Todd Haynes speaks to Yahoo UK about his new film May December, which follows an actor as she inserts herself into a criminal's life in order to better understand her for a role.
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00:00 I wonder, do you feel like the way that Hollywood approaches true crime
00:04 can be exploitative in a way,
00:06 and in particular with how Elizabeth...
00:10 I guess, bombards Gracie's life
00:14 and completely turns it upside down by the end?
00:17 Oh, yes. I think...
00:19 I think it's exploitative.
00:23 I think it's...
00:26 But I sort of feel like culture is exploitative.
00:30 Storytelling is exploitative.
00:34 That we're... That there's no clean way
00:40 to engage in cultural discourse.
00:44 What you want to do is reveal that process
00:50 that happens all the time in all kinds of different ways,
00:54 so that the person watching that occur
00:58 has the chance to make choices about it or identify it,
01:04 and not just see the benefits
01:05 or the salacious sort of products around it.
01:09 And I think that's the kind of thing that...
01:11 That's what I felt when I read this script,
01:13 and what I hope the film helps you feel,
01:18 is all these layers of conflicting results
01:22 to what they're after.
01:24 Even the very question that Elizabeth carries around
01:29 with this sort of presumed sense
01:33 that we all know what she's talking about,
01:35 of getting to the truth.
01:37 What is the truth? Whose truth are we talking about?
01:40 Who is entitled to determining that?
01:45 How partial is that truth,
01:47 and how much is it serving larger forces?
01:52 You know?
01:53 All of that I found to be material
01:57 that was available in this story.
02:00 But also questions that I hope the audience would be...
02:05 Would feel excited to be thinking about.
02:09 (silence)
02:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]