Filmmaker Todd Haynes spoke about his aborted project with Joaquin Phoenix during an in-depth conversation at the Marrakech International Film Festival.
“What happened this summer was tough,” Haynes told the audience. “But the film itself and the script may resurrect in a different form someday.”
During an in-conversation event, compared by Sydney Film Festival director Nashen Mosley, the May December director also spoke about the move from film to television and his forthcoming limited HBO series, Trust.
Based on Hernan Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, Trust will reunite him with Kate Winslet, with whom he previously collaborated on the Emmy-winning Mildred Pierce.
“One of the most satisfying experiences I’ve had with a studio was working on Mildred Pierce,” Haynes said, reflecting on his move from the big screen to the episodic format. “We were surrounded by remarkable intelligence and investment in a complicated story. That isn’t always the case with studios.”
Winslet, who has continued to collaborate with HBO on projects like Mare of Easttown, was Haynes’ first choice for Trust. “We’re very, very excited about this project,” Haynes added. “We’re in development now, working closely with Jon Raymond, a brilliant screenwriter and fiction writer from Portland.”
Haynes highlighted his enduring partnership with Raymond, who also co-wrote Mildred Pierce. The two have cultivated a deep creative bond over the years, rooted in Portland’s artistic community. Shortly after moving to Portland in 2002, Haynes introduced Raymond to fellow filmmaker Kelly Reichardt. Raymond and Reichardt have since collaborated on five of her films, including Old Joy, Night Moves and First Cow, all set in the Pacific Northwest.
“I have yet to fully tap into the filmmaking community in Portland the way Kelly has,” Haynes admitted. “But it’s an extraordinary place, and I look forward to exploring that further someday.”
On adapting Trust, Haynes, who is also set to co-produce the series alongside Raymond, Diaz, Winslet and his regular producers Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler, expressed excitement about the novel’s narrative possibilities. “The book opens itself up to so many interesting strategies for how to tell that story on film,” he said, hinting at the series’ potential for layered storytelling and visual experimentation.
Hinting at how he may interpret Diaz’s novel, Haynes spoke about his approach to filmmaking and storytelling.
“My movies are about the social world,” he said. “They’re not about the natural world, and things we are natural – like identity, sexuality and language – in my films they’re foregrounded to be unnatural. They’re foregrounded to be languages that are cultural. So, we’re sharing languages, and a whole range of languages come together in the films that you see. Sometimes very consciously, sometimes less consciously, but that’s what get communicated to the audience and they feel that. That’s how we connect to the most important thing, which is their emotions.”
Trust, which Haynes described as a “remarkable” novel, uses a nested-storytelling approach to explore themes of wealth, power, and the manipulation of narratives. Split into four discrete sections, a novel within a novel, a memoir and multiple personal and often contradictory accounts, Trust centres on the story of Gilded Age financier Benjamin Rusk whose rise to immense power and wealth is both celebrated and mysterious.
Haynes also addressed the enduring influence of another celebrated and mysterious figure in the form of his 2007 Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There. When asked about visual and narrative similarities between his work and James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, Haynes laughed.
“Imitation is the greatest form of flattery,” he said with a smile. “I’ve liberally appropriated from the greatest and most inspiring films in my work. My work is explicitly about commentary and conjuring my view of our existing culture. I’m the first thief, and that's fine. That's how we all learn and adapt. I know Cate Blanchett wants to try to promote I'm Not There. She's very like, ‘damn, we gotta get our movie back out there!’ which is just so incredibly meaningful to me. I'm fine just moving forward and continuing to take on challenges.”