Mildred Pierce (Todd Haynes, 2011)

[Tom Hagen]

The first two parts of Haynes' HBO miniseries adaptation/remake air on Sunday. Salon's tv critic raves. Our old friend Ehrenstein makes the Fassbinder comparison I was hoping to hear.

[whaleallright]

That TV critic is Matt Zoller Seitz, who's best known as a film critic.

The New York Times has a surprisingly good advance feature on this project a few days ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/arts/ ... n-hbo.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For me, the most interesting passage was this:

From the Mattel-manufactured cast of “Superstar” to the revolving door of Bob Dylans in the anti-biopic “I’m Not There,” Mr. Haynes has delighted in toying with audience identification. “I’m interested in experiments in narrative that force people to think about how stories are told,” he said. “But I was aware in this case of speaking to a different audience, and I respect that.”

Mr. Haynes is not constitutionally a naturalist, though, and it’s no surprise to hear him describe the naturalism of the series as itself a kind of artifice, a throwback to what he called the “dressed-down” style of the American cinema of the 1970s, when films like “The Godfather” and “Chinatown” were revising genres and, often, revisiting earlier eras.

In more than one sense Mr. Haynes’s series frees “Mildred Pierce” from the black-and-white world of noir. Besides creating more complicated versions of Mildred and Veda than Curtiz’s crime mystery, with its insistence on a solution, could have allowed, it also replaces the stylized expressionism of film noir with the rangy realism of the so-called New Hollywood. To Mr. Haynes the most resonant of the New Hollywood films, with their natural light, real locations and distanced camerawork, encouraged “an observational patience” in the viewer.

Mr. Haynes and his cinematographer Ed Lachman decided to shoot on Super-16 millimeter film, a format that could retain some trace of the grain of ’70s movies, even on high-definition digital screens. The visual leitmotif of capturing actors through windows and in reflections evokes the work of Fassbinder, one of Mr. Haynes’s favorite filmmakers, and that of the photographer Saul Leiter. Mr. Leiter’s intimate, almost abstract street photographs suggested an evocative visual shorthand. “There was a reduction of information that helped us think about how to convey a whole world,” Mr. Haynes said.

I had been worried that Haynes would use the opportunity to make another pastiche of high-Hollywood melodrama. The somewhat counterintuitive connection between Cain's novel and '70s New Hollywood is refreshing. (Though it's not a new mode for Haynes, who appropriated it for parts of I'm Not There, or for Lachman, whose work with Larry Clark, Sophia Coppola, Steven Soderbergh etc. often harks back to that era.)

[James Mills]

The first two parts of Haynes' HBO miniseries adaptation/remake air on Sunday. Salon's tv critic raves. Our old friend Ehrenstein makes the Fassbinder comparison I was hoping to hear.

Doesn't every "quality" TV bullshit get rave reviews though? Granted, not every one is made by Todd Haynes, but I would take those with a grain of salt considering crap like Dexter and True Blood get equally gushing acclaim.

[mfunk9786]

Both of those shows have gotten mixed-to-mildly positive reviews on average throughout their runs. And if they're "crap," you must have never seen a truly bad television show before.

[Mr Sausage]

The first two parts of Haynes' HBO miniseries adaptation/remake air on Sunday. Salon's tv critic raves. Our old friend Ehrenstein makes the Fassbinder comparison I was hoping to hear.

Doesn't every "quality" TV bullshit get rave reviews though? Granted, not every one is made by Todd Haynes, but I would take those with a grain of salt considering crap like Dexter and True Blood get equally gushing acclaim.

If you're going to slam well-liked shows (or movies) on this forum, we expect you to back it up with some reasoning, otherwise it comes off like a provocation instead of a discussion point.

[Tom Hagen]

The AV Club interviews Haynes, who again discusses the '70s New Hollywood approach he took to the project.

[James Mills]

Both of those shows have gotten mixed-to-mildly positive reviews on average throughout their runs. And if they're "crap," you must have never seen a truly bad television show before.

If you're going to slam well-liked shows (or movies) on this forum, we expect you to back it up with some reasoning, otherwise it comes off like a provocation instead of a discussion point.

I find television to be inherently pernicious so I seem to fastidiously find faults in basically every show other than South Park, Arrested Development, The Simpsons, and The Wire. My bias (and admitted ignorance since I disallow myself to even watch tv) prevents me from having a constructive conversation on the topic so I shouldn't have even said anything, my bad.

[knives]

Television as a medium opens itself to possibilities that movies have closed themselves off from for years. You simply couldn't do something like classic Doctor Who in the modern era. Hell even more cinematically told shows like Twin Peaks and The Prisoner differentiate themselves in interesting ways. To say that teevee is inherently pernicious is totally absurd and the sort of thing that people say of movies even now. Any and all artforms will have their bad eggs, but the good is worth searching out for especially since all art forms have something even the most closely related can't offer.

[James Mills]

You're absolutely right, I shouldn't blame television for my own impatience in ascertaining its quality programming. I need to get over this whole "tv is only for monetary purposes" mindset because I'm sure there are a lot of expressive and passionate television that I'm missing out on.

Sorry for hijacking this thread, everyone. This topic is interesting to me and perhaps deserves its own thread.

[mfunk9786]

Can we get a "Let's recommend great TV shows to James Mills" threadsplit?

[John Cope]

I'm actually really looking forward to this one which is something I never expected to say again about a Haynes project. But the reason for my optimism has everything to do with the particular claims made by Ben Kenigsberg and J. Hoberman in their respective pieces, most specifically the assertion that this time, finally, Haynes plays it straight (as it were); that he fully invests in and commits to the artifice and nature of the form rather than constantly feeling compelled to call attention to it or qualify his/our involvement. I knew he had it in him. He clearly loves melodrama too much not to; he just needed to let go of his drive to constantly telegraph his sophistication (making sure we all know he knows that we know...) and trust in what he loves, which will certainly render up just as many riches if not more than any overt academic approach. In truth, I think we need this kind of return to form and will benefit tremendously from it. I don't get HBO though so I'll have to wait to see the film but I hope those who do see it will address this issue when they comment on it.

[jojo]

You're absolutely right, I shouldn't blame television for my own impatience in ascertaining its quality programming. I need to get over this whole "tv is only for monetary purposes" mindset because I'm sure there are a lot of expressive and passionate television that I'm missing out on.

Well, I hate to sour you on most movies, but...

My current favourite TV show is Mad Men. And yes, it's a critical darling, but that's me liking a show in spite of the hype, not because of it...

As for the topic at hand, I'm mildly interested, though I'm not really a huge fan of Haynes in general. There's something about his stuff that strikes me as way too self conscious for me to fully enjoy. It's hard for me to put a finger on exactly what it is.

[mfunk9786]

I agree with you (I'm Not There is a film that I particularly despise because of its aimless showoffiness [come on Webster's, add it]) but I am thinking that this material should keep him grounded and allow his technical talent to shine. Or at least, I'm hoping that's the case.

[swo17]

This started off feeling like another Mad Men-style Indictment of the Past (check please) but soon revealed itself to be something else entirely (an indictment of conniving little girls? a celebration of pies?*). I'd seen the Curtiz film previously, but it was so long ago that I'd completely forgotten the details. (Actually, I'd somehow remembered the plot to involve some kind of a murder mystery.) Throughout the series, several plot developments felt a little random and meandering when first introduced but their relevance gradually became clear, and often in disturbing ways. Performances were pretty strong all around, in particular those of James LeGros and Guy Pearce, and despite not getting much from Haynes' work since Superstar, I came out fairly impressed with his artful restraint here.

Episode 5

That being said, one of the most powerful moments in the series for me involved a brazen bit of nudity in the very last episode. So much nudity in HBO programming seems like it's there merely because it can be (even some of Winslet and Pearce's many romps in this might qualify), but this instance of it was not only crucial to the story at the point that it comes, but it drops like a bomb when it does. It's a chilling moment that colors all that preceded it in a swath of livid regret.

*

Truthfully, I think the story is about losing your children, one way or another.

[Tribe]

This slavishly follows James Cain's original text with a lot of the dialogue directly from the novel. It sort of proves a point that hard-boiled written dialogue reads great and sounds great when spoken by actors in classic Hollywood films (when the acting method was "stilted/stagey," as opposed to today's "natural" diction in movies...I wish I could express this better), but sounds awfully cornball when attempted in modern films. As much as I like Cain's work I always thought his work after Postman and Double Indemnity suffers in comparison. The story falls apart at the end, although for the most part there is something original here with Cain writing about a liberated and independent woman at a time when it wasn't common. That's probably why Hollywood dratically re-wrote the story for the original.

Notwithstanding that, the performances weren't bad (with the exception of Guy Pearce...it's the first time I've thought a performance of his descended to hamdom) and I thought Haynes did a well enough job creating this while limiting himself to the text.

[whaleallright]

Some stray thoughts:

- As other folks have pointed out, that last bit of nudity was the one that didn't feel like the obligatory HBO softcore -- indeed it was truly shocking....

Spoiler

All the more so because, to put it blunty, Evan Rachel Wood's body still looks like that of a prepubescent girl--underlining her history with Monty and the unholiness of the encounter.

- I did like the conclusion...

Spoiler

with the reunited Pierces jettisoning their awful daughter. This is a sharp break from the convention of the maternal melodrama, in which the mother supports the daughter no matter the personal cost (cf. the Curtiz film).

I imagine this shock ending is one reason the book appealed to Haynes, who--thanks no doubt to his training in academic film studies--is always seeking out subversive elements of popular material, be it made-for-TV "disease of the week" movies, sitcoms, Sirk, or James M. Cain novels.

- For whatever reason--maybe because Haynes avowedly played it straight--this was the first Haynes project in some time that didn't leave me with a nagging sense of "What's the point?" Some of his recent films felt a bit like academic exercises, designed in such a way that interpretation is made redundant -- like Haynes was doing the critics' job for them.

- Oddly for a five-hour miniseries, the last three episodes felt a bit rushed. Each plot point was permitted a single scene--there were few redundancies, and little of the leisurely pacing of the first episode in particular. In other words, Haynes seemed to indulge the miniseries format to include a very long "setup," which left him with a great deal of plot material to cover in the remaining episodes.

(when the acting method was "stilted/stagey," as opposed to today's "natural" diction in movies...I wish I could express this better)

Be careful. Today's naturalism is tomorrow's artifice. I do think there was an genteel quality to Winslet's line readings that didn't feel true to her character's lower-middle-class origins. We might interpret it as affected, but that's the quality we're supposed to associate with Veda, not Mildred. I think one of the odd things about this series was that all of the major roles, save for that of Veda, were filled by foreigners -- English, Irish, Australian. I wonder if this -- the fact that the principals were not speaking in their native accents -- contributed to the "stilted" quality you observe.

[Tribe]

(when the acting method was "stilted/stagey," as opposed to today's "natural" diction in movies...I wish I could express this better)

Be careful. Today's naturalism is tomorrow's artifice. I do think there was an genteel quality to Winslet's line readings that didn't feel true to her character's lower-middle-class origins. We might interpret it as affected, but that's the quality we're supposed to associate with Veda, not Mildred. I think one of the odd things about this series was that all of the major roles, save for that of Veda, were filled by foreigners -- English, Irish, Australian. I wonder if this -- the fact that the principals were not speaking in their native accents -- contributed to the "stilted" quality you observe.

Right on the observation on the changing perceptions of what is ultimately artifice.

I know I did an awful job attempting to explain myself. What nagged at me wasn't so much the "affected-ness" of the dialogue (and you correctly read that as purposefully consistent with the characters' class aspirations), instead it was what they were saying that I often found just didn't translate well.

When I was referring to "stilted" I was referring to the original. As best as I can explain, my perception is that actors at the time of the original Mildred Pierce dramatized their speech...the dialogue comes off today (or for me, anyway) as stagey, "dramatic," "unnatural." I'm not knocking that. But the dialogue, and particularly the hard boiled dialogue from the original novel (or from any original hard-boiled/noir text from the 30s through the 50s) "works" with the style of acting from the classic Hollywood period. It doesn't work so much today where acting styles tend to have a "natural" affect.

Man, this is so hard for me to explain for some reason

[starmanof51]

Man, this is so hard for me to explain for some reason

I think I know what you mean. Not to oversimplify, but is your reaction cause or effect? For me I think it's more effect - I am used to watching old movies with "old" acting styles using some form of hardboiled dialog. See enough of 'em, it seems like a normal match. I am unused to seeing modern actors using such types of dialog. Think of "Brick" or even "Miller's Crossing" - talking like Dashiell Hammett seems like a gimmick in those films (moreso Brick obviously), although to me a highly enjoyable one. But doing the same in "The Glass Key" = business as usual. So yeah, I saw the first two eps of the miniseries, and Winslet strikes me as delivering things in an vaguely unsettling way. Crawford doesn't make me bat an eye though, and she sure as hell isn't underplaying anything.

I feel like years of TCM have trained me to react this way.

[Tribe]

I think I know what you mean. Not to oversimplify, but is your reaction cause or effect? For me I think it's more effect - I am used to watching old movies with "old" acting styles using some form of hardboiled dialog. See enough of 'em, it seems like a normal match. I am unused to seeing modern actors using such types of dialog. Think of "Brick" or even "Miller's Crossing" - talking like Dashiell Hammett seems like a gimmick in those films (moreso Brick obviously), although to me a highly enjoyable one. But doing the same in "The Glass Key" = business as usual.

Perfect! I couldn't have said it better myself...and I didn't!

The "schtick" works in Brick and Miller's Crossing...and it serves the purpose of drawing attention to the language and dialogue.

[hearthesilence]

For those in NYC without HBO, you can see Haynes' mini-series in its entirety on the big screen at the Museum of the Moving Image's new facilities on Sunday, May 8, 2 pm. They're showing all 330 minutes in ONE sitting, with a single intermission.

[anvilscepe]

Does anyone know if this will receive a dvd/blu release in the future?

[swo17]

Nothing announced so far that I know of, but I'd be very surprised if it didn't get one sometime in the next year.

[John Edmond]

Hell I'm surprised we haven't already got a blu-ray release of Curtiz's Mildred Pierce.