Wikipedia Biography: Todd Haynes (born January 2, 1961, in Encino, California) is an award-winning American film director. In 1987, he made a short, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, which chronicles the life of American singer Karen Carpenter using Barbie dolls as actors. However, he failed to obtain the proper licensing to use numerous Carpenters songs in the film. As a result, Karen's brother Richard won a copyright infringement suit against him, and it was removed from distribution. His 1991 feature film debut, Poison, based on the writings of Jean Genet, and partly funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, was targeted by the American Family Association's, Rev. Donald Wildmon as inappropriately federally funded "filth". His second effort, 1995's Safe, confirmed him as a maverick director capable of dealing with more issues than his new queer cinema tag might indicate. He also directed the glam rock inspired Velvet Goldmine (1998), and the Douglas Sirk inspired Far From Heaven (2002). During the 2007 Telluride International Film Festival, Haynes premiered I'm Not There,[1] an experimental film based on the life and legends of Bob Dylan, with the singer-songwriter being portrayed by six actors: Richard Gere, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw and Christian Bale. One of his trademarks is the casting of Julianne Moore. Haynes is a semiotics graduate of Brown University, and received an MFA from Bard College. He was a founding member of the AIDS media activist collective Gran Fury. He is openly gay[2] and currently lives in Portland, Oregon. .... [read more at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia].
REFERENCES Uhlich, Keith. "Todd Haynes," Senses of Cinema, July 2002. "Todd Haynes," Internet Movie Database.
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