Todd Haynes’s FAR FROM HEAVEN reveals the dark underside of suburbia
FAR FROM HEAVEN (Todd Haynes, 2002)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Friday, November 27, 2:00, and Sunday, November 29, 6:30
Series continues through November 29
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.org
Douglas Sirk and Thomas Mann would be proud. In Todd Haynes’s wonderfully retro Far from Heaven, Oscar-nominated Julianne Moore is amazing as 1950s housewife Cathy Whitaker, who thinks she has the perfect idyllic suburban life — until she discovers that her husband (Dennis Quaid) has a secret that dare not speak its name. Mr. & Mrs. Magnatech they are not after all. When she starts getting all chummy with the black gardener (Dennis Haysbert), people start talking, of course. Part Imitation of Life and All That Heaven Allows, part Death in Venice, and oh-so-original, Haynes’s awesome achievement will have you believing you’re watching a film made in the 1950s, propelled by Elmer Bernstein’s excellent music, Edward Lachman’s remarkable photography, and Mark Friedberg’s terrific production design. Far from Heaven is screening at the Walter Reade Theater on November 27 at 2:00 and November 29 at 6:30 in the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Todd Haynes: The Other Side of Dreams,” with DP Lachman on hand for a Q&A following the latter show. The series, being held in conjunction with the release of Haynes’s latest film, Carol, continues through November 29 with Haynes pairing his films with works that directly influenced him, bringing together thematically (but not as double features) Safe and Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life, his Mildred Pierce miniseries and Alan J. Pakula’s Klute, Poison and Rainer Werner Fassbender’s Fox and His Friends, Velvet Goldmine and Nicolas Roeg’s Performance, and Far from Heaven and Max Ophüls’s The Reckless Moment, among other duos.