When Jon Stewart, while presenting this year's Academy Award, made the joke about all the movies about liberties and freedom being period pieces, the audience had to consider the joke some minutes before actually understanding it. Only George Clooney got it right away, since it was directed into his direction, into the direction of "Good Night, And Good Luck", a period piece about how courageous journalism might stand a chance against polemic, dangerously dogmatic politicians.
Three years earlier, in 2002, Clooney and Steven Soderbergh had produced a movie that dealt with issues such as racism, intolerance and individual freedom in a community that demands uniformity in an even subtler way, but nonetheless relating it to the presence, or rather, giving the viewer the chance to do so. Todd Hayne's (the director of another period piece, "Velvet Goldmine") "Far From Heaven" is set in the same time as Clooney's movie, the early 1950s – the setting is a suburb somewhere in Connecticut, mainly inhabited by members of the upper middle class. The main character, Cathy Whitaker, played by the wonderful Julianne Moore who should have gotten that Oscar for either this movie or "The Hours", where she had a similar role, seems to lead an idyllic life measured by the standards of her time: her husband is a successful business man, she is highly regarded in the local community of housewives, she has a beautiful house, two children.
Once that idyll is established, everything falls apart. Her husband, Frank, played by a surprisingly good Dennis Quaid, is a closeted gay man, who hides his attraction by taking lovers to his office. Shortly before Cathy herself discovers this, she meets Raymond Degan (played by Dennis Haysbert), son of her late gardener, who immediately takes over the job. She does not exactly feel attracted to him, but it is obvious that he is the only one she can talk to – and, since she already has a reputation of supporting minority groups, the fact that the African American man dares to turn up at a art gallery with his daughter, and she talks to him, in front of all the other housewives, causes a scandal she can't quite understand, since her acceptance does not stem from her political views, but from her very personal sympathy with this man.
Later, she finds out that her husband has a love affair with another man, and they take the following steps together. Frank sees a psychiatrist in order to "Cure his desires", but, during this cure, grows more and more alien to his wife, as he becomes more and more unhappy. Meanwhile, she turns to the gardener, who offers philosophical insights and understanding not even her sympathetic and resolute friend, played by the always excellent Patricia Clarkson, can offer. The community, already horrified by the mere thought that she might talk to him, grows even more violent when one of the women sees her getting in a car with him and later actually following him into an Afro-American restaurant, where both are met with as much disrespect as in her world. As the writer Richard Powers put it in "The Time of Our Singing" – "The bird and the fish can fall in love. But where will they build their nest?”. They are not even in love with each other at that point, but to the closeted society of suburban Connecticut, contact between someone of "their own" and an Afro-American that takes place on the same level, not in some master-servant context, is an affront.
The end of the movie is not, in fact, a happy end. It is her husband, Frank, who manages to break out of the community. He divorces her and moves in with his lover, while she, after having broken up the contact with Raymond because she could not bear the gossip, but she has already caused him to lose his standing in the community, and crossing a line actually means a bigger disaster to him than to her – his daughter, who already was subject to racism before, gets hit by a stone thrown by some little boys. He decides to leave town, at the moment she decides to break out as well. In the very end, his train is leaving, but Cathy is left behind in the suburban community that can not bear to see its dogmas broken.
Todd Haynes has the incredible ability to create period pieces that actually do look authentic. Where "Velvet Goldmine" was, in fact, as glittering and shining as glamour, "Far from Heaven" takes the aesthetics of Douglas Sirk, the wide shots of autumn trees, even the end credits are designed to fit a 1950s movie – and he uses this surface to show what lies behind the pretty façade, literally the clichéd depths of this community that smothers itself with its racism, homophobia and narrow-mindedness. The train Raymond takes goes into the future of the Sixties, when many of these communities were broken up, but Cathy is from the generation before, from the generation that yet had to find the ability to free itself. In "The Hours", her character runs away because she knows that she would otherwise kill herself. Cathy's future lies in the dark, it is not revealed what she is going to do.
Three years earlier, in 2002, Clooney and Steven Soderbergh had produced a movie that dealt with issues such as racism, intolerance and individual freedom in a community that demands uniformity in an even subtler way, but nonetheless relating it to the presence, or rather, giving the viewer the chance to do so. Todd Hayne's (the director of another period piece, "Velvet Goldmine") "Far From Heaven" is set in the same time as Clooney's movie, the early 1950s – the setting is a suburb somewhere in Connecticut, mainly inhabited by members of the upper middle class. The main character, Cathy Whitaker, played by the wonderful Julianne Moore who should have gotten that Oscar for either this movie or "The Hours", where she had a similar role, seems to lead an idyllic life measured by the standards of her time: her husband is a successful business man, she is highly regarded in the local community of housewives, she has a beautiful house, two children.
Once that idyll is established, everything falls apart. Her husband, Frank, played by a surprisingly good Dennis Quaid, is a closeted gay man, who hides his attraction by taking lovers to his office. Shortly before Cathy herself discovers this, she meets Raymond Degan (played by Dennis Haysbert), son of her late gardener, who immediately takes over the job. She does not exactly feel attracted to him, but it is obvious that he is the only one she can talk to – and, since she already has a reputation of supporting minority groups, the fact that the African American man dares to turn up at a art gallery with his daughter, and she talks to him, in front of all the other housewives, causes a scandal she can't quite understand, since her acceptance does not stem from her political views, but from her very personal sympathy with this man.
Later, she finds out that her husband has a love affair with another man, and they take the following steps together. Frank sees a psychiatrist in order to "Cure his desires", but, during this cure, grows more and more alien to his wife, as he becomes more and more unhappy. Meanwhile, she turns to the gardener, who offers philosophical insights and understanding not even her sympathetic and resolute friend, played by the always excellent Patricia Clarkson, can offer. The community, already horrified by the mere thought that she might talk to him, grows even more violent when one of the women sees her getting in a car with him and later actually following him into an Afro-American restaurant, where both are met with as much disrespect as in her world. As the writer Richard Powers put it in "The Time of Our Singing" – "The bird and the fish can fall in love. But where will they build their nest?”. They are not even in love with each other at that point, but to the closeted society of suburban Connecticut, contact between someone of "their own" and an Afro-American that takes place on the same level, not in some master-servant context, is an affront.
The end of the movie is not, in fact, a happy end. It is her husband, Frank, who manages to break out of the community. He divorces her and moves in with his lover, while she, after having broken up the contact with Raymond because she could not bear the gossip, but she has already caused him to lose his standing in the community, and crossing a line actually means a bigger disaster to him than to her – his daughter, who already was subject to racism before, gets hit by a stone thrown by some little boys. He decides to leave town, at the moment she decides to break out as well. In the very end, his train is leaving, but Cathy is left behind in the suburban community that can not bear to see its dogmas broken.
Todd Haynes has the incredible ability to create period pieces that actually do look authentic. Where "Velvet Goldmine" was, in fact, as glittering and shining as glamour, "Far from Heaven" takes the aesthetics of Douglas Sirk, the wide shots of autumn trees, even the end credits are designed to fit a 1950s movie – and he uses this surface to show what lies behind the pretty façade, literally the clichéd depths of this community that smothers itself with its racism, homophobia and narrow-mindedness. The train Raymond takes goes into the future of the Sixties, when many of these communities were broken up, but Cathy is from the generation before, from the generation that yet had to find the ability to free itself. In "The Hours", her character runs away because she knows that she would otherwise kill herself. Cathy's future lies in the dark, it is not revealed what she is going to do.
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