October 6, 2007

Superstar!

Reading this article at TimeOut I was shocked to see that genius Todd Haynes' genius Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story was voted the greatest music film of all time. "Music film" as in a movie about a real life musician (so, no musicals or This is Spinal Tap). Superstar really is quite amazing. Filmed entirely using Mattel barbie dolls, archival footage and the unauthorised Carpenter song catalogue - considering Haynes' unflinching portrayal of not only Carpenter's anorexia (demonstrated on the barbie dolls by simple scratching away the face) but also her brother's homosexuality and her family's cruely.


The film is banned, but many illegal bootleg copies exist both in hard copy and streamed on the net. The thing that struck me about Superstar was that, as the article also says, the musical scenes are incredibly moving and Haynes gets ample mialage out of the emotional distress that Carpenter goes through. It's a fantastic film, if only a 48-minute one, and I wish more people had the chance to see it.

Below is a very poor quality sample of the movie with Karen "performing" the song "Close to You". Haynes' next film is the equally strange-sounding Bob Dylan "supposition", which is out in America on November 21.

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