Listen and Subscribe:

iTunes / Spotify / Stitcher / Google Play / RSS / Simplecast / Tunein / Android / Email / Google Podcasts / Podbean / Radio Public / Podchaser

 

In this episode, I explore Todd Haynes’s 2002 film, “Far From Heaven.” It’s an homage to 1950s melodramas and stars Julianne Moore as Cathy Whitaker, a Connecticut housewife who develops a deep connection to her African American gardener (Dennis Haysbert) while her marriage starts to crumble when her husband (Dennis Quaid) starts struggling with his repressed homosexuality. I talk about melodrama, woman’s films, Douglas Sirk, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, how the film looks at race, sexuality, and gender, and much more! Spoilers are in this episode.

Full Show Notes:

• My episode on Birth
• Douglas Sirk films: All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind,Magnificent Obsession, Imitation of Life
• Frida by Julie Taymor
• The Hours by Stephen Daldry
• Melodrama
• Woman’s film
• Rainer Werner Fassbinder
• Ali: Fear Eats the Soul by Fassbinder
• My Safe episode
• “Shallow” by Lady Gaga
• “Hey Jupiter” by Tori Amos
• My episode on Brief Encounter
• Carol by Todd Haynes

All My Sources

• Todd Haynes: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers Series), edited by Julia Leyda
• Todd Haynes: From Fassbinder to Sirk and Back (A 2003 interview with the Criterion Collection)
• Todd Haynes interview with BBC
• Julianne Moore interview with Film Monthly
• Douglas Sirk interview with Film Comment
• Richard Brody – “Douglas Sirk’s Glorious Cinema of Outsiders” (The New Yorker)

Consider making this podcast sustainable by supporting it on Patreon.

Subscribe to the Her Head in Films Newsletter.

Follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.