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Todd Haynes
by Stephen Brody
November 5, 1998
www.stephenbrophy.org

When filmmaker Todd Haynes came to Boston recently to talk about his latest work, "Velvet Goldmine," he showed signs of exhaustion that indicated something beyond mere lack of sleep or not enough coffee. Haynes has been working on this project non-stop for more than four years, and as it approached the period of shooting, his budget was suddenly slashed. While this strain still shows on his face, it is not at all apparent in the finished product. And as he talked with Bay Windows about it, he found his enthusiasm spontaneously rekindling.

"We had a budget that was the lowest amount that we could possibly work with," the young red-haired director lamented, "then that was cut by a million dollars just before shooting. So it was a real challenge. The people I worked with on this project, the experience of being in England, the actors I got to work with, the musical element - all of this was so fantastic that it got me through it. But it was tough, so I'm going to rest."

"Haynes further justified his decision not to work on developing any film projects for the moment by arguing that he feels the need to get a life. "My entire life has been on hold for a long time now. From 'Safe' to 'Velvet Goldmine' I haven't really had any life experiences that aren't purely film experiences. And I need that, so I'm just going to take a break. There were times on the set when I thought I can't do this again like this. If this is the only way to make a film, I'm not going to do it.

But I think that 'Velvet Goldmine should at least get me to a place where I can negotiate the terms I need, to have a budget that reflects the true needs of the film, which has really never been the case with my films so far." At this point Haynes begins to talk about the upside of having a minuscule budget - the fact that he has been able to exercise an unusual autonomy over his work.

"I really have so much to feel proud of. With [fellow Brown University graduate, producer, and friend] Christine Vachon trustily at my side, we have fought the battle of autonomy and keeping my films really what I intended them to be without any compromise. And I know that that's an amazing thing. And that's been the tradeoff with getting the budgets which would make things a little easier to do. It's always been about getting it right. 'Safe' was so hard to get financed, and we had a weird, alienating experience making it in L.A. But that was probably totally appropriate to the film. Julianne Moore is so proud of it. It took a little longer in the Hollywood world she lived in then to feel that what she had just poured her heart and guts into was worthwhile, but I think now she really recognized."

Haynes has structured his latest movie, about the 'glam rock' movement and its aftermath, in much the same way that Orson Welles put together his "Citizen Kane." The 'Citizen Kane' style was one that made sense, because it was already sort of the classic format in Hollywood for making a film about a real life, powerful figure. Velvet Goldmine is fictional, but it of course refers to real life people as well.

"I also knew from the beginning that I was not interested in that kind of presumed intimacy of the traditional 'bio-pic.' the idea that you're behind closed doors and hearing the 'real' things that are being said kind of makes my skin crawl. That was never what I wanted 'Velvet Goldmine' to be about - I wanted it to be about the relationship between the fan and his idol. And everything real or not real that happens because of that."

There is another aspect of "Citizen Kane" which particularly appeals to a filmmaker of Haynes' sensibilities. "'Kane' is a brilliant original film that sets out to get to know a famous person - and fails. Ultimately it does not tell you who Kane is, not even in the nutshell called 'Rosebud'. I wanted to use it in that way, so that what I really end up with is a series of contradictory reflections and experiences."

When asked how he has managed to make such an accessible film, Haynes hastens to assure us that it's not any simpler than his previous work. "This may be the most pleasurable film to watch that I've made, and probably the most affirmative. But it's still a labyrinth, and still not like anything that people have seen before. It's not aimed at the person who needs to feel the security of seeing the same kinds of movies over and over again."

The character telling the story in the movie is a journalist named Arthur, played by Christian Bale. He had been disinclined to take on the assignment because he had actually been a big fan of the music and had also been touched by the possibility of expressing his sexual desires for men. When asked if this character has any autobiographical overtones, Haynes replies, "Arthur represents me in more symbolic ways than literally autobiographical ways. I wish I could have been Arthur during the glam era, but I think that could only have happened in England.

He was kind of a pure teenager, and a whole new world kind of swooped into his life. But here in the States," Haynes goes on, "even if I had been old enough, I would have had to be a little bit in the know, and already have some agency into alternative scenes to get to glam rock. So it wouldn't be as innocent. That would be something that I could never have directly experienced.

"'Velvet Goldmine' is a dream of glam rock - it is not meant to be any sort of objective view of that era. It's about he way we as fans embellish and fill in what is passed down to us over the airwaves or through the mass media, what we do with it. Sometimes I think that is much more real than any conjecture about what 'really happened.' How can we know what happens with real people in their private lives? I think Bowie and Lou Reed and others flirted with their fans, put out suggestions that maybe or may not true, but were true in the minds of their fans."

Haynes was also interested in the way class status affected this particular brand of rock. "It's interesting that Bowie, Bryan Ferry, et al, came from more working class backgrounds than Mick Jagger, the Beatles and so on. And their strategy of putting on a faux aristocratic performance, which was at the same time ironic, is interesting in comparison to those middle class boys trying to putt out a gritty, raw, American, blues-influenced sound. Glam rock was a completely constructed Noel Coward kind of aristocratic pretense. Bryan Ferry was probably the most extreme example of this."

As a prologue to his film, Haynes sets up Oscar Wilde as a sort of patron saint of glitter rock. "In my research, I tried to retrace the steps that Bowie and Ferry and Bryan Eno took to arrive at what they created in that period - one of the most culturally jam-packed, highly referential, rock-and-roll moments that I can think of. I don't know if Oscar Wilde was as apparent to Ferry and Eno as he seems in the movie, but all the roads lead back to him.

"Wilde is the most articulate spokesperson for this moment - the last really mainstream explosion of these kinds of ideas that run very counter to the traditional notions of art and truth and direct emotional communication by the artists. Instead it elevates art as camp and irony and wit, evokes questions about sexual identity. Oscar Wilde was a very popular bourgeois hit in his time, and so was glam rock."

This brings Haynes to the reason he started working on this story in the first place, and also elicits his most infection enthusiasm. "It's staggering the ways that the 70's were the last really rich, fertile progressive period, propelled by new ideas, receptive to and motored by an openness to new ideas that I definitely haven't felt since then. That's part of what attracted me to this project, what made it challenging.

"Even today we are not so daring with our notions about bisexuality, the infatuation with the other side, blending masculinity and femininity into the idea of the androgynous, blending gay and straight sexuality into the ideal of bisexuality. We are not so interested in blurring the boundaries, dissolving the lines, which is of course dangerous to a society which needs all these definitions and boxes. It was OK then to be different every day, to experience ch-ch-changes, to feel like a space alien."

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