A Conversation With Todd Haynes and Richard Linklater @ SXSW, 3/17/09

A Conversation With Todd Haynes & Richard Linklater
Tuesday, March 17 at 1:00pm
Austin Convention Center, Austin, TX

Linklater and Haynes took the stage with no moderator, sat down, and began a conversation like the old friends they are. Linklater was the first to speak, making some comments about a private screening of Superstar that took place the night before. Linklater commented on the fascination that many of the younger viewers experienced while they were viewing the film.

Haynes and Linklater first met in the late 1980s, at the IFP Market. Haynes had done Superstar, and Linklater was in between It's Impossible To Learn To Plow By Reading Books and his breakthrough feature, Slacker. Linklater wanted to bring Haynes to Austin on behalf of the Austin Film Society.

Parts of the discussion touched upon the changing state of Independent Film. They mentioned that it's becoming more difficult to finance movies, even with stars. Haynes recalled a recent conversation he had with a financier who told him that, paraphrasing, "We're going to have to start reading scripts again." Haynes thought that financiers might have to read scripts again could be a good thing.

Linklater said that he too had difficulty getting funding for his upcoming film, Me and Orson Welles, despite having Zac Efron in the cast. Many funders passed on Me and Orson Welles on the grounds that The High School Musical Crowd wouldn't find it appealing. Another obstacle was that the actor that Linklater cast as Orson Welles is a newcomer who had previously played Welles onstage.

Questions were asked throughout the course of the panel. A member of the audience asked Linklater about an ongoing project he is shooting, which follows a boy from the ages of 5 to 17. Normally, you would see different actors play the same character at different ages, having the same actors age normally. Linklater is shooting a little bit each year over the course of 12 years, and mentioned that he had just finished shooting year six.

Another question came from Jim Fouratt, a legendary gay rights activist and journalist, who asked Haynes what it was like to come of age just as AIDS was emerging into the public consciousness, and did that effect him in any way. Haynes said that it had a profound effect on him.  Haynes was a founding member of the activist collective Gran Fury.

Both recalled a story about Madonna attending a screening of Poison in LA. Madonna came into the theater, and the trailers began. The first one was for Slacker. The opening scene for that trailer had Teresa Taylor carrying around Madonna's Pap Smear. The whole audience--many gay men--turned around, looked at Madonna, and Madonna walked out.

Haynes shared with the audience that he was very reluctant to pursue his most recent movie, I'm Not There, about Bob Dylan, because of the previous troubles he had getting rights to songs. Superstar is not legally available, and David Bowie refused to let Velvet Goldmine use his songs. At the time he had moved to Portland and was working on Far From Heaven when he began listening to Dylan's songs.  Haynes knew Dylan's son Jesse, and after meeting Dylan's manager, sent a one page proposal.  Dylan liked the idea and gave it a go-ahead.

When an aspiring filmmaker asked both Haynes and Linklater what criteria he should consider when embarking on a project, both Linklater and Haynes agreed that you should find something you care about, then pursue it.

Film Independent's Spirit Awards 2007 Nominations

Congratulations to all of the nominees for this year's Film Independent's Spirit Awards, as announced on IFC this morning. Many of the films nominated have been covered here at The Film Panel Notetaker this past year including I'm Not There, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Great World of Sound, Quiet City, 2 Days in Paris, and Lust, Caution. Below is a complete list of the nominees.

BEST FEATURE
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"Producers: Kathleen Kennedy, Jon Kilik
"I'm Not There"Producers: Christine Vachon, John Sloss, John Goldwyn, James D. Stern
"Juno"Producers: Lianne Halfon, John Malkovich, Mason Novick, Russell Smith
"A Mighty Heart"Producers: Dede Gardner, Andrew Eaton, Brad Pitt
"Paranoid Park" Producers: Neil Kopp, David Cress

BEST DIRECTOR
Todd Haynes, "I'm Not There"Tamara Jenkins, "The Savages"Jason Reitman, "Juno"Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"Gus Van Sant, "Paranoid Park"

BEST FIRST FEATURE
"2 Days in Paris," Director: Julie DelpyProducers: Julie Delpy, Christophe Mazodier, Thierry Potok
"Great World of Sound," Director: Craig ZobelProducers: Melissa Palmer, David Gordon Green, Richard Wright, Craig Zobel
"The Lookout," Director: Scott FrankProducers: Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber, Laurence Mark, Walter Parkes
"Rocket Science," Director: Jeffrey BlitzProducers: Effie T. Brown, Sean Welch
"Vanaja," Director: Rajnesh DomalpalliProducer: Latha R. Domalapalli

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD
"August Evening," Writer/Director: Chris EskaProducers: Connie Hill, Jason Wehling
"Owl and the Sparrow," Writer/Director: Stephane GaugerProducers: Nguyen Van Quan, Doan Nhat Nam, Stephane Gauger
"The Pool," Director: Chris SmithProducer: Kate NobleWriter: Chris Smith & Randy Russell
"Quiet City," Director: Aaron KatzProducers: Brendan McFadden, Ben StamblerWriters: Aaron Katz, Erin Fisher, Cris Lankenau
"Shotgun Stories," Writer/Director: Jeff NicholsProducers: David Gordon Green, Lisa Muskat, Jeff Nichols

BEST SCREENPLAY
Ronald Harwood, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"Tamara Jenkins, "The Savages"Fred Parnes & Andrew Wagner, "Starting Out in the Evening"Adrienne Shelly, "Waitress"Mike White, "Year of the Dog"

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
Jeffrey Blitz, "Rocket Science"Zoe Cassavetes, "Broken English"Diablo Cody, "Juno"Kelly Masterson, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"John Orloff, "A Mighty Heart"

BEST FEMALE LEAD
Angelina Jolie, "A Mighty Heart"Sienna Miller, "Interview"Ellen Page, "Juno"Parker Posey, "Broken English"Tang Wei, "Lust, Caution"

BEST MALE LEAD
Pedro Castaneda, "August Evening"Don Cheadle, "Talk To Me"Philip Seymour Hoffman, "The Savages"Frank Langella, "Starting Out in the Evening"Tony Leung, "Lust, Caution"

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE
Cate Blanchett, "I'm Not There"Anna Kendrick, "Rocket Science"Jennifer Jason Leigh, "Margot at the Wedding"Tamara Podemski, "Four Sheets to the Wind"Marisa Tomei, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"

BEST SUPPORTING MALE
Chiwetel Ejiofor, "Talk To Me"Marcus Carl Franklin, "I'm Not There"Kene Holliday, "Great World of Sound"Irrfan Khan, "The Namesake"Steve Zahn, "Rescue Dawn"

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Mott Hupfel, "The Savages"Janusz Kaminski, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"Milton Kam, "Vanaja"Mihai Malaimare, Jr., "Youth Without Youth"Rodrigo Prieto, "Lust, Caution"

BEST DOCUMENTARY
"Crazy Love," Director: Dan Klores"Lake of Fire," Director: Tony Kaye"Manufactured Landscapes," Director: Jennifer Baichwal"The Monastery," Director: Pernille Rose Gronkjaer"The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair," Directors: Petra Epperlein & Michael Tucker

BEST FOREIGN FILM
"4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," Director: Cristian Mungiu (Romania)"The Band's Visit," Director: Eran Kolirin (Israel)"Lady Chatterley," Director: Pascale Ferran (France)"Once," Director: John Carney (Ireland)"Persepolis," Directors: Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi (France)

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD
"I'm Not There," Director: Todd HaynesCasting Director: Laura RosenthalEnsemble Cast: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bruce Greenwood, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw

NYFF- HBO Directors Dialogue: Todd Haynes - October 6, 2007

45th New York Film Festival
HBO Directors Dialogue: Todd Haynes
October 6, 2007

Todd Haynes in New York Film Fesival's Green Room for I'm Not There. Photo Credit: C.J.Contino

Saturday at the New York Film Festival, Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman conducted an HBO Directors Dialogues with filmmaker Todd Haynes whose new film, I’m Not There, premiered at the festival a few days earlier. I was at the premiere and took notes at the Q&A, and thought it would be a good complement to take additional notes at the Directors Dialogue to get further insights from Haynes on his directing styles and choices for I’m Not There and his other bodies of work. What follows are highlights of the discussion and questions and answers from the audience.

Hoberman opened by saying “the greatest pleasure a film journalist can have is to come across a movie you never heard of from someone unknown and to have the privilege to write about it first 20 years ago.” The film refers to was Haynes’ 1987 super 8mm movie Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. Hoberman called it a completely brilliant and original movie. He then went through the laundry list of Haynes’ other film including Poison (1991), Safe (1995), Velvet Goldmine (1998), Far From Heaven (2002), and finally I’m Not There (2007). Hoberman pointed out that most of these films have multiple stories and address certain pop culture text. In each case, there is a certainty of irony. He asks Haynes if these films were made with love, and what he’s a fan of.

Haynes responded that he’s an intense, wild fan of movies, music, and even of Hoberman’s work, referring back to Hoberman’s original review of Superstar, a film that would never have been shown commercially. This review launched Haynes’ career. Many theatrical venues wanted to show the film.

Hoberman moves the discussion over to Haynes interest in Bob Dylan.

Haynes recollected his high school days. He attended Oakwood, an artsy school in Los Angeles that had a radical, mythical history founded by progressive actors in the 1950s. It was in this environment, he first encountered Dylan’s music. After graduating in 1979, he moved to the East Coast for college at Brown University, where he studied semiotics, and became interested in glam and punk rock. It was not till the end of his 30s (he had begun his film career already) when he got back into Dylan. He finished making Velvet Goldmine and took a few years off. Most of his friends were starting their lives already, having families. He didn’t have any of those things in his life. Something was missing. He wanted to enrich himself. Since he was a creative person, he had the opportunity to externalize his troubles, and was very grateful for it. At the time, he was interested in 1950s melodramas (ala Douglas Sirk) and wanted to work again with Julianne Moore (who he worked previously with on Safe).

At the end of the 1990s, Haynes drove across country to Portland, Oregon, to live with his sister. He listened to tapes of Dylan in the car. Half way there, he bought some more folk music to listen to . When he got to Portland, he read a bunch of Dylan biographies. It became inevitable that his obsession would result in making something creative.

Hoberman mentions that Haynes started writing the screenplay for I’m Not There in 2000. During this time, Dylan published an anthology, ’s documentary, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan came out, and Twyla Tharp’s ballet based on Dylan’s songs, The Times They Are A-Changin’, played on Broadway. But Haynes focuses most of the film on Dylan’s life in the 1960s up until the 70s, the end of the Vietnam War.

Haynes said he couldn’t commit to Dylan’s entire life. He wanted to focus on the core elements and roots of his origins in the 60s era. That was enough. Dylan ultimately created his own escape at the end of the 60s until he had his motorcycle accident in 1966. Then he went to Woodstock and raised a family. In many ways, he never really came back. Dylan’s access and visibility have been under his own terms ever since. That’s what the whole last story with Richard Gere’s Dylan character, Billy, is all about. Billy is the most metaphorical character.

Given how protective Dylan is, Hoberman asked Haynes how he got permission to use Dylan’s music in the film and what Dylan thought of the film.

Haynes said he’s not sure Dylan has seen it yet. He sent the DVD to Dylan’s son Jesse, because he knew that Dylan didn’t want to come to any public screenings. Before even making the film, Haynes called up producer Christine Vachon. He was very bashful about it, because he knew it would be hard to get Dylan’s permission to use the songs. There was no way he could make the movie without the music. Prior to making the film, Haynes met with Jesse, who is also a filmmaker, in Los Angeles. It’s so hard to be the kid of a famous person. One thing Dylan has been able to do all along is keep his family protected.

At that point in the script (which was then titled I’m Not There: Suppositions On a Film Concerning Dylan), Haynes had seven Dylan characters, one of which eventually got absorbed into the Woody character, making the final amount six. Dylan had been opposed to every dramatic version of his life before, until that moment. If there was ever something Dylan wanted done about his life, it would have to be something this open and unconventional.

Audience Q&A

Q: Do you see parallels between I’m Not There and Velvet Goldmine? Did you get David Bowie’s blessing for Velvet Goldmine?

TH: Artists are always changing themselves. The first person you might think of is David Bowie. I wanted the rights to Bowie’s songs, but he wasn’t interested in having his story on film. Bowie’s version of self-transformation was about dressing up and applying make up. Androgyny. I’m Not There and Velvet Goldmine are very different films. Different music genres and traditions. Velvet Goldmine is a British story, whereas I’m Not There is American story.

Q: Why do you choose Cate Blanchett for the role of Jude in I’m Not There?

TH: I was obsessed about different actresses in their age range. I looked at pictures of actresses and put them in Dylan’s hair. Saw Cate on stage in Heda Gabler in Brooklyn. Saw her scale and proportions. She’s beautiful. On a physical level, I was stunned by her proportions.

Q: How do you work with such a large body of music?

TH: It was an embarrassment of riches. The selection of cinematic references started in the script stage. Music would be telling the story, built into the film’s concept. For example, the song “Ballad of a Thin Man” had such an important historical meaning. It expressed the inside/outside dichotomy. Another song, “Goin’ to Acapulco,” was a personal favorite. It’s absurdly melodramatic.

Q: You started the script in 2000 with seven Dylan characters. What are other changes were made?

TH: I did stop everything on the script when going into production on Far From Heaven in 2001, which occupied me completely till about 2003, but at that point, I had gotten the rights from Dylan to use the music. Then started researching and starting over from scratch. The process of being a pure fan was changed. The missing seventh character was called Charlie, a Chaplin-esque figure.

Q: Did you study of semiotics at Brown influence your filmmaking?

TH: It has. The semiotics courses are now part of the modern culture and media departments. Semiotics studies post-culturalism. It’s a post-humanist look at pop culture and media.

I Was There - Notes from Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There" At 45th New York Film Festival

45th New York Film Festival
I’m Not There
October 4, 2007

Cate Blanchett as Jude in I'm Not There. Directed by Todd Haynes, US, 2007; 136m. Photo Credit: Jonathan Wenk/TWC 2007

I'm Not There opens in limited release at Film Forum in New York on Nov. 21.

Last night at the New York Film Festival, I saw Todd Haynes’ extraordinary narrative/mockumentary/experimental/biopic I’m Not There. The film beautifully and strangely yet effectively, weaves the tales of six different versions of legendary folk/rock singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, each played by different actors of varying ages (and gender ala Cate Blanchett’s terrific performance) at various stages or incarnations or dreamlike moments of Dylan’s life. I’m Not There was the most challenging, engaging and artistic film I have seen so far this year. There are definitely elements of Haynes’ earlier works here, which I’ve always been intrigued by, yet he presents us with fresh and new ideas, that to some may seem a bit jarring, but well worth the experience.

Richard Peña, Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, introduced the film along with its director Todd Haynes. Haynes told the audience that it meant a tremendous amount to him to have his film there. “This is a city Dylan so loved,” he said. He also mentioned how difficult it was to get the project financed and gave a big thanks to Harvey Weinstein (who was in attendance) for being someone who stepped in. “He is a courageous guy,” Haynes said.

Haynes then went on to introduce a lot of people from the film who all got up on stage. They included: Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Marcus Carl Franklin, Michelle Williams, co-screenwriter Oren Moverman, producers Christine Vachon (Killer Films), John Sloss and Jim Stern, executive producers John Wells and Wendy Japhet, music supervisors Randy Poster and Jim Dunbar, casting director Laura Rosenthal, production designer Judy Becker, titlist Marlene McCarty, assistant Tonya Smith, and last but not least, director of photography Ed Lachman. Also in the cast, but not present to my awareness was Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, and Ben Wishaw, all who round out the rest of the Dylan avatars in the film.

After the screening, Richard Pena (RP) moderated a Q&A with Haynes (TH), Blanchett (CB), Marcus Carl Franklin (MCF), and Michelle Williams (MW).

(RP) Can you tell us about the structure of the film?

(TH) The script tried to suggest the ways the stories would be intercut, told in a linear order. I created a dialogue with my subject’s lives. The only way the film could work was that the stories had to fill each other in. One fills in the past of the other. The characters were dreaming each other’s stories. The motifs and ideas came from Dylan’s songs.

(RP) How did you all prepare for your roles?

(CB) By talking to Todd. The script was like a logarithm or algebra. Todd put together a song for each character. I had also read Bob Dylan’s Playboy interview.

(MCF) I’m not as experienced as these actors are. I listened to Dylan’s music. Basically, I did my homework.

Audience Questions

Q: How did it feel interpreting Bob Dylan as a woman?

(CB) I didn’t really think about it too much. It was incredibly genius to cast a woman.

Q: Why did the six Bob Dylan characters in the film have different names other than Bob Dylan?

(TH) To really play out the idea of him occupying different psychic places in his life, it would have been too difficult to make him one character. Most biopics blend fact and fiction. Dylan gave himself different names over the years.

Q: How do you deal with the people who would rather see a more direct version of Dylan’s life?

(TH) People don’t have to like the film. Dylan was received by an incredibly popular audience in the 1960s. This was my subject. I didn’t want to dumb it down. I tried to be true to the story.

Q: Has Bob Dylan seen the film yet?

(TH) We don’t know yet. He hasn’t come to any public screenings. We gave his son Jesse the DVD. Heard that Dylan saw Martin Scorsese’s documentary, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, on TV when he was traveling in Spain.

Q: Were all the performances in the film song by Dylan? Did any of the actors do their own singing?

(CB) I had guitar lessons, but Todd wanted my character to have a male voice come out of my mouth during the singing scenes.

(TH) There was one actor who’s here today who did do his own singing. (Haynes is referring to young Marcus Carl Franklin. The audience applauds.)

Q: What was your relationship with the editor in terms of choices you made to tell the story?

(TH) This was my first time working with Jay Rabinowitz? We started out very closely following the script. It’s a long, big film. It was a challenge to make it work. For example, Richard Gere’s character comes last in the story, but we put little pieces of him earlier in the film.

Q: The film encompasses stages of Dylan’s life up until the late 1970s. Why doesn’t it go further into the present?

(TH) I was paralleling a lot of different events that took place in the film. For example, when Dylan had his motorcycle accident, he eventually goes to the Woodstock in 1969, but he was as far away from the psychedelics of that movement. He went into the past with his music. He never fully returned.

(RP) The turning point was the motorcycle accident. Could you talk more about that?

(TH) I didn’t want to make this film just for Dylan fanatics. Didn’t want to overplay the motorcycle accident, but wanted to make it clear enough. It kind of book ends the films.

Q: What inspired you to make this film?

(TH) I got into Dylan’s music in my late 30s and read a lot of his biographies. I was looking for excitement of change in my life. I associated Dylan with adolescence and the excitement of the future and the unknown. The idea of changing was something I was confronting. These are huge changes and they cause huge repercussions. I dramatized that.

Q: The core of Dylan is identity. Is there a huge question for you about human identity in your thinking?

(TH) The single thing I see in my films is about identity. Dylan found expectations of identity stifling. I found this to be a beautiful model.

Q: Did you have the actors in mind when writing the script?

(TH) I don’t usually think of actors in my mind. Only one actor came to mind, that being the wife character played in the film by Charlotte Gainsbourg. I was so indelibly blessed with these actors. They don’t have to risk everything for a movie like this.