Blanchett would love to film in Ireland again

Indeed, both Todd Haynes and screenwriter Phyllis Nagy valued a frequently ignored freedom inherent with exploring characters in an era without our modern points of reference or vocabulary. Judy Becker’s production design, too, is slinky and sultry, a divine scenescape of 1950s NY at Christmastime; it’s rich without quite being warm.

During our conversation, Haynes tells me that he thought it was “unhelpful” to consider the legacy and associations of The Price of Salt in trying to get to the book’s “emotional core”.

TURAN: Things soon get more complicated for Carol. I expected it to be like all that lesbian pulp literature of the day, and it wasn’t. He challenges us to create our own interpretation of the unseen conflict and monologue taking place within Carol and Therese. To witness the chemistry of Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara is another gift of its own. “Even when the ideas were awful, I had to figure out how to take those changes and somehow make it work”. And how we all fall in love. Returning early to their castle-like mansion (turrets and all) to pick up their daughter Rindy for Christmas, he meets Carol’s nubile companion for the first time. But Todd Haynes, being the meticulous and intentional director he is, lets things spell out in unspoken moments. “Simply from the time that it’s set, it’s a very different 1950s from the ’50s of the full Eisenhower era of Far from Heaven”, he says. Haynes says he didn’t feel the outside dynamics so much, but turned inward and focused more on his own history as a filmmaker when approaching Carol. Even moments when they’re alone in Carol’s vehicle are more moody and visual than personal and revelatory.

Highsmith was a crime writer, and her books have proved to be some of the most adaptable in the American literary canon, as the quality of films like Strangers on a Train, Purple Noon, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and now Carol can demonstrate.

It seems no one can really understand it, least of all Therese. While I have no trouble believing their physical pull to each other, a harder sell is why they’d match emotionally beyond mere incidentals. Mara, 30, tuned out those around her as she texted home to check on her dogs.

The first time I saw Douglas Sirk was in college. I think when everyone is in agreement, creative art can be a little bit monotonous.

A similar sort of interplay defines Clouds of Sils Maria, an Olivier Assayas film and Cannes standout from 2014.

Cate Blanchett stars opposite Rooney Mara in Carol. She is dazzled by a well-to-do woman bathed in a fur coat and finery named Carol Aird (Blanchett) who peruses her department. I once called this particular queerbaiting technique “highbrow no homo”. The malevolence is “out there”-it’s the specter of homophobia, which threatens to infect both women and of course, Carol’s child”. Indeed, its fame stemmed from the fact that it had a happy ending. We’ve all grown too used to queer hardship and devastation being refashioned as cheap Oscar bait, a tradition that’s hopefully on the outs.

I was really looking at the… She was like some old-school stone butches I’ve met, although she wasn’t herself like that, who would say things like, “It’s time to go to the lesbian bar”, as if there were a third person narrative that she wasn’t a part of and yet was very much a part of. “She’s brilliant. I’ve long admired her onstage and onscreen, and it was such a pleasure to work with her. In every gesture and every look, she just speaks volumes”, Blanchett enthused further when asked if she wants an endeavor with Paulson again. “It’s not a film with an agenda; we’re not preaching to the audience; so, people are allowed to just watch it for what it is, which is a love story between two humans”. But as I had learned about Eve as a Catholic schoolgirl, forbidden fruit inevitably got eaten.

“We even had to make our budget smaller several weeks before shooting”, says Mara, 30, who was recently moved by Pariah, a 2011 film of an African-American teen living a closeted life.