While this has been in the works for months now, it’s finally official.
HBO has gone ahead and brought another excellent filmmaker into the fold. Todd Haynes has signed on to write and direct the five-hour mini-series, “Mildred Pierce,” based on the novel by James M. Cain. The project begins shooting in April in New York, and will star Kate Winslet in the lead role.
Cineastes already know that “Mildred Pierce” was also made into the 1945 film of the same name, directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Joan Crawford in one her most iconic performances. While that version added a murder and excised much of the sex of Cain’s novel, we imagine Haynes will be going for a more accurate adaptation, especially with five hours at his disposal to really dig in deep.
Haynes has never hid his love for melodrama with strong female characters, particularly the studied and opulent chamber dramas of Douglas Sirk (“Far From Heaven” being the most direct homage), and he certainly has the right sensibility to tackle Cain’s novel. Brave for its time, “Mildred Pierce” tells the story of the titular character, who strives to maintain her family’s middle-class lifestyle in the midst of the Great Depression. When her unemployed husband is unable to provide, she separates from him, and with their children in tow, strikes out on their own. While Mildred achieves great financial success, her relationship with her eldest daughter, Veda, becomes strained when she takes for granted the status they’ve attained.
One of current cinema’s great (and restless) visualists, “Mildred Pierce” should provide Haynes a fascinating new canvass to paint on. It will be interesting to see his approach to Depression-era Los Angeles and what stylistic flourishes he will embrace behind the camera.
It should be noted that HBO’s continual recruitment of auteurs into their ranks speaks volumes about the importance and dearth of smart, challenging, low-key dramas at the major studios. With studio executives continually dumbing down, raising the stakes, and gambling big budget tentpoles with the hopes of even larger payoffs, intelligent, low-cost, minimal-profit work is just not a priority any longer. Hence, filmmakers like Haynes, Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, David Fincher, Jonathan Demme and Bill Condon all developing and taking safe haven on projects at the cable channel. It’s practically becoming a nurturing ground for estimable filmmakers with quality stories to tell that studio suits don’t see major net profits in for their shareholders. We’re frankly thrilled that HBO is opening their doors to give these directors a new creative outlet, and we have to admit that many, if not all of these gestating projects, have us just as excited as some of the films we’re anticipating this year (if not more in several cases).
If you haven’t seen the Curtiz/Crawford “Mildred Pierce” do yourself a favor and add it your Netflix queue now. We’ve got the trailer below. And just under that check out Sonic Youth’s song “Mildred Pierce” off their 1992 album Goo. And the band is not coincidentally good pals with Haynes, who directed the video to “Disappearer” off that album as well.
Sonic Youth “Mildred Pierce”