Todd Haynes

1 sketch, 6 claims, and 4 fun items attributed to them. What was said about them.

Personality, episode by episode

The Big Picture: Best Picture Power Rankings and a ‘Poor Things’ Deep Dive. Plus: Julianne Moore and Todd Haynes! (guest)

Obsessed with languages of film, melodrama and artifice that still lands as real emotion, and leaving spaces for audiences to fill in. Loves collaborators with strong intuition; praises Melton and Moore. Admires Poor Things and Past Lives.

Stances

  • Films are discourses in languages we speak without knowing
  • Melodrama is real emotion in artificial form
  • May December is about the transgressions embedded in narrative

Humor: Dry and playful about his own demands on actors, e.g. telling Melton not to fuck it up.

In their words

  • “it's not until you turn the camera onto the subject.” (1:51:30)
  • “I will forever be fascinated by the interplay between what feels absolutely authentic in that and what is completely and lovingly artificial in the way it's presented.” (2:18:56)

Their shows' recurring bits

Running bits, not opinions; a critic read aloud is cited, not present.

The Big Picture

Their claims

Showing 1–6 of 6 claims.

  1. industry (financing): Safe → Lindsay Law. The blurred audition tape was shown to American Playhouse's Lindsay Law while closing financing.
    “Uh, Lindsay Law from American Playhouse, I believe.”
    The Big Picture · Best Picture Power Rankings and a ‘Poor Things’ Deep Dive. Plus: Julianne Moore and Todd Haynes! · 1:50:07 · Todd Haynes (0.90 sure it was them)
  2. unmapped (creative counterpart): Julianne Moore → Todd Haynes. Haynes says Moore's performance in Safe completed the film he had imagined.
    “you find this counterpart, you know, this creative counterpart in your in your dreams.”
    The Big Picture · Best Picture Power Rankings and a ‘Poor Things’ Deep Dive. Plus: Julianne Moore and Todd Haynes! · 1:52:07 · Todd Haynes (0.90 sure it was them)
  3. lineage (original vs derived): Far from Heaven → Safe. Haynes says Safe and Far from Heaven were original stories but Far from Heaven derives much from other movies.
    “safe was an original story and far from heaven was the original story, but it derives so much from other movies as well.”
    The Big Picture · Best Picture Power Rankings and a ‘Poor Things’ Deep Dive. Plus: Julianne Moore and Todd Haynes! · 1:55:37 · Todd Haynes (0.90 sure it was them)
  4. craft (craft): April → May December. Haynes recalls a Q and A with April, May December's costume designer, who developed color and clothing choices with Julianne Moore.
    “I had a great, uh, Q and A kit with April the other day, who was our coffee designer on, on, on May, December”
    The Big Picture · Best Picture Power Rankings and a ‘Poor Things’ Deep Dive. Plus: Julianne Moore and Todd Haynes! · 2:00:37 · Todd Haynes (0.80 sure it was them)
  5. unmapped (artifice as method): Far from Heaven → Velvet Goldmine. Haynes uses artificial languages for real stories (Dylan, Velvet Goldmine); Far from Heaven is fiction in an artificial melodrama mode, yet the emotions are real.
    “Far from heaven is not a, based on a true story and the mode is highly artificial in the melodramatic domestic dramas that are inspired by the 1950s.”
    The Big Picture · Best Picture Power Rankings and a ‘Poor Things’ Deep Dive. Plus: Julianne Moore and Todd Haynes! · 2:17:52 · Todd Haynes (0.90 sure it was them)
  6. programming (recommendation): Todd Haynes → Poor Things. Haynes recently saw Poor Things and loved it, singling out Mark Ruffalo.
    “I just saw poor things recently and man, I loved it.”
    The Big Picture · Best Picture Power Rankings and a ‘Poor Things’ Deep Dive. Plus: Julianne Moore and Todd Haynes! · 2:19:43 · Todd Haynes (0.65 sure it was them)

Their fun items

Showing 1–4 of 4 fun items.

  1. fun, about Safe (Julianne Moore audition): Moore's agent said she would not read; she asked what to read, did three scenes. The taped audition had an autofocus malfunction that never found her, like Carol White, but her voice sold the financiers.
    “there was some malfunction with the camera where the auto focus never found Julianne, which is such a sort of statement on the character of Carol White, who can't find herself in the story.”
    The Big Picture · Best Picture Power Rankings and a ‘Poor Things’ Deep Dive. Plus: Julianne Moore and Todd Haynes! · 1:49:45 · Todd Haynes (0.90 sure it was them)
  2. fun, about May December (tone): Haynes says laughter is one place where the characters' protective narratives break, and tells viewers the tone is on them.
    “It's on you. You have a role to play here to like navigate this and it and it might be fun.”
    The Big Picture · Best Picture Power Rankings and a ‘Poor Things’ Deep Dive. Plus: Julianne Moore and Todd Haynes! · 2:03:48 · Todd Haynes (0.80 sure it was them)
  3. fun, about May December (Charles Melton): Haynes told Melton, who carries the last third in long unhidden takes, not to blow it; says he is a technical actor with comic timing.
    “There's no hiding place in these long takes.”
    The Big Picture · Best Picture Power Rankings and a ‘Poor Things’ Deep Dive. Plus: Julianne Moore and Todd Haynes! · 2:07:07 · Todd Haynes (0.80 sure it was them)
  4. fun, about May December (why 2015): Haynes set it in 2015 simply to keep Trump-era politics from intruding on a Savannah family story.
    “I just wanted to remove it from the, there are recent sort of intensely partisan Trump Trump era.”
    The Big Picture · Best Picture Power Rankings and a ‘Poor Things’ Deep Dive. Plus: Julianne Moore and Todd Haynes! · 2:11:06 · Todd Haynes (0.80 sure it was them)