‘Hollywood has always tried to make the perfect movie’: An interview with the brilliant Todd Haynes, iconic filmmaker and director of May and December.

What is it about?

To prepare for a new role, he comes to meet the famous actress he plays on screen, whose love life 20 years earlier had exploded the tabloid press and shocked the country.

He is one of the biggest names in American independent cinema, directing such iconic films as Velvet Goldmine, Paradise of Paradise and Carol…

Todd Haynes, who had a major retrospective at the Center Pompidou last May, about which he gave a lengthy interview, is in the news again with a May-December appearance at the 2023 Cannes competition. The filmmaker gave an interview to AlloCiné.

AlloCiné: May December is interesting with regard to the issue of gaze. There is a confusion of views. This has some effect on the setting of this story. Can you tell us about it?

Todd Haynes: It was about finding a voice through the camera and as a film to capture what I felt when I read the script. There was something, a little distance in the scenario where you ask what you think.

There’s Elizabeth Berry’s (Natalie Portman) character, she’s the one that’s going to let me into this story. We tell ourselves: I can trust him. And then, we say to ourselves, I’m not sure I trust him. So you keep changing your level of trust and investment in one character to another, depending on the type of moral structure you have. The assumptions you make about moral behavior are misplaced, unbalanced… and that’s what I like about the script. (Signed by Sammy Burch, casting director, signing his first feature film script here, editor’s note.). There is wit and a kind of deadpan humor.

In the film, we have this privileged position of the observer

Then I wondered if the camera also did not occupy a place in the landscape, a little distance from the action, and that we felt the position of the observer. So the mirror and scenes with mirrors became a very important motif throughout the film. Because you’re watching the actor look at himself in the mirror and try to match what he saw in the photo or the real thing that’s next to him in the mirror.

And you could observe the relay of Natalie’s gaze, looking at the lens as if it were herself. So he looks at Juliana through the lens. Juliana looks at the camera as if she were herself and looks at Natalie through the lens.

So there was this constant ricochet that we, the viewers, were seeing. We have this privileged position of observer, but we are also outside. So this is basically what led to the long takes, the restrained camera and the direct approach to the lens.

Did you get a chance to meet Mary Kay Letourneau, who the film is inspired by?

No. We kept a creative distance from this story. Mary Kay Letourneau died before we started filming. When I first read the script, it clearly reminded me of Mary Kay Letourneau’s story. But I loved everything that Sammy Burch added to differentiate it from the original story. I was very interested in the idea of ​​trying to trust the differences between the two.

We took a creative distance from Mary Kay Letourneau’s story

Sammy started the script by saying that it was originally based in Camden, Maine, in the northeastern United States. When we finally found a common shooting schedule with the cast in the fall of 2022, it was too cold to shoot in Camden, Maine, especially in May. The premiere of the film is planned for May. We started thinking about Savannah. This place became more and more interesting, strange and specific for us. It also allowed us to pick Mary Kay Letourneau out of the story.

I would also like to discuss with you a hot topic which is artificial intelligence (AI), which is perceived as a threat to the future of artists, screenwriters, but also actors among others, and which was one of the reasons for the long strike. Hollywood. What is your position on this topic?

Personally, I’m not that paralyzed by AI-induced anxiety. Because I have high hopes for how it can help science and medical research, for example. I do not see this as a direct threat to creativity, to the creative mind. I don’t think the computer can replace the creative process so easily. Creation exists with mistakes and disorder. This is something that a computer cannot create.

If there was a formula for making a great money-making blockbuster, Hollywood would have done it by now

Hollywood has always strived to create the perfect movie, from its very beginnings in the 1910s, then the talkies. If there was a formula for creating the perfect money-making blockbuster, he would have worked it out by now. That’s not how it works. You can’t do that. It all happens by chance.

Another topic I’d like to discuss with you is… Barbie! You made a still little-known film with Barbies, and it was the first…

The reason we haven’t seen the movie is because it was banned because we didn’t have the rights to the music, the Carpenters’ songs, that are in the movie. The film cannot be released legally. But it gave Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story a somewhat underground aura and value.

To see it, you have to spread the VHS copies under the covers

You had to sneak in to see it, moving VHS copies under the counter. This contributed to the myth of superstardom. This obviously wasn’t my intention, but it helped make for a somewhat personal and private film. This gave him cult status.

It’s a film that really marks the beginning of my career, in many ways. It covers all the topics that I continue to explore today, and in this one film.

It’s about a hero, serious illness, celebrity and pop culture. It’s about music, success and how hard it is, especially when you’re a woman. And there’s a stylistic approach to storytelling that sets this film apart from other biopics. In a lot of ways, it combines a lot of things that I continue to do today, all in one film.

Comments collected in Paris, September 12, 2023

May DecemberTodd Haynes’ 10th feature film was released in France on January 24th. Starring Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman and Charles Melton. To prepare for a new role, he comes to meet the famous actress he plays on screen, whose love life 20 years earlier had exploded the tabloid press and shocked the country.