Todd Haynes on Blu-ray

[Namuhana]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

MILDRED PIERCE - This is a pure melodrama, without the overt formal elements commenting on the genre. It's also one of the most fascinating films of a book I've ever seen, because it's not an adaptation of the book, in the conventional sense. It's literally a film of the book - every word, from beginning to end. The dialogue is all straight from the book, and every scene from the book is there, onscreen. Haynes also brought a bold new photographic style to his work here. He shot the miniseries on 16mm film, and it looks absolutely gorgeous, like an artifact of the period. That's probably the one distancing element in the piece.

This is why I love his version of Mildred Pierce, because it's exactly like the book. The Joan Crawford film really leans into the murdery aspect of the story, which I always found very secondary to the family relationships and melodrama of it all. The book feels more like domestic fiction than murder mystery to me. I will always prefer the miniseries over the film. And I actually still need to buy it too...

I'm not exactly sure how I would rank his films, but Carol is easily my favorite and I'm Not There is easily my least favorite.