Todd Haynes
Todd Haynes
Todd Haynesis an American independent film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is considered a pioneer of the New Queer Cinema movement of filmmaking that emerged in the early 1990s. Haynes first gained public attention with his controversial short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, which chronicles singer Karen Carpenter's tragic life and death, using Barbie dolls as actors. Haynes had not obtained proper licensing to use the Carpenters' music, prompting a lawsuit from Richard Carpenter, whom the film portrayed in...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth2 January 1961
CityEncino, CA
CountryUnited States of America
It's absurd: half the movie audience are women, but Hollywood bosses are still aiming for men who are 20.
I'm drawn to female characters, not all of them are strong characters. I think I'm drawn to female characters partly because they don't have as easy or as obvious a relationship to power in society, and so they suffer under social constraints or have to maneuver within them in ways men sometimes don't, or are unconscious about, or have certain liberties that are invisible to them.
Feminist theory has left an indelible mark on my own critical—and creative—thinking . . . For me, everything I questioned about what it meant to be a man – and how much my sexuality would perpetually challenge those meanings—could be found in arguments posed by feminists. What can I say? I identified.
Making a film is so scary, and there's such a kind of void that you're working from initially. I mean, you can have all the ideas and be as prepared as possible, but you're also still bringing people together and saying, 'Trust me,' even when you don't necessarily trust every element.
It's very funny because every time I make a movie, and I've heard this re-echoed by other filmmakers and actors I have worked with, you kind of feel like you're naked again. You have to figure it all out from scratch, as if you had never done it before.
You can be a smarty-pants director, but that won't matter if the movie doesn't work emotionally as well as intellectually.
Like the music and the period, I wanted 'I'm Not There' to be fun and full of emotions, desires and experiments that were thrilling and dangerous.
I'm drawn to female characters; not all of them are strong characters.
I think when I was about 6 or 7, I would have said I wanted to be an actor and an artist.
I think all my films can be enjoyed. In fact, they've often surprised me with how they're received.
I love how 'melodrama' is a denigrated term - a lower-class citizen to other genres. And yet that's what life is, man.
There is no single approach that actors take to their craft. And the best thing you learn is that you have to really listen and respect each actor's own process and own method, and that takes a kind of delicate, non-imposing patience and openness, I think, to get the very best out of the people you work with.
There are always things I have to remove. I might look at a shot for five months, when somebody new to the screening room will say, 'hey, there's a modern air conditioner in that window.' It's a process.
I don't pay attention to the 'marginalizers.' They simply don't have any impact anymore, on where we're headed or what the law is. I'm not worried about gay people in America right now, as opposed to their status in other countries. The change here was remarkable and swift, which was awesome, and we've witnessed that change right before our eyes.