Comments on: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

By: dcairns

dcairns — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:47:25 +0000

Thanks — downloaded it!

By: Chris B

Chris B — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:01:50 +0000

SUPERSTAR is my favourite Haynes film, with [SAFE] following on…

Here’s KAREN for you, Monsieur C: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=S6GWDCDU

By: David Ehrenstein

David Ehrenstein — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 01:58:12 +0000

It occasionally turns up on ebay.

By: dcairns

dcairns — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:51:33 +0000

Yes, I managed to get a copy of that — and then it got wiped before I could watch it! In fact, *I* wiped it by mistake. I was very cross.

By: David Ehrenstein

David Ehrenstein — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 22:19:23 +0000

Their narratives work in spite of Todd.

Are you familair with his banned film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story ?
It’s a recit, not a narrative — as is I’m Not There.

By: dcairns

dcairns — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:57:28 +0000

But I think Safe and Far From Heaven are more effective because their narratives do WORK, and I’m Not There basically dispenses with the idea of sustained narrative, which also works. The aspects of VG that have to do with its narrative and to do with the real Bowie are the weakest.
Dylan definitely gets points for letting Haynes do what he liked with the life and music, and Dylan isn’t always a sympathetic figure in the film.
On the other hand, I’m not sure if I were Bowie I’d want to support the maker of VG, which basically portrays him as a self-centred sell-out… it’s not entirely untrue, but I wouldn’t expect Bowie to agree with it!

By: David Ehrenstein

David Ehrenstein — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:48:47 +0000

Well that's because Todd has always distrusted narratives. His greatest effect has always been in the corners of narrativity. Safe nominally has a story, but it's really an extended sketch -- a snapshot of Todd's nightmare of turning into a Valley housewife. Far From Heaven is a dissertation on Douglas Sirk coupled with an attack on psychoanically "recieved wisdom" on gayness. Velvet Goldmine is about Oscar Wilde. I'm Not There is about Fellini's 8 1/2

By: dcairns

dcairns — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 17:05:00 +0000

VG is undoubtedly thematically and visually rich. The trouble comes when it tries to tell a story. I think from Haynes’ comments at the time he was reluctant to fully engage with narrative,: the film sets itself up as an investigation, Citizen Kane fashion, but Haynes’ own lack of interest in detective-work communicates itself to the audience. The “solution” at the end is both a cheat “using a different actor” and an impossibility in real-world terms (one celebrity vanishing and coming back as another!) but the film, for all its stylisation, hasn’t set up a story-world where that kind of impossibility could seem possible.
For all that, there’s lots to enjoy in music and photographic and performance terms (not sure about my countryman Mr McGregor though). I loved Bayle blurting out “That’s ME!” to his parents upon his first sight of JR Meyers.

By: David Ehrenstein

David Ehrenstein — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 15:24:35 +0000

Can’t quite agree with you about Velvet Goldmine. While it surely didn’t please the glam-rock faithful (or what’s left of it) it’s central to any number of Todd’s concerns. And I treasure the scene where Chistian Bale buys a Brian Slade album and goes to his room to play it — treating the disc like a holy relic/fetish object.

Originally Todd thought of deal with the glam scene from an L.A. perspective, pertaining to the group of fans who used to circulate around Rodney Bingenheimer’s club on Sunset Blvd. But he changed his mind and decided go whole hog into the UK. Bowie was a perfect bitch — refusing to give Todd access to so much as ONE number. Dylan, by contrast, let Todd have the entire catalogue to do whatever he wanted.
And I’m Not There goes WAY further than Todd has ever gone before with music, history, space time and (thanks to Cate Blanchett and Charlotte Gainsbourg) sexuality.