Art house / haunted house
Todd Haynes stood on the mezzanine level of the Palace Theatre in Louisville and gave notes to an actor on how to discover that his body is melting. “You’re looking across the crowd and then it’s like: Oh shit, what’s happening to me?” Haynes said. An assistant stood by with a smoke machine whose tube fed up through the actor’s Victorian rags.
Haynes had come to Louisville from his home in Portland for a concert. The director of Far From Heaven, I’m Not There, and Mildred Pierce was about to shoot a performance of the band My Morning Jacket to be streamed live on YouTube. In an interview before he came to town, Haynes told me he planned to frame the concert with some pre-cut narrative scenes that involved this undead character variously referred to on set as “the creature” or “the monster.” In trailers for the show, the monster had appeared in the form of a hologram; he seemed to represent an antique vision of a Jules Verne future. It fit with the hallucinatory rococo style of the Palace.
Haynes wore dark jeans, New Balances, and a Mr. Peanut t-shirt that read “Everyone Loves A Nut.” He had brought along Ed Lachman, who has served as director of photography on several Haynes productions, as well as Marina Draghici, costume designer for “Fela!,” and Affonso Gonçalves, his editor on Mildred Pierce. The team thus arrayed suggested that the entire Haynes firepower would be directed at a few minutes of incidental footage to accompany a live-streamed show. It seemed, in short, like pretty spectacular overkill.
