Montreal-based film writer and programmer Justine Smith returns to the pod to discuss two radical works by the great director Todd Haynes, both based on true stories: his first short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1988) and his latest feature, Dark Waters (2019). 

Dark Waters was written off by many critics at the time of release as a “work-for-hire” project from Haynes, but in fact it is of a piece with the director’s career-spanning concerns about the dangers built into living in a consumer society and the hidden illnesses that grow behind the facade of normalcy. Both films have the courage to name names and display great empathy towards their subjects, as well as the audience that also has to navigate the hard societal truths these films reveal. 

Dark Waters is available for rent on iTunes. Superstar cannot be distributed legally after Richard Carpenter, upset over the film’s retelling of his sister’s life and death using Barbie dolls, sued Haynes for the use of unlicensed Carpenters music in the film. Bootleg transfers show up on YouTube from time to time. 

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A teenaged Karen Carpenter displaying great skill as a drummer on a sixties variety show, one of the many talents that were suppressed in her tragic life.

(They Long To Be) Close To You - Carpenters, 1970 

“The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare” - the New York Times Magazine article by Nathaniel Rich that Dark Waters is adapted from, January 10, 2016