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Todd Haynes’ SAFE is one of the best films of the nineties, and it’s a film we referenced a lot during our time on SOME KIND OF HEAVEN for its visual language. Julianne Moore plays Carol, a LA homemaker who inexplicably becomes ill with what seems to be a chronic and extreme aversion to her environment. When mainstream medicine offers no answers, she has to search elsewhere for help. The movie plays as a horror film where the only villains are Carol’s environment and frail body. The movie is engrossing and enigmatic, refusing easy answers and tidy resolutions. And lord knows, it’s become far more relevant today.
Feb 11, 2021
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This was the first movie I watched in Covid lockdown for obvious reasons, but its theme hits even harder now in the midst of the LA fires and resulting toxic air. Starring Julianne Moore, who I think is one of our last living movie stars. She plays this composed and delicate woman, and refers to herself as “a bit of a milkaholic” lol. It’s setting in late 80’s San Fernando Valley is meaningful to me having grown up in 90’s SoCal suburbia and also believing that my way too comfortable surroundings were trying to kill me.
Jan 17, 2025
Painterly ambivalence~~~ Giuliana (Monica Vitti) struggles to hide her increasingly fragile mental state from her abscent husband in a post-industrial landscape. Corrado, a visiting business man, promises reprieve through an affair.
Lots o' fog, gorgeous framing of empty space, a heightened colour palette and a minimalist electronic sound score. The small fairytale sequence is amazing so i've linked^^
watch: if you're into Safe (1995)
Mar 4, 2024
Nov 3, 2024
Top Recs from @lance-oppenheim
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My favorite Todd tune. Hauntingly cinematic. This was a big reference for us on our score. We attempted to combine elements of Todd’s psychedelic breakdowns with exotica and romantic noirs (Nelson Riddle and Hermann) to capture the mental and emotional landscapes of our subjects. This song felt that way for us. Something that felt more like a dreamscape.
Feb 11, 2021
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My favorite Nicholas Ray movie. A Proto-Lynchian descent into madness that picks apart the American dream. I love how subjective the film becomes, as we get closer and closer to a completely unhinged James Mason. A true portrait of a disintegrating man.
Feb 11, 2021
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Larry Sultan’s masterworks. My cinematographer David Bolen and I drew so much from both of these books, not just stylistically but also from Sultan’s process of “riffing off of reality.” These two books informed the look of our film, encouraging us to dig deeper and find the proper visual language that reflected our Utopian setting. We wanted the film to look somewhere between a Sultan photo and the Technicolor sheen in a Douglas Sirk Melodrama.
Feb 11, 2021