"Carol" honored in Cannes for breaking new ground
By Robert Goldrich
Earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival, the independently sponsored 2015 Queer Palm award—recognizing the best in LGBT-themed films and other broadly defined unconventional work—was bestowed upon the Todd Haynes-directed Carol (The Weinstein Company), the feature adapted from the Patricia Highsmith novel “The Price of Salt” that tells the story of two women who fall in love in New York circa the early 1950s. With standout performances by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, Carol was described by Queer Palm judges as being “more than a movie; it’s a moment in history—the first time a love story between two women was treated with the respect and significance of any other mainstream cinematic romance.” The judges’ statement went on to cite Carol’s “heartbreaking performances, stunning mise-en-scene, and overall mastery of craft.”
Carol also impressed in the mainstream Cannes competition, nominated for the Palme d’Or and winning Best Actress honors for Mara (in a tie with Emmanuelle Bercot for Mon roi). Haynes is no stranger to this Cannes inner circle of honors, winning Best Artistic Contribution back in 1998 for Velvet Goldmine, which additionally was nominated for the Palme d’Or.
Haynes told SHOOT that Carol had “a long gestation period before I came on board.” He recalled first reading the novel and the script in May 2013. “I was really taken by everything about it. Cate Blanchett was already attached to it. Sandy Powell was attached as costume designer. Cate and Sandy were amazing draws for me. I found the novel to be something special and unique, the only one outside Highsmith’s oeuvre of crime novels. It’s simply an incredibly compelling story of two women falling in love. Some of the notes I gave Phyllis [screenwriter Nagy] were about restoring a little bit of the tensions and anxieties that I had found in the novel. In trying to get the project financed earlier, the screenplay had defangled some of what was in the novel a bit. Phyllis and I wound up with a great working relationship.”
The cited attraction of working with Blanchett and Powell represented return engagements for Haynes. Powell served as costume designer on writer/director Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine (1998) and Far From Heaven (2002). Powell is well known for her collaborations with Martin Scorsese which include The Aviator, Gangs of New York, Shutter Island, Hugo, The Departed and The Wolf of Wall Street.
Blanchett delivered an acclaimed performance in I’m Not There, director/co-writer Haynes’ biographical musical film inspired by the life and work of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Portraying one of Dylan’s seven public personas, Blanchett won the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as the 2007 Venice Film Festival honor for Best Actress. Additionally Venice Fest judges bestowed the Special Jury Prize upon the film.
Period piece
Beyond doing justice to the love story itself, Haynes and his compatriots had to deal with another creative challenge posed by Carol. “Creating this specific New York City of the early 1950s was a hurdle we had to clear,” related Haynes. “It’s a New York that’s far different from the one I explored in Far From Heaven which took place later in the ‘50s. For the time period in Carol, New York was part of a different desolate time, a time of transition, marked by the scars of finding a post-war identity. The color palette and historical material we discovered registered this unique sort of dirty, sagging, sad place where anxieties could be felt—which was important as the environment where this romance and its related anxieties were unfolding.”
Haynes cited such collaborators as cinematographer Edward Lachman, ASC, and production designer Judy Becker as instrumental in capturing the spirit of NYC in the early ‘50s. “This was the fourth project Ed and I made together—all calling for an incredibly new vernacular each time,” said Haynes. DP Lachman earlier lensed the features Far From Heaven and I’m Not There for Haynes, as well as the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce.
Becker served as production designer on I’m Not There, and Haynes welcomed reuniting with her on Carol. “Judy captured the feeling of a country still finding itself, prior to when Eisenhower had taken office [as President of the United States],” assessed Haynes. “She brought a lot to setting Carol as a love story during that time period.”
Among the other key Carol collaborators acknowledged by Haynes were editor Affonso Goncalves and composer Carter Burwell. “I feel so lucky to have found Fonsie [editor Goncalves],” affirmed Haynes. “Previously I worked for many years with my partner, editor Jim Lyons who passed away [in 2007]. Affonso is a fantastic guy, so smart about his work and understands every aspect of the language of film. He has such a keenness for music. He has such sensitivity, is fast at finding useful stuff. We play with temp tracks and he does a great job of helping you to determine what the rhythm of scenes should be with good source material from a music standpoint.”
Goncalves is known for his work on such films as Winter’s Bone and Beasts of the Southern Wild, as well as the HBO drama series True Detective and Haynes’ miniseries Mildred Pierce. For the latter, Goncalves earned an ACE Eddie Award nomination. True Detective scored Goncalves an Emmy nom for Outstanding Editing for a Single-Camera Drama Series.
As for composer Burwell, he too worked on Mildred Pierce with his score securing an Emmy nomination. Burwell did additional music for Velvet Goldmine, marking his first collaboration with Haynes.
“Everybody we brought together for Carol was invested in a level of excellence—reflected in all the actors and all the creative departments,” said Haynes. “That was important because the budget was limited, which is the case these days increasingly for dramatic films—even more for films starring female or lesbian characters. However, having limited money is not new to me. It often forces creative problem solving, making you really look at what the core and most important aspects of the story are—and making that story, style and point of view your starting point. Everyone worked hard to make Carol come together.”
Oscar/Emmy nominee
The initial plaudits for Carol add to an awards lineage for Haynes who incidentally is handled by Moxie Pictures for commercials and branded content.
Haynes was a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nominee in 2003 for Far From Heaven, which he directed as well as wrote. That same year he won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Director on the strength of Far From Heaven. Haynes over the years has been in good Spirits, starting with nominations in 1992 for Best First Feature and Best Director on the basis of Poison followed by Independent Spirit noms in 1996 for Best Director and Best Screenplay for Safe, another Best Director nod in ‘99 for Velvet Goldmine, the Best Director win in ‘03 for Far From Heaven, and one more Best Director nom in ‘08 for I’m Not There. Also in ‘08, I’m Not There won the Spirit’s coveted Robert Altman Award.
Haynes’ feature directorial debut Poison won the Grand Jury Prize-Dramatic at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival. And on the television front, Haynes personally scored three Emmy nominations for the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce—for Outstanding Directing, Outstanding Writing (shared with writer Jonathan Raymond) for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special, and Outstanding Miniseries or Movie. Mildred Pierce amassed a total of 21 Emmy nominations, winning five.
Table of Contents:
Lenny Abrahamson
Scott Cooper
Cary Joji Fukunaga
Brendan Gibbons
Lauren Greenfield
Todd Haynes
Ridley Scott
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