NYFF: Todd Haynes Talks ‘Carol,’ Exploring Desire, Identity, Giving Himself “Creative Assignments” & Much More

Todd Haynes may be one of the most renowned, under-appreciated filmmakers in the United States today, at least as far as arthouse and mainstream audiences and viewpoints go. As the director of “Safe,” which essentially launched Julianne Moore’s career, “Velvet Goldmine,” which looked at glam rock and sexual identity, the repressed Douglas Sirk-ian sexual desire of the 1950s-set, “Far From Heaven,” and the kaleidoscopic Bob Dylan anti-biopic, “I’m Not There,” and many more, Haynes is a huge figure in cinema despite only having eight features under his belt in nearly four decades. And his films are routinely accepted in the global Olympics of film festivals like Cannes.

READ MORE: Spend Over 1 Hour In Conversation With Todd Haynes

Haynes may be a filmmaker by trade, but he studied semiotics in university, and so it not only makes him an incredibly thoughtful conversationalist, but also a keen observer of human behavior and desire, who can find deep significance in some of the most...