*** Official "FAR FROM HEAVEN" Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Edwin Pereyra]

Michael, I only commented about the running time only because of your comment that the film was about Cathy, which led me to believe that from your perspective any more time spent on Frank's plight is not important as this is not his story. Well to some extent, it is also about him and the issue of homosexuality that the film very much touches on.

Contrary to what you said, I am not looking for another story. I clearly understand how the homosexuality issue was handled from the viewer's and society's perspectives during the period in question. But I just wonder why, even from Frank's own perspective, his homosexuality was shown as something of a physical nature rather than an emotional one.

~Edwin

 

[Kirk Tsai]

Rich, regarding Far From Heaven, I certainly see your point. And I have no doubt that I would appreciate the film more if I had thorough knowledge of Sirk's films, as well as the 50s in general. The LA Times had a commentary column the other day about three stylistically different films, including Far From Heaven, Secretary, and Punch Drunk Love. Its main point was that these films uses perhaps a surreal, or at least not naturalistic, approach to allow the audiences to dig beneath the surface appearances and get to know the main characters. I am not so much in disagreement about the influence and pleasure of Sirk's films that bring to Far From Heaven as I am trying to emphasize this film can be enjoyed on its own terms. It's obvious that you have a similar opinion on this matter, but let me turn a corner...

Although I enjoyed Far From Heaven, I must admit that it did not strike me as one of the finest films of the year. I felt Frank's story was unsatisfactory, too. What if the film could explore Frank's story instead? Cathy's interracial relationship is clearly doomed; but as Michael suggests, homosexual relationships have no frame of reference. The story Far From Heaven tells now is exploring a relationship that exists at the boundaries of social norms. What the film does not tell us is what happens to those who are outcast of society altogether. I wanted a different story, yes, but I think it is a legitimate expectation if the story told was not interesting enough. This somewhat predictable plot and its passive attitude towards examining Frank's relationship is, I believe, a big reason why many viewers and critics are emphasizing on its stylistic choices rather than its content. And on that level, I must admit a strong grasp on Sirk's films could enhance my view on the film significantly.

 

[Michael Reuben]

But I just wonder why, even from Frank's own perspective, his homosexuality was shown as something of a physical nature rather than an emotional one.

I could not disagree more with that characterization. The beauty of Quaid's performance is how subtly and thoroughly he reveals to the audience (though not to Cathy) that, despite all the outer trappings of success and content, his heart simply isn't "in it". It comes to a head at the party and erupts into violence immediately after -- and all of that results from much more than just a physical attraction to men. What Quaid so effectively conveys is Frank's realization that his entire life up to that point -- both the inside and the outside -- has been a sham.

I agree that the film doesn't take us on Frank's journey to discover his true self. That would be a different film -- one that is only beginning as Far From Heaven concludes.

(BTW, I think the closing shot of the film is one of the most ironic moments in the whole thing. As Cathy drives off to an uncertain future, the camera moves to show you a branch budding with new life. It's a perfect "genre" conclusion, but today's audience knows that what's about to be born is an era that will rip apart the world of the film and render it just as much an antique as the ante-bellum South portrayed in Gone with the Wind.)

M.

 

[Rich Malloy]

I was blown away by Quaid's performance and sorta taken aback by how little I'd credited him in the past. I thought he was brilliant, and I thought his character was fascinating. If all you see in Frank is physical desire, then you simply aren't looking deep enough. Todd Haynes, of all people, wouldn't so caricaturize a homosexual or minimize the significance of his dilemma. But, to his credit, he also doesn't minimize the impact that his actions would have upon his wife and family. We are meant to understand Frank, too, and to sympathize with him.

But he's not let off the hook. We are confronted both with Frank's pain and the pain he causes his family. But it's certainly no accident that Frank is allowed to act on his desires, just as Cathy is not. And yet, in the end, it is Cathy who suffers all the same... and she suffers as much for what she has denied herself, a chance for love with Raymond, as she does from the cold shoulder given her by those who presume she didn't.

Michael addressed this perfectly: it's Cathy's story. No matter if you're black, white, male, female, gay or straight, you are meant to identify with Cathy. After all, this is a reconstruction of that genre given the (somewhat derisive) term "women's weepie", and so it's certainly no surprise that a woman is the protagonist and the one with whom we most closely identify.

When I recommended the film to a friend who'd already read a thing or two about it (and presumed it to be little more than a pomo exercise in thematic/historic deconstruction), he suggested to me that perhaps I found the story so moving and emotionally real because my wife's black (I'm white), and that perhaps I filled in certain details of my own experience, enlargening the dramatic impact... but for me alone. I can't deny that one's life experiences impact their perceptions of such things, but I simply don't agree with the notion that this film would play successfully only to interracial couples. In fact, the audience we saw the movie with was, I'd wager, majority gay, and I saw more than a few moist eyes over Frank's predicament. No, he's not let off the hook, and, yes, it seems unfair that he seems to have the chance to escape the very repression that Cathy and Raymond cannot, to live a life denied to them. But desire is inherently selfish, its consequences cruel for those to whom its denied. As Flaubert said "The heart wants what the heart wants." And, in the end, this is Cathy's story, after all. And, with her, we're all meant to identify.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
1. The shot of Frank kissing another man whose only other purpose is for Cathy to catch them in the act.
2. While on vacation with his wife, Frank falls for a younger man who almost looks about half his age. Why was this?
3. While Frank was in his hotel room, a full head to toe body shot of this same young man with particular emphasis on his upper bare torso partially concealed only by his white robe. What was the purpose of that shot?
4. The never-ending exchange of nervous glances with another man in the gay bar.
5. While Frank was on the phone with Cathy, a shot of what I assume of the same young man above (if this is not him, then that’s another problem) sitting on a bed that was slept on from the night before between the two and of all places in a hotel room! Why was that?
In the absence of words and dialogue to that effect, how a director frames his shots speaks louder. If the physical nature of his homosexual tendencies is not what Todd Haynes had intended to convey, then in my view, Haynes picked the wrong shots to portray Frank’s own predicament especially those coming from his own perspective.
Yes, Frank finally losses it and explodes towards the end but only as expected to release his frustrations and finally accepting who he is despite what others think.
~Edwin

 

[Michael Reuben]

No one is disagreeing that the film portrays the "physical" element of Frank's sexuality. Where we disagree is your assertion that the film portrays nothing else about Frank.

As for the "purpose" of those shots, I would have thought that was obvious: as a stark contrast to the ordered, well-manicured and utterly artificial world that Cathy supposedly inhabits. It's a world built on exclusion, and those shots are part of what's been excluded. The film contains many such shots, and a lot of them have nothing to do with homosexuality (an obvious example is the quick "reaction" shot of the all-black serving staff at the party right after one of the guests states that "there are no Negroes" in Hartford).

M.

 

[Rich Malloy]

Edwin, I guess I don't understand your criticisms. Gay people have sex, they get naked, they do it in hotel rooms, and back in the 1950s, they exchanged many a furtive glance. If you're suggesting that Haynes should have framed Frank and his "partner" attending church together or building shelters for the homeless or simply sitting in a warm gauzy glow and enjoying one another's company in a decidedly non-sexual manner, then I guess we disagree about what makes for an interesting and realistic and resonant characterization of human beings, with all their virtues and foibles.

As for the age difference thing, I immediately noticed that and was again reminded of "All that Heaven Allows" where the doomed relationship was between an older woman and her younger gardener. (In that film, the husband was dead.) When Fassbinder remade it as "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul", he maintained the older woman/younger man thing and added the element of interracial/intercultural difference (the woman being an older German woman and the man a young, Arabic immigrant). In Hayne's reconstruction, the gardener is black, however age-appropriate, and Rock Hudson's homosexuality (he played the gardener in Sirk's film) is transferred to the husband... and, I thought, the whole May-December aspect was addressed between Frank and his younger lover. I see it as yet another "inversion" (heh heh) of the Sirkian tropes.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

I guess I don't understand your criticisms.

Because not enough time was spent to fully develop Frank’s character, we are only given these quickly constructed shots that depicts his homosexual relationships/tendencies at a purely superficial level – one that is based on physical desires without any real substance, true meaning, real emotions and a long term commitment.

Gay people have meaningful relationships too back in the 1950’s. It just didn’t happen all of a sudden in the 1990’s. The concept of love between two men, while utterly incomprehensible for others to accept, has existed way before the 1950's.

You’ll come back again with “This is not Frank’s story”. Yes, I know that but by including this aspect in the film and not fully exploring it, his story suffers in the process.

Let me say this again, at this point, I am still trying to find some connection to Cathy’s emotional plight when essentially, the same emotional plight of Frank was handled rather carelessly, insignificant and without merit.

~Edwin

 

[Rich Malloy]

I suppose I could repost my response to your reposted criticisms, but I think we're both up against the proverbial brick wall on this one. Perhaps I'd concede that a wonderful movie could be made of Frank's journey that's all about his search for a longterm commitment with an age-appropriate partner that glosses over all the "superficial" aspects of sexual desire and doesn't involve hotel rooms, furtive glances and naked male torsoes... but I really don't believe that. And it certainly would've turned this movie into a stinker.

And as for "emotional realism", the character of Frank and Quaid's portrayal has it in spades. It's one of the finest parts of the film, and to the film's credit, it doesn't soft-pedal the cruel consequences of Frank's actions. For everytime I was angry with him, frustrated with him, resentful of him, I was also deeply sympathetic with his internal conflicts, his thwarted and sublimated desires, and the way in which his life was all but broken upon the crucible of that era's prejudices and hatefulness. It's all there. In the character, in the portrayal, on the screen.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

Rich, based on your last post, it all appears to be a wasted effort on my part. From the very beginning, it was not about turning this movie into Frank's journey. It was how it was handled. Yep, the proverbial brick wall. Moving on.

~Edwin

 

[Rich Malloy]

Impasse! :frowning:
Detente?

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

Detente
~Edwin

 

[Rich Malloy]

 

[Michael Reuben]

I'll settle for a non-aggression pact.

M.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Well, another weekend coming up without this film playing in one of the local theaters. Looks like I'll have to go on the road for this one. I hate this town!




Crawdaddy

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

Crawdaddy, there has been a flurry of activity in the thread I noted above discussing this very film in the past few days. If you like, you can transfer some of those posts here.

~Edwin

 

[Lew Crippen]

Well, I certainly feel properly chastised. And as a true Sirk fan, I have no excuse for not yet having seen the film, but so far my schedule as not allowed time to get to the theatre and see the movie. With luck, that will be rectified this weekend.

 

[Rich Malloy]

Thanks for reposting from the other thread!

 

[Gabe Oppenheim]

Well, I'd say that Far from Heaven is the year's best non-documentary film (thus "far" at least). However, and this came up when it was screened this fall at Toronto, I think that it is being misunderstood by a great many people who were either expecting a realistic portrayal of life in the 1950s or an ironic jab at the "cheesy" films of that decade.

What Haynes has done, and I'm paraphrasing Jonathan Rosenbaum's words here, is to use Sirkian "vocabulary" to tell a (Sirkian) story with elements that wouldn't/COULDN'T allow it to be made during the 1950s. Also, the cinematography by Ed Lachmann (who has done great work before, but nothing like this) is nothing short of amazing. This aspect, perhaps for obvious reasons, made me wish that someone ("Marty" would be the obvious choice) would make a full-on Powell-Pressburger knockoff.

The moment, among many memorable ones throughout the film, when that vocabulary is broken
(when Dennis Quaid says "fuck" outside of his therapist's office
), is quite incredible in its power, I think. Then again, a lot of people probably snickered.

At any rate, this film is probably for a VERY select audience, though do I hope a lot of people will see it and then seek out the nearly-as-excellent Safe.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Should we repost our whole discussion here in the hopes it encourages more?

No need. The earlier discussion has been copied to this thread.

M.