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Based on the 1952 novel The Price of Salt, Carol tells the story of the relationship between two women, an aspiring photographer and an older woman going through a messy divorce in the 1950s. Director Todd Haynes brings the intimacy and the sensitive to the story with the help from cinematographer Edward Lachman. Lachman, who has worked with Haynes on Mildred Pierce, I’m Not There, and Far From Heaven, has brought his own distinctive style to the film with his choice to use Super 16mm instead of going the digital route.

It’s not the first time that Lachman and Haynes went the 16mm route, the duo also used the same camera for the HBO mini-series, Mildred Pierce. By employing the use of a camera that’s unusual in most Hollywood films, Carol stands out among the rest, cinematography-wise. Deciding to stick with film for Carol, the cinematographer wanted to invoice the atmosphere and the feeling of the 1950s and the movies that came out during the time.

Sticking with Super 16mm, Lachman was “trying to reference early color film”, and he “felt that if [he] shot on 35mm [he] would have lost the way films looked back then” in an interview with Variety Magazine. With Carol, Lachman draws a similar inspiration as 16mm film cameras were predominantly used in 1950s and 1960s. By shooting with Super 16mm, Carol has a “soft, muted look” and Lachman “shot through windows, elements of weather, through reflections, to defuse the image and obstruct the frame” to convey the emotional state of the characters”. 


From the time of Poison onward, Haynes has been associated with the New Queer Cinema movement. And focusing on outsiders has lead to many of Haynes's best movies; Far from Heaven, for example, tells a story of fidelity, interracial love, and a closeted gay man against a backdrop of 1950s morality. So does the increased acceptance of LGBT people mean his films could lose their bite? Not likely. As Haynes sees it, more LGBT representation in the mainstream means more role models for young people, but it also means those people could lose their outsider perspectives. "These are essential, amazing changes that we all have been fighting hard for," he says. "But as culture becomes more tolerant, there's less critical perspective of mainstream society."

sources adorama, wired






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