Todd Haynes Previews 'De Noche' at Lumière Festival — SkimNews
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- Todd Haynes appeared at the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon on Tuesday with longtime producer Christine Vachon, presenting a retrospective of four of his films—"Poison," "Safe," "Far From Heaven," and "I'm Not There"—including newly restored versions of the first two.
- Haynes detailed his upcoming romantic noir "De Noche," starring Pedro Pascal as a detective and Danny Ramirez as a younger schoolteacher who flee 1930s Los Angeles corruption for Mexico, and recounted hiring costume designer Anna Terrazas after she told him "the most important thing about a costume was what it smelled like."
- For "May December," Haynes played Michel Legrand's score for "The Go-Between" on set from the very first day, using it to choreograph camera movements; the music became so integral that composer Marcelo Zarvos was brought in to rearrange and adapt it.
- Haynes described his pre-production habit of immersing himself in films that share a project's genre or cinematic style—rather than its historical setting—and building "image books" to share with collaborators.
- Christine Vachon warned that while younger Americans are flocking to repertory theaters, including her own 26-year-old daughter, the industry "is just not giving them enough movies to see."
- Haynes hinted heavily at a possible Wednesday surprise screening of his cult Barbie-doll short "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story," which has rarely been shown publicly since legal disputes over its music rights.
Why it matters: Vachon's concern that a new generation of repertory-cinema audiences is forming without enough new independent films to feed them surfaces a structural gap in indie distribution, and Haynes' own scent-and-touch-driven approach to "De Noche"—hiring based on a costume designer's philosophy of smell—underscores how commercially unconventional the auteur model remains.
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