On Todd Haynes: Happy Independence Day!

Film Studies For Free is off on its annual holiday. 
Back in two weeks. Hasta entonces, lectores queridos

Director Todd Haynes discusses his film Far From Heaven following a screening in the Walker Cinema (November 19, 2005)

Double Indemnity: Todd Haynes/Edward Hopper  

Richard Dyer, Professor of Film Studies at University of Warwick and author of White and The Matter of Images will join Todd Haynes to discuss issues raised by his work and the Hopper film programme at the Tate Modern, London, June 4, 2004.

In the first of a two-part interview, Reel Report speaks to maverick American director Todd Haynes about his latest movie I'm Not There, an unconventional rock biopic about the life of music legend Bob Dylan. Haynes talks about the challenges of telling Dylan's story, casting the six very different actors who play Dylan, and how he plans to take on the Bush administration with his next project (December 7, 2007).

In the second part of Reel Report's two-part interview with Todd Haynes, director of I'm Not There, the rock biopic about the life of Bob Dylan, we talk more generally about aspects of his filmmaking. In particular we ask him about his unique way of story-telling, his approach to the concept of film genres and whether his sexuality has an effect on his ability to interpret characters (December 18, 2007).

On this very appropriate day, Film Studies For Free honours Todd Haynes, a true and truly wonderful American independent filmmaker, with links, above and below, to great videos and many freely accessible and high quality online studies of his work.

Haynes is a big favourite at this blog, and why wouldn't he be as one of the most "cinema-studies literate" filmmakers working today. Here's looking forward to his forthcoming reworking of that Film Studies classic Mildred Pierce...

• Salomé Aguilera Skvirsky, The Price of Heaven: Remaking Politics in All That Heaven Allows, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, and Far From Heaven', in The Ethnic Turn: Studies in Political Cinema from Brazil and the United States, 1960-2002, PhD Thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 2009 (scroll to p. 194)
• Zélie Asava, 'Multiculturalism and Morphing in I’m Not There', Widescreen Journal, No. 2, 2010
• Norman Bryson, 'Todd Haynes's Poison and Queer Cinema', Invisible Culture - An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture Issue 1, Winter 1999
• Rachel Carroll, 'Toxic shock: Gendered environments and embodied knowledge in Don DeLillo’s White Noise and Todd Haynes’s [Safe]', Transformations, Issue 14, March 2007
• Donald L. Carveth and Jean Hantman Carveth, 'Fugitives From Guilt: Postmodern De-Moralization and the New Hysterias', March 2007
• Adrian Danks,“… I’m Gone”; or Seven Characters in Search of an Exit: Some Reflections on Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There', Senses of Cinema, Issue 46, 2008
• Amelia DeFalco, 'A Double-Edged Longing: Nostalgia, Melodrama, and Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven', Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies 5 (2004)
• Anthony Enns, '"A Name in Search of a Disease": Illness and Identity in Todd Haynes' Safe', Reconstruction, 7.3, 2007
• Laura E. Felschow, Todd Haynes: the Public, the Private, and the Performative, PhD Thesis, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, February 1, 2009
• Julie Grossman, “The Trouble with Carol: The Costs of Feeling [On Todd Haynes' Safe]', Other Voices 2.3 January 2005
• Todd Haynes's film: Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987) 
  
• Lynne Joyrich, 'Written on the Screen: Mediation and Immersion in Far from Heaven', Camera Obscura, 57, Volume 19, Number 3, 2004
• Alexandra Juhasz, 'From the Scenes to Queens: Genre, AIDS, and Queer Love', 2007 
• Rose Ellen Lessy, 'Feminist Treatment: Illness and Impasse in Todd Haynes’s Safe', Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 7(4):291–308, 2006
• Niall Richardson, 'Poison in the Sirkian System: The Political Agenda of Todd Haynes's Far From Heaven', Scope, Issue 6, October 2006
• Rebecca Scherr, '(Not) queering “white vision” in Far from Heaven and Transamerica', Jump Cut, No. 50, spring 2008 
• David L. Smith, 'True, Valid Death Off a Movie Screen: Todd Haynes' I'm Not There', Journal of Religion and Film,  Vol. 12, No. 2, 2008
• Sunny Stalter, 'Down With Love/Far From Heaven', Scope, May 2004
• Nick Stevenson, 'What is Safe? Cultural Citizenship, Visual Culture and Risk', Sociological Research Online, Volume 10, Issue 2, 2005
• Mary Traester, 'Hysteria and Ruin: Feminine Immobility And the Problem of Representation in Todd Haynes’s Far from Heaven', COLT Symposium, April 15, 2008
• Keith Uhlich, 'Todd Haynes', Senses of Cinema, July 2002
• Nicholas de Villiers, 'Glancing, Cruising, Staring: Queer Ways of Looking', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 57, August 2007
• Sharon Willis, 'Politics of Disappointment: Todd Haynes Rewrites Douglas Sirk', Camera Obscura, 54, Volume 18, Number, 2003

 Cornell Cinema events May 6, 2008

"Mix-Tape Cinema": studies of Wes Anderson's films

Links added May 27, 2010

Fantastic Mr. Fox: Wes Anderson at the New York Public Library (Fora.tv)

On the occasion of today's publication by Fora.tv of the above entertaining and informative video, Film Studies For Free presents a (rather) small but (almost) perfectly formed compendium of links to freely accessible studies of the joyous/poignant/whimsical/arch/'scavenger' films of US writer/director Wes Anderson. As usual, if readers know of any other good online material to add to the below list, do please get in touch.

The Substance of Style, Pt 1Wes Anderson and his pantheon of heroes (Schulz, Welles, Truffaut) by Matt Zoller Seitz  posted March 30, 2009 

The above video is the first in a five-part series of video essays analyzing the key influences on Wes Anderson’s style. Part 2 covers Martin Scorsese, Richard Lester, and Mike Nichols. Part 3 covers Hal Ashby. Part 4 covers J.D. Salinger. Part 5 is an annotated version of the prologue to The Royal Tenenbaums.

'The Films of Wes Anderson' (great clip 'mix-tape'/montage) by Paul Proulx

"A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, I watched a film called Bottle Rocket. I knew nothing about it, and the movie really took me by surprise. Here was a picture without a trace of cynicism, that obviously grew out of its director's affection for his characters in particular and for people in general. A rarity. And the central idea of the film is so delicate, so human: A group of young guys think that their lives have to be filled with risk and danger in order to be real. They don't know that it's okay simply to be who they are." Martin Scorsese, 'Wes Anderson', Esquire, March 1, 2000

"Whenever I am getting ready to make a movie I look at other movies I love in order to answer the same recurring question: How is this done, again? I can never seem to remember, and I don’t mean that to be glib. I also hope people don’t throw it back in my face. Making a movie is very complicated, and it seems like kind of a miracle when it actually works out. Hal Ashby made five or six great movies in a row, and that seems to be practically unheard of." 'Wes Anderson on [Hal Ashby's] The Last Detail' in 'The Director's Director', by Jennifer Wachtel, GOOD, June 18, 2008

"In narrative, whimsy emphasizes the unexpected links that connect disparate ideas or events, but the connections must be meaningful. Richard Linklater’s Slacker (1991) is not whimsical because it never proposes that the links between its scenes are anything more than incidental. It embraces insignificance and ponders the possibility of elevating apathy into anarchy. Wes Anderson’s films are whimsical because their unexpected juxtapositions are imbued with sentimental significance. As a visual mode, whimsy favours busy frames and compositions that distract viewers from the centre. It rewards those willing to explore the edges with jokes buried in marginalia or Dalmatian mice sniffing around in the corner of an elaborately composed shot. In all cases whimsy values the ability to appreciate the aesthetic harmony possible among myriad incongruent objects. It draws attention to the act of perception and the sensibility of the perceiver." Charlotte Taylor, 'The Importance of Being Earnest', Frieze Magazine, Issue 92, June-August 2005

'...[S]tuff like Wes Anderson mix-tape cinema...', Michael Sicinski, 'Songs Sung Blue: The Films of Michael Robinson', Cinema-scope, 33 

• Joseph Aisenberg, 'Wes's World:Riding Wes Anderson's Vision Limited', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 59, February 2008
• Nandana Bose, 'The Darjeeling Limited: Critiquing Orientalism on the Train to Nowhere', Mediascape, Spring 2008
• Kirk Boyle, 'Reading the Dialectical Ontology of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou Against the Ontological Monism of Adaptation', Film-Philosophy, Volume 11.1, June 2007
• Elena Gorfinkel, 'The Future of Anachronism: Todd Haynes and the Magnificent Andersons', Cinephilia Movies, Love and Memory, Edited by Marijke de Valck and Malte Hagener (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005 - large PDF: scroll to p. 153)
  
• Brannon M. Hancock, 'A Community of Characters: the Narrative Self in the Films of Wes Anderson', Journal of Religion and Film, Vol. 9, No.2, October 2005
• Steven Hyden, Noel Murray, Keith Phipps, Nathan Rabin, and Scott Tobias, '16 Films Without Which Wes Anderson Couldn't Have Happened', AV Club, October 8, 2007 
• Deanna K Kreisel, 'What Maxie Knew: The Gift and Oedipus in What Maisie Knew and Rushmore', Mosaic (Winnipeg), 38/2, June 2005
• Christian Lorentzen, 'Captain Neato: Wes Anderson and the Problem with Hipsters; Or, What Happens When a Generation Refuses to Grow Up', N+1, April 23, 2010 
• James MacDowell, 'The "Quirky" New Wave', Alternate Takes, July 21, 2005
• Suzy Mackenzie, 'Into the Deep', The Guardian, February 12, 2005
• Emily J. May, 'The Darjeeling Limited and The New American Traveller', Senses of Cinema, Issue 49, 2008
• Volker Pantenburg, 'Essay 1: Notes on Matt Zoller Seitz’ ”Wes Anderson: The Substance Of Style”', trans. Kevin B Lee, Shooting Down Pictures, April 23, 2009 
• Carole Lyn Piechota, 'Give Me a Second Grace: Music as Absolution in The Royal Tenenbaums', Senses of Cinema, Issue 38, 2006
• Lee Weston Sabo, 'Inimitable Charm: Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 67, February 2010
• Herbert Schwaarb, 'Buddies that Matter. Philosophical Reflections on the Genre of the New Buddy Film', International Conference on Gender, Laughter, Media: Comic Genres and Strategies“ at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, August 2005

La Science de Michel Gondry: online scholarship on his films & videos

Last updated April 19, 2010

Electric Dreams? Above and below, images from Be Kind Rewind (Michel Gondry, 2008)

 

Michel Gondry and Robert Stickgold discuss dreams, filmmaking and the scientific method (SeedMagazine.com, 2007).

Film Studies For Free presents un petit hommage -- en images, hypertexte, et vidéos --to one of its favourite filmmakers, Michel Gondry, French maestro of the music-video form, and also responsible, as director, for the audiovisual brilliance of the following films: Human Nature (2001); Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004); La Science des rêves/The Science of Sleep (2006); Be Kind Rewind (2008); and The Green Hornet (2010).

There are some truly wonderful scholarly resources linked to below: merci bien, as ever, to their authors, editors and publishers for making them freely accessible online.

• Dwayne Avery, 'The Future is behind you: the Reclamation of Place in Be Kind Rewind', Movement 1.1: the futures of cinema, 2009 
• Jim Batcho, 'Overlapping Levels of the Diegesis in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', Offscreen Journal, Vol. 11, Nos. 8-9, Aug/Sept 2007
• New Julia Driver, 'Memory, Desire, and Value in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', in Christopher Grau (ed), Philosophers on Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' (Routledge, 2009)
• New Michel Gondry, 'Foreword', in Christopher Grau (ed), Philosophers on Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' (Routledge, 2009)
• New Christopher Grau, 'Introduction' to Philosophers on Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' (Routledge, 2009)
• New Christopher Grau, 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the morality of memory',  Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 64 (1), Winter 2006
• Carolyn Jess-Cooke, 'Narrative and Mediatized Memory in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', Scope, Issue 8, June 2007
• Brandon M. Hancock, 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', Journal of Religion and Film, Vol. 9, No. 1 April 2005
• Erin Hill-Parks, 'From Film to Life: The Construction of Identity in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and I “Heart” Huckabees', From Camera Lens To Critical Lens A Collection Of Best Essays On Film Adaptation, edited by Rebecca Housel (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006) 
• Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - screenplay, 2003
• John Finlay Kerr, ‘Rereading’ Be Kind Rewind (USA 2008): How film history can be remapped through the social memories of popular culture', Screening the Past, Issue 24, 2009
• Mike Lim, 'Review of Garrett Stewart, Framed Time: Toward a Postfilmic Cinema. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2007', Screening the Past, Issue 23, 2008
• Colm O'Shea, 'Out of His Head: Metaphysical Escape Attempts in the Screenplays of Charlie Kaufman ', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 63, February 2009 
• Heidi Peeters , 'The semiotics of music videos: it must be written in the stars', Image [and] Narrative, Issue 8, May 2004
• A Raz, and M Paasivirta, 'The Science and Fiction of Memory Removal', PsycCRITIQUES, Vol 50(42), 2005
• Richard Rushton, 'Cinema After Deleuze After 9/11', Postmodern Culture, Volume 19, No. 2, 2009 
• Fredericka Shulman, 'The Objects of Memory: Collecting Eternal Sunshine', Philament, Issue 5, 2005
• Jason Sperb, 'Be Kind Rewind / or, an incomplete essay on Off-Modern American Cinephilia', Jamais Vu, December 13, 2009
• Gunnar Strøm, 'The Two Golden Ages  of Animated Music Video', Animation Studies, Vol.2, 2007
• Dayton Taylor and Hector Macleod, Digital Air Techniques (2008)
• Scott Thrill, '"How My Brain Works": An Interview with Michel Gondry', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 53, August 2006
• José van Dijck, 'Memory Matters in the Digital Age', Configurations, Volume 12, Number 3, Fall 2004
• Thomas E. Wartenberg, 'Film as Argument', Film Studies, Issue 8, Summer 2006

Matt Zoller Seitz shares his thoughts with fellow filmmaker critic Kevin B Lee while rewatching Michel Gondry's 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, May 2009

 

 The original music video of Gary Jules' and Michael Andrews' cover version of Tears for Fears' song Mad World, directed by Michel Gondry. This song features in the soundtrack of Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)