Todd Haynes Talks Mark Ruffalo Collaboration, Making ‘Carol’ & Banned Film ‘Superstar’ — Berlin

deadline.com:

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.

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. “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.