Todd Haynes: A Magnificent Obsession - A Camera Obscura Book

Synopsis

With almost two decades of work, from the critically acclaimed low-budget "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story" to "Far From Heaven" (for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for screenwriting), Todd Haynes has established himself as one of the most important contemporary independent filmmakers in the United States. Often described as provocative, inventive, and groundbreaking, his work is celebrated for inaugurating New Queer Cinema - a term coined in the early 1990s to describe the emergence of films committed to queer culture. Despite the richness and complexity of Haynes' work - which engages auteurs ranging from Chantal Akerman to Douglas Sirk and theorists from Judith Butler to Michel Foucault - relatively little scholarly work on it has been published. Stepping into this void, "Todd Haynes: A Magnificent Obsession" offers the first collection of scholarly essays exclusively devoted to Haynes' entire oeuvre. Including critical essays by well-known and emerging scholars in television theory and feminist film, this special issue of "Camera Obscura" demonstrates Haynes' engagement with history, feminism, queer culture, biography, and a range of artistic practices. In one essay a former professor of Haynes' examines the depiction of women in many of his films, describing how Haynes revisits key questions and themes reminiscent of those invoked in the 'woman's film' genre of the 1940s and 1950s. Other essays address the representations of television and film in "Far From Heaven", the aesthetics of pirated video copies of "Superstar", Velvet Goldmine's representation of the recent past, and the politics of abjection and marginalization in "Poison and Safe". Contributors include: Laura Christian, Mary Desjardins, Mary Ann Doane, Lucas Hilderbrand, Lynne Joyrich, Edward R. O'Neill, and Susan Potter. Amelie Hastie is Assistant Professor of Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Lynne Joyrich is Associate Professor of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. Constance Penley is Professor Film Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Director of the Center for Film, Television and New Media. Sasha Torres is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies and the Center for Theory and Criticism at the University of Western Ontario. Patricia White is Associate Professor of English and Chair of Film and Media Studies at Swarthmore College. Sharon Willis is Associate Professor of French and Visual and Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester.