Where would Todd Haynes be without Christine Vachon? Poison, Safe, Velvet Goldmine, Far From Heaven, I'm Not There, HBO's Mildred Pierce -- she produced them all. For that matter, where would independent cinema be if the New York native had chosen another career? Fifty-one today, she's produced more than forty features. A few highlights: Swoon, Go Fish, Kids, Stonewall, Office Killer, I Shot Andy Warhol, Happiness, Boys Don't Cry, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Storytelling, and One Hour Photo; as well as Robert Altman's The Company, John Waters' A Dirty Shame, The Notorious Betty Paige, Infamous, Party Monster, and A Home at the End of the World. In her spare time she has written two books about making meaningful movies with no money, Shooting To Kill [Kindle] and A Killer Life [Kindle]. A breast cancer survivor, she lives in the east village with her partner Marlene McCarty (a Guggenheim-honored artist) and their daughter, Guthrie.
Vachon's most recent feature, which debuted at Toronto, marks the return of gay partners Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland seven years after Quinceanera: a biopic of Errol Flynn's (Kevin Kline) affair with a 15 year-old girl (Dakota Fanning) called The Last of Robin Hood. The Hollywood Reporter said, "the film is virtually entirely lacking in visual dynamics or force; the straight-on compositions are almost always static, the surroundings are invariably pristine and never look lived-in, and the dramatic attitude remains far too polite for a story that, at its core, is about lust," while Variety said it is "defanged" and -- bizarrely:
"The script represents a too-tame middle ground, which gives the unfortunate impression that perhaps the filmmakers want us to empathize with this icky romance. For openly gay directors Glatzer and Westmoreland (who were on more comfortable ground with The Fluffer and Quinceanera), that’s an incredibly risky position to take, as homophobes level the argument that allowing gay rights opens the door to all sorts of other unconventional relationships — of which statutory rape by a straight, pushing-50 star needs no champions."
She has served on the juries at Venice, Sarajevo, San Sebastian, and Sundance.
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