This is the thread where I ask Peter why he loved 'Far from Heaven'

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Peter: why did you love 'Far from Heaven' - and why did you not expect to?

I was kind of ambivalent about it. I liked the idea of it, and I liked the performances, but... I think the last thing Todd Haynes wanted to do was make a campy celebration of the fabulosity of the 50s melodrama. I think he wanted to sort-of-say "Douglas Sirk was a great director, doing things with genre which were important and interesting and we should honour his films" ie we should kind of rescue him from camp. Yet I think Haynes got seduced by the richness of the sets, fashion, 50s retro, couldn't help but make self-referential jokes ("Better not wear pink!"). I also wonder if the film does allow the audience to be a little self-congratulatory: "how much better off we are in the noughties where we know about feminism and racism and gayism" (incidentally I'm not sure about the husband's character being played pretty much for laffs). It doesn't really implicate the audience into its (cough) metafictional historiography. I came out of the film having enjoyed it, but wondering whether Haynes wouldn't have made a better film if he had applied the conventions of the Sirkian melodrama to contemporary life - seeing how far they could be stretched to breaking point. (Cf 'Pleasantville')

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 12:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I also thought it was a bit of a cosy retreat after the messy demented 'Velvet Goldmine'. :(

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 12:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Why did I think I would hate it - let's answer the easy one first. I hated Safe, which also gave me a real downer on Julianne Moore who therefore I also hate. Velvet Goldmine was really messy as you say, but also thoroughly unsatisfying. So the idea of Todd Haynes doing something as artificial as a Douglas Sirk pastiche would (for many of the reasons you sketch above) drive me into paroxyisms of irritation.

So why did I like it. Initially I didn't. The first twenty minutes were such a pastiche, from the dialogue to the fades, and whilst I could appreciate the craft gone into this pastiche I felt it obviously wouldn't engage. But the further I ot in the more I enjoyed the touches until I noticed that the pace of the film and concentration on pastiche had changed. The fact that it forces melodrama on the very process of creating Sirk's melodrama (after all he would not have been able to make a film with Far From Heaven's plot).

I agree that it is a touch self congratulatory - but actually that's not a bad thing to remind people that nothing dates more than prejudice (useful addage for our times). Oddly I felt it did implicate its audience in its metafictional historiography (though perhaps moreso for a US audience) - as these issues still linger in society. I enjoyed it most as a piece of cinema having a discussion with a past era of cinema and its audience: (why are there no melodrama's any more? Melodrama still exists).

Still need work on later responses - but don't think Quaid was being played for more laughs than he rightly got.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 15:01 (twenty-two years ago)

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