A Quote by Todd Haynes
I came to this project and 'Far from Heaven' from completely different vantage points. 'Heaven' was of course about the Douglas Sirk films of that period, with the very specific cinematic language and style of melodrama. With 'Carol,' it was presented to me already packaged, with Cate Blanchett attached and Phyllis Nagy's script complete - when it came to me it had a long history and pre-history.
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Once the script is done, I put it aside for a month. I start thinking of all the films that have influenced me, which I have liked for different reasons, and not necessarily the look, but films that have moved me. Some very strange films came to mind.
My name at birth was Carol Joan Klein. It would take me five decades to appreciate my surname and the history that came with it. Along the way, I would add an 'e' to Carol and acquire several more surnames.
I can't honestly say where the inspiration for my work came from. I think it came from reading. It came from texts, from Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, it came from, you know, Jean-Paul Sartre. These are the ideas that got me worked up and inspired. It wasn't so much the visual things that inspired me. Although, of course, there were plenty of painters in history that I admired all the way from Brueghel to Goya, to Picasso - because everything visual stimulates me.
According to the bible, Heaven is completely perfect and Hell is completely evil. In Heaven, in order to keep everything completely perfect, everyone in it would have to follow a long, specific set of rules for it to be perfect. Heaven is prison. In Hell, everyone is already evil there, so no rules need to be set to make it completely evil. Hell is freedom.
I suppose the short chapters and differing narrative points of view are quite "cinematic" devices, which came very naturally to me.
I'm a big Cate Blanchett fan. I'm ready. I'm coming! I mean, come on, I am a gay girl; I want what I want. I want to come to Australia and marry Cate Blanchett. Just let everybody know for me.
One of the first places I was ever recognized after 'The Office' came out was at Target in Los Angeles. Someone came up to me, and she said, 'Are you Phyllis from 'The Office?'' We were in different aisles, but she had recognized my voice.
K-2 in winter is something people had thought about for a long time, but had never accomplished. For me, more satisfaction came from winter K2 because it was done in a different manner and style, a message of team unification rather than just me climbing for myself.
I've seen a lot of people come out of Carol City, but I had this distinct vision for Carol City, just me coming out of there, because my music is so different from anybody else who came out of there.
I came from advertising. For me it's about protecting the director's vision. That's always the goal. There's keeping things on budget and on time and dealing with selling the movie so that to me is a focus. But also it's about serving the script. We are genre filmmakers, those are the films we love to make, so my perspective is a little different.
I get people to this day - I won my title 25 years ago - saying how wonderful a time they had during that dark period in our history when they came to watch me fight.
When one is the type of writer who cares about the meaning of the historically specific setting, the history itself is not something that I would call backdrop. It's not window dressing for a timeless relationship about love and betrayal. For me, the setting and the specific history are active co-agents with me in trying to form the novel.
When the Spirit came to Moses, the plagues came upon Egypt, and he had power to destroy men's lives; when the Spirit came upon Elijah, fire came down from heaven; when the Spirit came upon Gideon, no man could stand before him; and when it came upon Joshua, he moved around the city of Jericho and the whole city fell into his hands; but when the Spirit came upon the Son of Man, He gave His life; He healed the broken-hearted.
In 1917 European history, in the old sense, came to an end. World history began. It was the year of Lenin and Woodrow Wilson, both of whom repudiated the traditional standards of political behaviour. Both preached Utopia, Heaven on Earth. It was the moment of birth for our contemporary world.
Of course there are many films about the period of Fascism itself but I don't know of any about that period beforehand. But it wasn't that specific fact that they weren't there that got me to think about this in the first place. It's not what led to the basic idea for the film, although it became apparent when I began to think about it.
What appeals to me? There are things, points of view, uses of the language, habits of dress, ways of thought and believing that came to me from my grandparents and came to them from theirs. Things that are of good use in any situation, no matter what the future may hold.
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