Todd Haynes wants to make a fair and balanced feature on the conservatism found in Flyover Country. But Haynes can’t hide his biases even while describing the upcoming project to a sympathetic reporter.
The director, best known for the 2002 film “Far from Heaven” which excoriated ’50s Middle America as profoundly racist and homophobic, is planning a project that “will take an in-depth look at the values and opinions of Middle America, and examine them within the context of our current political climate.”
“It’s sort of about the great middle of this country and their sort of suspicions about government,” he revealed. “And how that keeps clicking into conservative politics and the way the right makes use of those uncertainties. There’s interesting reasons why people feel the way they do, outside of the coasts and outside of the clear liberal orthodoxy, and that interests me. It’s been too effective, that allegiance, for too many years, and I’m curious about it. So we’re kind of getting inside that process….
…Haynes said that their film would not only be dramatic, but attempt to offer as complete and unbiased a portrait of both of those groups as possible, in an effort to shine a light on a phenomenon that will hopefully prove enlightening to everyone. “It’s serious,” he said. “We want it to be something that people respect who wouldn’t necessarily be my audience, my target audience, or the audiences that I’ve accumulated in the past, because I really am looking at a different swath of the population and a different constituency….
… He indicated that Joe Winston’s documentary, “What’s The Matter With Kansas,” which was based on Thomas Frank’s book, is serving as a template for the thoughtful, incisive, but respectful tone he and Raymond are attempting to capture…