The Cinema Of Todd Haynes

From the trenches of independent American film of the 1990s, Todd Haynes has emerged in the 21st century as one of the world's most audacious filmmakers. In a series of smart, informative essays, this book traces his career from its roots in New Queer Cinema to the Oscar-nomainated 'Far From Heaven.

Examines popular films made in Hollywood by European directors, offering a fresh take on the much-debated issue of the "great divide" between modernism and mass culture.

Rob Whites highly readable book, which includes a major new interview with Haynes, is the first comprehensive study of the directors work.

For three decades, award-winning independent filmmaker Todd Haynes, who emerged in the early 1990s as a foundational figure in New Queer Cinema, has gained critical recognition for his outsider perspective. Today, Haynes is widely known for bringing women’s stories to the screen. Analyzing Haynes’s films including Safe (1995), Velvet Goldmine (1998), Far from Heaven (2002), and Carol (2015), as well as his unauthorized Karen Carpenter biopic, Superstar (1987), and the television miniseries Mildred Pierce (2011), the contributors to Reframing Todd Haynes reassess his work in light of his long-standing feminist commitments and his exceptional career as a director of women’s films. They present multiple perspectives on Haynes’s film and television work and on his role as an artist-activist who draws on academic theorizations of gender and cinema. The volume illustrates the influence of feminist theory on Haynes’s aesthetic vision, most evident in his persistent interest in the political and formal possibilities afforded by the genre of the woman’s film. The contributors contend that no consideration of Haynes’s work can afford to ignore the crucial place of feminism within it. Contributors. Danielle Bouchard, Nick Davis, Jigna Desai, Mary R. Desjardins, Patrick Flanery, Theresa L. Geller, Rebecca M. Gordon, Jess Issacharoff, Lynne Joyrich, Bridget Kies, Julia Leyda, David E. Maynard, Noah A. Tsika, Patricia White, Sharon Willis

A pioneer of the New Queer Cinema, Todd Haynes (b. 1961) is a leading American independent filmmaker. Whether working with talking dolls in a homemade short (Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story) or with Oscar-winning performers in an HBO miniseries (Mildred Pierce), Haynes has garnered numerous awards and nominations and an expanding fan base for his provocative and engaging work. In all his films, Haynes works to portray the struggles of characters in conflict with the norms of society. Many of his movies focus on female characters, drawing inspiration from genres such as the woman’s film and the disease movie (Far from Heaven and Safe); others explore male characters who transgress sexual and other social conventions (Poison and Velvet Goldmine). The writer-director has drawn on figures such as Karen Carpenter, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Bob Dylan in his meditations on American and British music, celebrity, and the meaning of identity. His 2007 movie I’m Not There won a number of awards and was notable for Haynes’s decision to cast six different actors (one of whom was a woman) to portray Dylan. Gathering interviews from 1989 through 2012, this collection presents a range of themes, films, and moments in the burgeoning career of Todd Haynes.

Through intimate encounters with the life and work of five contemporary gay male directors, this book develops a framework for interpreting what it means to make a gay film or adopt a gay point of view. For most of the twentieth century, gay characters and gay themes were both underrepresented and misrepresented in mainstream cinema. Since the 1970s, however, a new generation of openly gay directors has turned the closet inside out, bringing a poignant immediacy to modern cinema and popular culture. Combining his experienced critique with in-depth interviews, Emanuel Levy draws a clear timeline of gay filmmaking over the past four decades and its particular influences and innovations. While recognizing the "queering" of American culture that resulted from these films, Levy also takes stock of the ensuing conservative backlash and its impact on cinematic art, a trend that continues alongside a growing acceptance of homosexuality. He compares the similarities and differences between the "North American" attitudes of Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, and John Waters and the "European" perspectives of Pedro Almodóvar and Terence Davies, developing a truly expansive approach to gay filmmaking and auteur cinema.

Coined in the early 1990s to describe a burgeoning film movement, 'New Queer Cinema' has turned the attention of film theorists, students and audiences to the proliferation of intelligent, stylish and daring work by lesbian and gay filmmakers within independent cinema, and to the proliferation of 'queer' images and themes within the mainstream. But what constituted New Queer Cinema then and now? And was it political gains, cultural momentum or market forces that determined its evolution? New Queer Cinema is divided into sections on the definition, the filmmakers, the geography, and the spectator of New Queer Cinema. Chapters address the pivotal directors (e.g. Todd Haynes and Gregg Araki) and the salient films (e.g. Paris is Burning and Boys Don't Cry) but also non-mainstream and non-Anglo-American work (e.g. experimental film and third cinema). With a critical eye to its uneasy relationship to the mainstream, the volume explores the aesthetic, socio-cultural, political and, necessarily, commercial investments of New Queer Cinema. This book, the first full-length study of the subject, offers the definitive guide to New Queer Cinema combining indispensable discussions of its central issues with exciting new work by key writers. Features*Provides a definitive introduction to New Queer Cinema (NQC)*Clear structure with each section addressing a key topic in the study of NQC*Themes covered include genre, gender and race, politics, media, and the relationship between NQC and the mainstream.

B. Ruby Rich designated a brand new genre, the New Queer Cinema (NQC), in her groundbreaking article in the Village Voice in 1992. This movement in film and video was intensely political and aesthetically innovative, made possible by the debut of the camcorder, and driven initially by outrage over the unchecked spread of AIDS. The genre has grown to include an entire generation of queer artists, filmmakers, and activists. As a critic, curator, journalist, and scholar, Rich has been inextricably linked to the New Queer Cinema from its inception. This volume presents her new thoughts on the topic, as well as bringing together the best of her writing on the NQC. She follows this cinematic movement from its origins in the mid-1980s all the way to the present in essays and articles directed at a range of audiences, from readers of academic journals to popular glossies and weekly newspapers. She presents her insights into such NQC pioneers as Derek Jarman and Isaac Julien and investigates such celebrated films as Go Fish, Brokeback Mountain, Itty Bitty Titty Committee, and Milk. In addition to exploring less-known films and international cinemas (including Latin American and French films and videos), she documents the more recent incarnations of the NQC on screen, on the web, and in art galleries.