Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015)

[Luke M]

Stunning trailer. Just beautiful.

[Ribs]

Full trailer

[Jeff]

I loved everything about this. Even though I've seen and enjoyed Rooney Mara in just about everything she's done since The Social Network, she feels like a revelation and a discovery here. She's somehow both the addled ingenue and effortlessly coquettish. She's perfect and beguiling. Blanchett is just as good in a completely different register -- steely and confident, with a fragile humanity she carefully hides just below the surface.

I think this is indeed Todd Haynes' best work. Every shot is so meticulously composed, but it never feels fussy. Like my other favorite film this year, Bridge of Spies, the director and all of his usual crew are at the very top of their game. It's a welcome reminder of cinema's unique power to meld intelligent storytelling with expert craftsmanship and disparate artforms to create something magnificent. Ed Lachmann's Super 16 cinematography, Sandy Powell's amazing costumes, Judy Becker's production design, and Carter Burwell's magnificent score all make this one of the most genuinely transportive period films I've ever seen.

[Dylan]

I haven't seen Carol yet (it won't be playing in my neck of the woods until Christmas), but I absolutely love John Waters' thumbnail review from his best films of 2015 list:

Maybe the only way to be transgressive these days is to be shockingly tasteful. This Lana Turner–meets–Audrey Hepburn lipstick-lesbian melodrama is so old-fashioned I felt like I was one year old after watching it. That’s almost reborn.

[Altair]

This is the film I wanted when I saw Far from Heaven - not a pastiche of Sirk, but a film Sirk himself could have made. Haynes has removed the ironic distance he maintained in that film to fully immerse himself in the material, creating in the process a trio of striking characters, played by Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett and Kyle Chandler. I expected the first two to be good, so it was Chandler who I was most surprised by: the estranged husband of Carol, he could easily heave veered into cartoon villainy, but the script refuses to demean him despite his terrible acts: he's a complex figure who, as an audience, we can understand if never sympathise with. Edward Lachman's 16mm cinematography is astonishing, capturing the textured tones of the 1950s perfectly - it feels, despite the gay subject matter (combined with profanity and sex), like a movie from the fifties, as if this is what Sirk or even King Vidor would make without the Hayes Code. Haynes had not won me over before this, but Carol is simply excellent, classical cinema.

[hearthesilence]

Wonderful film. I've been looking forward to this for a long time, but there was a bit of caution going in - despite the overwhelming praise it's gotten so far, there have been strong dissents, including one in cinema-scope and another by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky in a Cannes entry that turns out to be an idiotic dismissal. To be fair, I'm not convinced of the ending which plays like a left turn into a happy resolution, perhaps something demanded by the Weinsteins - up until that point, Haynes meticulously built a quiet but enormous tragedy.

[hearthesilence]

And as a Sleater-Kinney fan, I was pleasantly surprised to see Brownstein's name near the start of the opening credits, only to be puzzled at its brevity. Did some searching, and here's what Brownstein said in an interview with Paste Magazine:

“From what I’ve heard, the first cut of that movie was very long, and they cut it way down. I mean, if people can even recognize me in the movie, I will be shocked. But it was a good experience. I feel like I went through a classic rite of passage that many people go through in terms of film where it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I was in that movie until they cut me right out of it.’”

[Altair]

I'm not convinced of the ending which plays like a left turn into a happy resolution, perhaps something demanded by the Weinsteins - up until that point, Haynes meticulously built a quiet but enormous tragedy.

I had a somewhat similar reaction, but apparently the ending just mirrors the conclusion in Highsmith's novel, which was important for being one of the first gay romances to have a positive ending. So I feel rather more lenient towards it now.

[Satori]

I haven't seen the film yet, but yes, the novel has a fairly happy ending for Carol and Therese, so Haynes is just being faithful to that. Book spoiler (which might be a movie spoiler too):

SpoilerShow

In the novel it does come about a bit suddenly, which is also what makes it so effective (the last hundred-ish pages of the novel put the couple through a ton of shit, so any ending suggesting they can be together is going to seem sudden). The way the book ends—them smiling and walking towards one another—is happy, but also doesn't disregard everything the couple is still going to have to deal with in the future- it is more the possibility of their future happiness that is being represented.

[hearthesilence]

Just out of curiosity, do print authors have that much autonomy? I know editors at publishing houses will try to cut material, but how often do they try to shape content? I always wondered how different it was from, say, the editorial changes one would anticipate for a film made in a studio setting,

[Satori]

Well, in the context of mid-century lesbian and gay pulp fiction, the "tragic ending" was often demanded by the publishers as a way of heading off censorship (the idea being that despite their ostensibly lurid subject matter [mostly their artwork] these books are not obscene because they present a moral lesson that being queer will lead to despair and unhappiness, etc.) Price of Salt is interesting in that it was not originally published within the context of the pulp paperback (it was originally a hardcover), although it was quickly released in that format. In fact, the first major "direct to paperback" lesbian novel, Spring Fire, was released the same year as Price of Salt, so the formula (including the tragic ending) didn't really exist yet. I think it was mostly within this pulp context that the tragic ending was necessary for their publication (as far as I know, Ann Bannon's 1959 I Am a Woman is the next lesbian pulp novel not to have an tragic ending, and it was very unique- the tragic ending was a staple of the formula throughout the 60s, too). The "literary" gay novel had much more autonomy, although those usually ended up with tragic endings, too (but this is obviously very common for almost all characters in literary fiction!)

[hearthesilence]

Fascinating stuff - maybe there's a degree of transgression in maintaining what today on a contemporary story would have been a commercial move? By changing it to a tragic ending, it arguably would have been reactionary - undoing Highsmith's intentions and giving in to the puritanical demands of that time.

[TMDaines]

I liked this but didn't love it. The film is technically brilliant, almost perfect in fact, yet I remained unmoved throughout. I admired it but I cannot say I embraced it. It was only listening to the Guardian film podcast on the way home that clarified many of my thoughts on the film.

Primarily, I struggled to believe in Carol and Therese's relationship as anything that could possibly be long lasting or positive long term. The relationship in my eyes had far more in common with the one in The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015), whereby an older stepfather takes advantage of his willing, pubescent stepdaughter, than any classic romance. Therese, to me at least, was presented as barely a woman. Rooney Mara is 30 in real life but she comes across as barely 20 here. Whilst the audience is invited to see the lovers' relationship as a blossoming romance, to me it was more akin to a puppy dog love for Therese that forms part of everyone's growing pains. I also couldn't help thinking that were Carol male, then the audience would struggle that much more to see their relationship in such a positive light. It's ironic, but to this modern viewer, the more unsettling aspect was not the sapphic relationship but the vast age difference or, better still, maturity, between an older adult and a young girl.

Part of the problem may have been that Blanchett is such a screen presence that she dominates the relationship and every scene that she's in. It's little wonder therefore that Mara comes across as a young waif in comparison. This is admittedly partly intentional and the couple do comprise of clear submissive and dominant roles, but it's too strong for the tone of the film. I think Blanchett is really good; Mara is passable and neither performance certainly comes across as weak, yet there is little chemistry between the two in my eyes, which is what the success of the film hinges upon.

So, it comes to the ending. Carol calls Therese back. Therese goes back to Carol. Poor Therese, she'll be heartbroken again in a few weeks, when the dom takes away her love once more.

Just to empathise, I did like the film, just didn't love it.

---

One other thing: my screening of this film was plagued with what appeared to be image noise. All pale coloured walls or close ups of pale skin were riddled with RGB noise. This was particular bad for the first 30 minutes or so before it subsided, but at the very least there were fewer problematic scenes/shots. I can't imagine this was intentional and certainly wasn't representative of film grain. Has anyone else noticed this?

Note*: Apparently the film was shot on Super 16, so I'm guessing that the heavy noise is grain failing to be resolved properly.

[StevenJ0001]

One other thing: my screening of this film was plagued with what appeared to be image noise. All pale coloured walls or close ups of pale skin were riddled with RGB noise. This was particular bad for the first 30 minutes or so before it subsided, but at the very least there were fewer problematic scenes/shots. I can't imagine this was intentional and certainly wasn't representative of film grain. Has anyone else noticed this?

Note*: Apparently the film was shot on Super 16, so I'm guessing that the heavy noise is grain failing to be resolved properly.

I saw the film twice in the space of three days (loved it so much) at two different theatres at ArcLight Hollywood, and the grain was plentiful--and absolutely gorgeous! Maybe there was a problem at your screening? What I saw was perfectly resolved 16mm grain: thick, speckled, and active, for want of more accurate terms. I was so thrilled with the projected image that I wanted to kiss the DCP!

[hearthesilence]

Francine Prose's film review for the New York Review of Books.

[movielocke]

I thought I probably would not like "Carol" since "Far From Heaven" doesn't hold up to repeat viewings, I was expecting the same overwrought approach. Instead, the film is riveting, elegant and confident throughout with stunning compositions, lighting and really lovely editing throughout. The women quite rightly get all the glowing notices, but I also thought Kyle chandler also gives a superb, and in my book award worthy performance, wringing everything out of a small and underwritten role. The two lead performances are wonderful and so different it's hard to pick a favorite, Mara is brilliant and Blanchett is perfect and they are definitely coleads. Ultimately, the film is about how love at twenty is an adventure and you wager your heart while love at forty is a risk and you wager your life.

[hearthesilence]

I strongly disagree re: Far From Heaven, which still knocks me out every time I see it, but that's veering off-topic. Here's Phil Coldiron on Carol in the latest issue of cinema scope.

[Dylan]

This is the greatest film I've seen in years. If Therese, as Carol says in the film, was "flung out of space," this film was flung out of a dream. As Jeff wrote above, it's transportive. Utterly so. The opening shot that plays under the credits - the camera pulling back from the sewer grill and gliding into the street and finally traveling up a building - does a mesmerizing job placing the audience into another era.

In fact, watching Carol rather felt like stepping out of a time machine. To me Carol doesn't look like a 1950s film or an homage to another filmmaker, nor does it strike me as nostalgic or eye-winking like a lot of mid-20th century period pieces are. It achieves a naturalism that I haven't quite seen before in a film about the 1950s. The classical and gently abstract film look of Ed Lachman's cinematography is an ode to 1950s still/fashion photography and Edward Hopper paintings, and the shot selections were consistently surprising to me all the way through. In every scene there were shots and cuts that took my breath away. There isn't another film I can think of that looks quite like this - it's new for Haynes, new for Lachman, and from my perspective new for cinema. Watching it is the cinematic equivalent of leafing through 1952 copies of Life, Look, and Vogue, but there is also a strong influence from mid-20th century painters. The style of Carol strikes me as an exciting and new kind of period filmmaking.

Carter Burwell's score has a sensitive main love theme that rises in a fittingly Elmer Bernstein-esque fashion, but - as I also pointed out after viewing those first posted clips from Carol back in May - the orchestration is strongly informed by Philip Glass (especially the "sawing strings," a Glass signature) and Michael Nyman. That's a sound I wouldn't have thought of for a 1950s period piece, but the "spiraling" effect much of the score has really works, and the love theme is beautiful.

I loved Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. They give the best performances I've seen in a film this decade.

There have been a few people writing about how

SpoilerShow

they don't believe that Therese and Carol are really in love. I believed that they loved each other, but even if I didn't & if I thought that their relationship was founded mostly by a purely sexual attraction, I don't think my impression of the film would be any different. Whether it's love or something more erotic than romantic, they want to be together and long to explore one another, things that are enormously difficult for them to do. The ending is indeed a refreshingly happy one, but we are also left with the knowledge that it's still ending in 1953. If Carol and Therese remain together, they will continue to face many more hardships throughout the decades. For me, there's too much genuine romance, fascination, and affection between them on the screen and in the writing to not think that they will remain together for a very long time after the film ends.

A great touch in the last scene was

SpoilerShow

the sudden switch to a handheld camera aesthetic, which was a great example of using cinematography to inform the emotional state of a character. The style of the rest of this film makes the sudden leap to handheld all the more thrilling when it happens. Therese ignores the restaurant host and enters the dining room, and once her and Carol lock eyes the camera shakes in every shot until it cuts to black. The device of having a film go to handheld after most (or every) shot had stillness reminds me of a couple other endings (a favorite of mine, Love With the Proper Stranger, among them), but never has this device enraptured me as much as it did here.

And as a Sleater-Kinney fan, I was pleasantly surprised to see Brownstein's name near the start of the opening credits, only to be puzzled at its brevity.

The screenplay is online and - among other deleted material - there are additional scenes with Brownstein's character, Genevieve.

SpoilerShow

The original script jumps back and forth between April, 1953 and December, 1952 throughout the course of the story (I think the structure of the final film works better). That party Therese is at toward the end of the film was originally something we would keep returning to and more happens at that party than what we see in the final film. The party was originally more drawn out to further emphasize on Therese being unable to socially connect with anybody there, and Genevieve seems to be there to show that there are other relationships Therese could pursue instead of Carol. In these scenes Genevieve is kind of an enigmatic presence who gradually zeros in on Therese, giving her a lot of attention and ultimately slipping Therese an address to where "a more intimate party" will be held later that night. I think the isolation of the party and how that leads to Therese going to find Carol is distilled just fine in the final film, but I would still very much like to see these deleted scenes and hope they surface as extras on the DVD/blu.

[mfunk9786]

I'm going to quote the often wrong and often kind of unbearable Bret Easton Ellis on this one because until I heard this, I hadn't been able to articulate my feelings on Carol:

I thought Carol was Todd Haynes yet again playing with his dolls in his dollhouse, fussing with their hair and their minks and their cigarette lighters – fetishizing everything and thinking through the material in an overly academic way. But the look of the movie is so unusually pretty at times that I can’t fully dismiss it.

It certainly wasn't revolutionary or life-altering to me in the way it was to some people I know, and I've still yet to really read an appreciation for anything aside from the film's visuals and performances - the actual material is flat and far too careful, coloring tightly inside the lines, a cinematic representation of Cate Blanchett's character's insistence upon keeping up a careful facade. Only this time, unlike in the superior Blue Jasmine, we're not invited to see behind it, because the filmmaker wouldn't think of blemishing his beautiful canvas with any abstraction, or any surprises.

I don't see this as being much different than a lot of movies that come out (often from the Weinsteins) during this time of year - it's a very ornate and objectively good period work that isn't interested in pushing any buttons that haven't been pushed to death already.

[Trees]

I have been very much looking forward to this film. In particular I was looking forward to the performances from Mara and Blanchett, which have won so much praise. Sadly, I was disappointed by this film. I found "Carol" to be melodramatic, paint-by-numbers Oscar bait, with overcooked performances.

7/10 and will not make my top 10 for the year. I would not really recommend this film.

[Trees]

I loved Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. They give the best performances I've seen in a film this decade.

Have you seen Blue is the Warmest Color? In my opinion, the two female performances in that film were far, far superior to Mara and Blanchett in Carol.

[hearthesilence]

...the actual material is flat and far too careful, coloring tightly inside the lines, a cinematic representation of Cate Blanchett's character's insistence upon keeping up a careful facade. Only this time, unlike in the superior Blue Jasmine, we're not invited to see behind it, because the filmmaker wouldn't think of blemishing his beautiful canvas with any abstraction, or any surprises.

I had the opposite reaction, and I think cinema-scope saw this too - it felt like watching a girl who's real entrance into a meaningful adult relationship was colored by the fact that there was no precedent that she knew of (or model in her life) for a gay relationship. She's basically had two kinds: 1) a hetero one where she was never as fully invested in emotionally but probably went through because throughout her entire life it seemed like the thing to do, 2) this new gay relationship which was certainly considered immoral and wrong, and yet this whole dynamic is so new to her, how do you navigate it? It comes off as terrifying and exhilarating, occasionally to the point of paralysis, and when the film finally gives in to the physicality of that attraction, they pay an awful price. Everything damn well had to be careful! I think you really have to put yourself in their shoes and wonder what it's like to have those feelings, having grown up in that life, and how lost and bewildered you'd probably feel despite having to remain collected in your day-to-day life when all this happens.

[Altair]

I loved Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. They give the best performances I've seen in a film this decade.

Have you seen Blue is the Warmest Color? In my opinion, the two female performances in that film were far, far superior to Mara and Blanchett in Carol.

To an extent I'd agree with you, in that if we're talking about lesbian romance as a genre, then Blue is the Warmest Colour is superior with rawer performances from its two leads; however, I doubt Haynes is at all interested in making a cinéma verité kind of film. He's far more interested in inverting the Sirkian paradigm that he's previously explored, going beyond what as permitted in the 1950s but still being in hailing distance of that aesthetic: thus, Blanchett's often restrained performance, the Super 16mm photography to emphasise the graininess of the image, and so on. It feels false to compare the two films, as their aims (and outcomes) are radically different.

[Kirkinson]

I loved Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. They give the best performances I've seen in a film this decade.

Have you seen Blue is the Warmest Color? In my opinion, the two female performances in that film were far, far superior to Mara and Blanchett in Carol.

It was his favorite film of 2013, so yes, he has!

And while I would stop short of calling Carol the best film I've seen in years or the two performances the best I've seen this decade, otherwise I am about as close to lining up perfectly with Dylan's reaction as I could be. I thought this was truly extraordinary, and I'm not even sure how I could begin to respond to criticism that Haynes' approach was "overly academic," as to me the film was such a nakedly emotional experience that if anything, I would expect people to criticize it as too simplistic or sentimental. Trees' reaction is more along the lines of what I would expect from the disappointed camp, especially the sort of viewer who is apt to use the term "melodramatic" like it's a self-evidently negative quality (of course it's perfectly fine if you just don't respond to melodrama).

Much has already been made of the production design and cinematography (Dylan's spoiler-tagged comments about the last scene are great, and I would also draw special attention to that dreamy montage in the car about halfway through the movie) but I want to focus for a second on Carter Burwell's score, which is married to the film so perfectly. I remember being a little disappointed when I first heard how heavy the Philip Glass influence was, not because I don't like that sound but only because it's been a cliche for end-of-the-year "literary" prestige dramas since the late 90s*, but after seeing the film I think it was a very effective choice. In a romantic drama where the romance is not allowed to be seen out in the open, the beating pulse of Burwell's score conveys much of the desire throbbing beneath the surface, always moving and rising without much resolution—

SpoilerShow

—until Carol & Therese finally consummate that desire, at which point the underlying rhythm is dropped and the melody is finally allowed to play out in full over much calmer, more serene and less turbulent accompaniment. This is echoed again at the close of the film, too, as the rhythmic figure returns while Therese searches for Carol at the party. They lock eyes, the film goes to black and to silence, and when the end credits music begins, it is again very still and serene, at least at first.

It certainly helped that I saw this with a very receptive audience made up largely of asymmetrically-coiffed young women in pairs or small groups who were pretty vocal in their appreciation, right down to "ughs," "oofs," and loud sighs accompanying even the slightest movement of Cate Blanchett's eyes—plus a highly audible "God, just fucking kill me" when they smelled each other's perfume during that makeup scene!

(*E.g., Nico Muhly's The Reader, Alexandre Desplat's The Painted Veil, Stephen Warbeck's Proof and Shakespeare in Love, Michael Nyman's The End of the Affair, and Glass' own scores for The Secret Agent and The Hours—the latter of which came about only after previous scores by Warbeck and Nyman were both dropped! From a musical standpoint I actually like most of these scores, but I haven't seen half the movies they came from and at this point the sound is as predictable in its own way as hearing endless Hans Zimmer knockoffs in action movies. Again, though, I want to emphasize how effectively I think Burwell employed this sound—it was absolutely the right choice.)

[Trees]

I loved Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. They give the best performances I've seen in a film this decade.

Have you seen Blue is the Warmest Color? In my opinion, the two female performances in that film were far, far superior to Mara and Blanchett in Carol.

It was his favorite film of 2013, so yes, he has!

And while I would stop short of calling Carol the best film I've seen in years or the two performances the best I've seen this decade, otherwise I am about as close to lining up perfectly with Dylan's reaction as I could be. I thought this was truly extraordinary, and I'm not even sure how I could begin to respond to criticism that Haynes' approach was "overly academic," as to me the film was such a nakedly emotional experience that if anything, I would expect people to criticize it as too simplistic or sentimental. Trees' reaction is more along the lines of what I would expect from the disappointed camp, especially the sort of viewer who is apt to use the term "melodramatic" like it's a self-evidently negative quality (of course it's perfectly fine if you just don't respond to melodrama).

Much has already been made of the production design and cinematography (Dylan's spoiler-tagged comments about the last scene are great, and I would also draw special attention to that dreamy montage in the car about halfway through the movie) but I want to focus for a second on Carter Burwell's score, which is married to the film so perfectly. I remember being a little disappointed when I first heard how heavy the Philip Glass influence was, not because I don't like that sound but only because it's been a cliche for end-of-the-year "literary" prestige dramas since the late 90s*, but after seeing the film I think it was a very effective choice. In a romantic drama where the romance is not allowed to be seen out in the open, the beating pulse of Burwell's score conveys much of the desire throbbing beneath the surface, always moving and rising without much resolution—

SpoilerShow

—until Carol & Therese finally consummate that desire, at which point the underlying rhythm is dropped and the melody is finally allowed to play out in full over much calmer, more serene and less turbulent accompaniment. This is echoed again at the close of the film, too, as the rhythmic figure returns while Therese searches for Carol at the party. They lock eyes, the film goes to black and to silence, and when the end credits music begins, it is again very still and serene, at least at first.

It certainly helped that I saw this with a very receptive audience made up largely of asymmetrically-coiffed young women in pairs or small groups who were pretty vocal in their appreciation, right down to "ughs," "oofs," and loud sighs accompanying even the slightest movement of Cate Blanchett's eyes—plus a highly audible "God, just fucking kill me" when they smelled each other's perfume during that makeup scene!

(*E.g., Nico Muhly's The Reader, Alexandre Desplat's The Painted Veil, Stephen Warbeck's Proof and Shakespeare in Love, Michael Nyman's The End of the Affair, and Glass' own scores for The Secret Agent and The Hours—the latter of which came about only after previous scores by Warbeck and Nyman were both dropped! From a musical standpoint I actually like most of these scores, but I haven't seen half the movies they came from and at this point the sound is as predictable in its own way as hearing endless Hans Zimmer knockoffs in action movies. Again, though, I want to emphasize how effectively I think Burwell employed this sound—it was absolutely the right choice.)

There is much to appreciate in the film, as you point out. The art direction and score, the photography, those great old cars! My issue is that I did not connect with the main characters, so all the music and lighting in the world cannot make up for that. Obviously it's just a personal issue: Some here connected with and believed those characters, some did not. While I found the leads in "Blue" to be people I could understand and relate to and care about, I found Mara's character in "Carol" very odd and unrelatable. Her facial expressions were odd. Her entire demeanor just seemed weird and off to me. She didn't seem like a real person; she seemed like a half-thought-through character someone made up for a film. Blanchett was better, but to me, I was watching someone acting... sometimes over-acting.

One counter argument might be to say that the characters were more reserved, perhaps due to social circumstance, and they are therefore by nature more difficult to relate to. But I would argue that the characters in a film like "In the Mood for Love", for example, are even more reserved and say even less, yet I wholeheartedly understood and cared about the characters in Wong's film, while I felt distant and basically unconcerned for the characters in "Carol", mainly because I did not believe they existed.

Also, there were some really phony, contrived plot points in "Carol" that made me roll my eyes. I'm talking about the mysterious man who follows them. Ugh.