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The sermon for Dec. 02, 2002 is: "At The Movies" with Jonathan and Val 12:49 a.m. Saw Todd Haynes' "Far From Heaven" last night with Valerie and parents. I thought it was perfect, though prolonged thinking about it hurts my head. It's an almost note-perfect pastiche of a Sirk movie (the title itself is a nod to Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows"), everything from the consumer-materialist fetish shots of nature to the credits. Elmer Bernstein's soundtrack makes one wince with its simultaneous irony and sentimentality; its mocking solemnity really hurts my head, since this suggests that Bernstein actually sat down and said to himself, "I'm going to write a film score so maudlin and oversentimental, Jonathan's head will explode." The problem, if one could call it that, I have with the film is that I can't reconcile the use of pastiche with the the film's nakedly emotional drama (or am I confusing artifice for nature?)... there are parts in the movie I found myself absolutely enthralled, while simultaneously incredibly conscious of the filmmakers' toying with the conventions of Sirkian melodrama. It might be useful to compare Haynes' use of Sirk's narrative strategies with Fassbinder. "Far From Heaven" shares some plot points with Fassbinder's "Ali: Fear Eats The Soul"; but somehow Fassbinder wrests Sirk's influences to his own singular view, taking "Ali"'s Sirkian stylisms beyond mere pastiche into pointedly realpolitik discourse. Haynes may well be doing the same thing, but is hobbled by the fact that Fassbinder already did it, weakening the strength of his discourse by hip referentiality. Also Haynes, stylish boy that he is, can't help but slavishly recreate Sirk's fetish for the grand flourish -- it's so much like opera, like "Manon Lescaut" or "Girl of the Golden West," except without opera's inherent self-ridicule of how ridiculous opera it. Ah well, so it may be high camp. What hurts my head is that the actors (all uniformly excellent, but oh my Moore and Quaid are excellently excellent) don't share the arch wink-wink-it's-all-a-movie sense of camp that, say, you'd get from Jack Smith (or say Ewan MacGregor in anything). Julianne Moore is stunning -- you can see the exact moment when her housewife character suddenly understands the dimensions of her tragedy by the spark emitted by her narrowing eyes. It makes me wonder how much of a personality Ms Moore must have in real life, if she could so expertly abandon it to assume another. Dennis Quaid's obvious expertise in cruising makes me wonder if Haynes actually taught him gaydar or if there was something I'd missed all these years since "The Big Easy." In short -- neat film. Me liked lots. Valerie's head hurt even more than mine, and unfortunately she can't bullshit her way through emotional complications, theatrical or not, with theoretical gobbledygook like I can. We spent the evening swaddling our hurt heads.
 
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