Podcast Summary: “The Independent Spirit Award-nominated Film ‘May December’”

Podcast: All Of It (WNYC)
Host: Alison Stewart (with Tiffany Hansen filling in)
Guest: Todd Haynes, Director of “May December”
Date: February 23, 2024

Brief Overview

This episode delves into the critically acclaimed film May December, directed by Todd Haynes and starring Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton. Inspired by real events, the movie examines the fallout and unspoken trauma lingering decades after a widely publicized affair between an adult woman and a young boy. Host Alison Stewart (via Tiffany Hansen) interviews Haynes about the film’s origins, themes, location, casting, and distinctive visual and musical style. The conversation offers deep insight into how art interprets—and disturbs—audiences, as well as the complex morality pulsing beneath the story.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Drew Haynes to the Script

• Initial Reaction: Haynes was given the May December script by Natalie Portman during the pandemic, a time with lots of speculative scripts circulating.
• Unique Structure: He was struck by how the film is set 20 years after the original crime, focusing on long-term fallout rather than immediate scandal.
• Universality Through Extremity: Although the story is “exotic, disturbing, extreme,” Haynes was compelled by its universal resonance—how people survive and compartmentalize trauma or unconventional relationships.

“It was this sense of discomfort that [writer Sammy Birch] conducts with such confidence... what you're really seeing is the way people survive these kinds of crises or try to.” – Todd Haynes (03:11)

2. Narrative Nuances & Shifting Perspectives

• Unreliable Narrators: The film initially positions Elizabeth (Portman) as a relatable outsider/investigator, but the audience's trust gradually shifts and destabilizes.
• Focus on Joe: By the third act, the attention subtly turns to Joe, highlighting his stunted agency and the emotional impact of decisions made during his boyhood.

3. Relocating the Setting: From New England to Savannah, GA

• Practicality and Atmosphere: The original Maine location was impractical; Savannah and Tybee Island offered a lush, isolated, slightly oppressive ambiance that served the story thematically.
• Visual Symbolism: The humid, moss-draped landscape mirrored the characters’ “seclusion, stifling containment, and beauty” (09:40–11:14).

4. Character Dynamics: Elizabeth vs. Gracie

• Mirroring and Merging: Slow transformation of Portman’s character—not just in look but in spirit—highlights parallels between the actress and her subject.
• Persona Influence: Haynes drew inspiration from Bergman’s Persona, focusing on identity blurring and the discomfort of self-reflection.

“There are things about each of these women that remind you of each other in ways that one suspects they're not entirely prepared to see in themselves.” – Todd Haynes (12:40)

5. The Role of Mirrors & Visual Technique

• Extended, Uncomfortable Shots: Long, static frames create discomfort—reflecting the discomfort at the heart of the film.
• Use of Mirrors: Recurring motif highlighting dualities and self-scrutiny, especially in tense domestic scenes.

6. Female Relationships & Inherited Behaviors

• Mother-Daughter Dynamics: A revealing dressing room scene exposes generational patterns of meanness and body commentary.

“It's not necessarily something that we haven't seen played out between mothers and daughters for generations.” – Todd Haynes (15:23)

7. Costume as Character Subtext

• Unconscious Privilege: Portman’s character tries to blend in but betrays her Hollywood status with luxury accessories, symbolizing blind spots in how outsiders perceive themselves.

8. Casting Charles Melton as Joe

• Accidental Perfection: Melton’s audition diverged from Haynes’s expectations—bringing a pent-up, “preverbal” quality that added tragic depth.
• Discovery Importance: Haynes emphasizes the serendipity of casting lesser-known actors who transform the narrative through their own specificity.

“Charles was more pent up, more tentative, more almost like preverbal... you really saw somebody who had been so completely physically shut down...” – Todd Haynes (19:45)

9. Humor and Tone

• Character-Based Comedy: The film’s humor is “situational and character based,” provoking uneasy laughter and further interrogating audience expectations.

“The humor is situational... you don't know how you feel about them as you read them.” – Todd Haynes (21:41)

10. Music—Setting the Emotional Frame

• Michelle Legrand’s Score from “The Go-Between”: Haynes integrated this iconic, slightly out-of-place soundtrack to build interpretive tension and subvert genre cues.
• Marcelo Zarvos’s Original Score: Composer Zarvos adapted and reimagined Legrand’s music, infusing it with new “tonal and other elements” to help the film find its final form.

“The score is crazy. It's gorgeous, wild. It breaks every rule of what film scores do. And the result is something really pretty extraordinary.” – Todd Haynes (27:45)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Survivorship and Universality
  “The way we all survive our lives, our marriages, our commitments, is a universal thing that I felt… simmered through this script with such interesting understatement and tension.” – Todd Haynes (03:43)

• On American Setting Symbolism
  “It’s beautiful, but it’s also contained and sort of stifled.” – Todd Haynes on Tybee Island (10:52)

• On Mirrors and Identity
  “Those ways of seeing and not seeing… ways of being able to look at things around you, but not at yourself… create this whole dynamic.” – Todd Haynes (12:53)

• On Maternal Inheritance
  “You also realize this is an inheritance… something that she learned from her mother.” – Todd Haynes (14:48)

• On Casting Charles Melton
  “What Charles did on that audition tape was absolutely distinct. I saw not only the present story of Joe, but I saw the past...” – Todd Haynes (19:50)

• On Music as Interpretive Device
  “I thought music could be one of those… framing elements. And I watched [The Go-Between] and was astonished by the Michelle Legrand score that plays so boldly and ominously right up front...” – Todd Haynes (24:29)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:52] – Haynes explains what hooked him on the script
• [04:40] – Discussion of compartmentalization and narrative focus shifting to Joe
• [06:53] – Transition from Maine to Savannah/Island setting
• [11:14] – Elizabeth and Gracie’s first face-to-face; mirroring and visual style
• [14:24] – Mirrors and the mother-daughter scene; generational trauma
• [16:09] – Costume choices and unconscious privilege
• [18:06] – Casting Charles Melton and his unique audition
• [21:39] – Haynes on the humor in the film
• [24:10] – Role and impact of Michelle Legrand’s score
• [26:53] – Collaborating with composer Marcelo Zarvos

Final Thoughts

This episode offers a rich, provocative dive into the making and meaning of May December. Haynes’s vision is layered and self-interrogating, navigating cultural discomforts, unreliable narration, artistic choices, and how stories continue to shape and haunt both individuals and communities. Through decisions about location, music, casting, and visual motifs, the film—and this conversation—push audiences to reflect on complicity, the lies we tell ourselves, and the blurry boundaries between empathy and exploitation.