soul, 1973] is my favourite of his films.
There are so many, and they're so different and varied, and the whole body of work is so astounding. But I was still very much into Hitchcock and Douglas Sirk. I also saw Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles [Chantal Akerman, 1975] in college; that remains a real pivotal film for me, as well. I love Nashville [Robert Altman, 1975], Lola Montés [Max Ophüls, 1955] and also a lesser known film by Max Ophüls, The Reckless Moment [1949], with John Bennett and James Mason, an amazing internal melodrama that I particularly adore.
I have unintellectual passion for a film like Picnic [Joshua Logan, 1955], which has a profound effect on me; I start sobbing from the opening credits through to the end. It definitely touches me in some bizarre way. I also love certain experimental films like Blow Job by Andy Warhol [1963] and Un Chant d'Amour [A Song of Love, 1950] by Jean Genet.
~
The following article from the Brown [University] Daily Herald of Monday, April 14, 2003, gives us a little more insight to Todd Haynes:
Director Todd Haynes, [class of] '85, talks on his upbringing and artistic influences during Q&A session Friday
By Dan Poulson and Adam Hundt
A strong interest in feminism and melodrama contributed to the creation of his film "Far from Heaven," director Todd Haynes '85 explained in a question and answer session held Friday in Upper Salomon.
Moderated by Department of Modern Culture and Media Chair Michael Silverman, the discussion covered Haynes' first filmmaking experiences and the career path he took after graduating from Brown, which eventually led to a Best Screenplay Oscar nod for "Far from Heaven." The discussion was one of several weekend-long events sponsored by the MCM Department that dealt with Haynes and his work.
The Q&A opened with a screening of Haynes' 1993 short film "Dottie Gets Spanked," the story of a young boy and his obsession with a sitcom actress. As the director later explained, some of the personal touches in that film came directly from Haynes' own experiences while growing up.
"The first movie I ever saw was ‘Mary Poppins,'" he said. "And I became absolutely obsessed with it. I felt a very strong need to respond to it, in some way creatively. Many of the children's drawings you see in ‘Dottie Gets Spanked' are my own from that time." He added that the use of color in that film in part influenced the color schemes in "Far from Heaven."
Haynes also talked about his upbringing in Sherman Oaks, Calif., and his introduction to filmmaking at the progressive Oakwood School. It was there he became friends with the actresses Elizabeth McGovern ("Ordinary People") and Jennifer Jason Leigh ("Fast Times at Ridgemont High") and appeared in student plays with both of them. "I played the Romeo to her Juliet, the Death to her Everyman," Haynes said of Leigh.
While at Oakwood, Haynes also turned one of his creative writing assignments into an experimental super-8 short film, "The Suicide." With help from "some friends of friends," Haynes and a companion were able to get a chance to edit the film in a professional editing studio, he said.
But despite Haynes' childhood proximity to Hollywood, he said he never felt the need to pursue a filmmaking career there. "I didn't really appreciate the Hollywood studio hierarchy. I was really turned off by the idea of climbing the studio ladder," he said. His fascination with New York during his childhood visits there convinced Haynes to go to college on the East Coast, and eventually to Brown, because he found the open curriculum attractive.
It was as an undergraduate in MCM that Haynes was exposed to filmmakers he would find deeply influential. In particular, Haynes singled out the movies of Douglas Sirk, Nicholas Roeg and the German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Like Haynes' "Far from Heaven," Fassbinder's 1974 film "Fear Eats the Soul" was directly inspired by Sirk's melodramatic tearjerker "All that Heaven Allows," which used gender roles and the domestic environment to critique suburban contentment.
Haynes acknowledged that, while "Far from Heaven" is most overt in its references to Douglas Sirk, he agreed with Silverman's comment that many of his own films have had a strong melodramatic edge.
One of Haynes' first student productions was "Assassins: A Film Concerning Rimbaud," which explored the life of the French poet Arthur Rimbaud. Set during Rimbaud's lifetime, Haynes remarked that "it was really fun to make Providence look like 1870s Paris." Following his graduation from Brown, Haynes filmed "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story," a movie that depicted, with Barbie dolls as actors, the singer Karen Carpenter's struggle with anorexia. "‘Superstar' got a lot of attention in the media and was being written about a lot," Haynes said, which helped it to get distribution in theaters. After the controversy and success of that film, Haynes formed Apparatus Films, a production company that included fellow Brown graduate Christine Vachon '83.
Created during the beginnings of the independent film movement, Apparatus financed a number of films, including Haynes' own "Poison," a movie based on the writings of Jean Genet that dealt explicitly with the AIDS epidemic. That film also reflected Haynes' involvement in the AIDS awareness organization ACT UP.
"I can remember being in New York and seeing the "Silence = Death" posters everywhere, and that really piqued my interest. I saw something in the discourse about AIDS that really needed to be interrupted. I felt there had to be some sort of conduit for that intervention, and at that time it was Jean Genet," he said.
"Poison" was a landmark in the New Queer Cinema of the 1980s and 1990s, creating controversy because it received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, but was released with an NC-17 rating.
Haynes also discussed his 1998 film "Velvet Goldmine," a dark portrayal of the glam-rock era in London. When asked whether he talked with any glam-rock musicians about the film, Haynes recalled a phone conversation he had with punk rocker Iggy Pop. In Haynes' film Ewan McGregor played a character loosely based on him. "Iggy was like, ‘Yeah, I saw your film ‘Safe' the other night, man. It was a packed house, and you could have heard a pin drop,'" Haynes said. "Coming from Iggy Pop, that was a great compliment."