Mildred Pierce miniseries on HBO

[Lady Day]

I never read the novel, but I honestly don't see the strife in this woman's life. She owns her own home, car, and incredibly understanding ex husband (even though he cheated on her the character seems real nice!), was handed a choice piece of real-estate to get her business started, has a real great next door neighbor, acquaintances who are more than willing to help her, etc. Her only setback is her own pride, which she compromises left and right. If this is the basis for the entire story its an insultingly weak premise.

So...lets kill off the younger sweet daughter and make the older one a horror. I mean, when Vera slapped her mom I went from anger to utter confusion. "I don't understand this reality," I spoke out loud. I don't understand how Mildred can have her child slap her in the face then tell her how she's getting an $1100 piano at the end of the episode!

I can't comprehend why this child's love is so important that she gets to constantly bite the hand that feeds her and gets rewarded for it. Even if the daughter later felt remorse for all she did, shes way past spoiled. Her actions are utterly unrealistic and guilt would be too little too late.

LD

 

[Doctor Strange]

You know, I watched last night's episode and found some of it spellbinding, some of it dull, and some of it just weird. I didn't think about it again until I read your post... And then suddenly, I think I understand what Todd Haynes is doing with this miniseries: Like his hall-of-mirrors multiple-Bob Dylan film, and like Far From Heaven's embracing of old conventions just to pull the rug out from under them... it's not really meant to be taken literally.

You are not supposed to have sympathy for Mildred! Mildred Pierce is not the realism that it pretends to be, it's opera. * The huge emotionalism of the main characters is in the service of the entire piece, just like the mega-detailed production design and costuming (on which the camera fetishistically lingers), and the score. Mildred and Veda are ying and yang, locked in a struggle on the precipice of love and hate, need and rebellion, success and secrets.

It's not realistic - but we connect with it because it's somehow true.

(* The operatic subtext wll actually surface when we see Evan Rachel Wood performing Mozart's Queen of the Night next week!)

There are other things at play too. I was riveted by the big confrontation between Mildred and Veda... but I suddenly noticed that 14-year-old Veda was wearing riding boots and lipstick, defiantly smoking a cigarette. Slap! Slap! But... This is classic S&M imagery! Is Haynes making some kind of statement about the boundaries/similarities of parental love and sexual love, or is he just messing with us?

And another thing: for all this talk of "more accurately adapting the novel", the spirit of Joan Crawford is hovering over this thing! The duality that she always demonstrated in her performances - tough/hurt, masculine/femine, in control/crazed - seem to be something that Haynes is aiming for in several of the major character portrayals. All the overblown, almost silent-movie acting; all the overkill that's simultaneously fascinating and disturbing...

Anyway, I don't think it's really meant to be taken as the retro melodrama it appears to be on the surface. It's just using that form to do a bunch of other things. So don't worry about Mildred's character motivations being unrealistic - nothing here is realistic!

 

[Lady Day]

Okay, I can buy that premise. But I do feel that for something that could be thought of so existentially, it should not have been that literal. Literal to a fault that I can't and am not rightly given a chance to see past it. There is no hit, no trigger for me to think past what I am being presented. I mean its a very linear story, structurally. You don't know what is going to happen until the next act and story arch. There is no pull for me. It feels flat and seems one dimensional. Now if that *is* my 'in', its a lame one.

LD

 

[scottyrocks]

And that aspect of it, LD, is what makes it more real than most productions. Life is that way for most of us. No 'hit' or 'pull.' Its linear. Even in day t day life, I dont really know the details of what is going to happen next although I certainly do have the major themes lined up.

One part of the movie that I thought was terribly cliched was opening night at the restaurant. The new restaurant's inexperienced and undermanned staff cannot handle the crowd and, lo and behold, there is Mildred's friend from her old diner job, and another friend right there to get up from their seats, throw on aprons, and make it all work. Cute but corny.

I did like when, at the end of the night, they are all ecstatic over taking in $46 and change for the night - a lot of money back then for the average Joe.

But, at any rate, the boring, everyday life of the everyday man, or woman, is just that - boring. Thats why movies are made the way they are. 'Normal' subject matter is spiced up, in whatever way the director sees fit. People dont want to watch boring.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I think it's something akin to a Brechtian distancing device: by keeping the storytelling flat and linear - at least in the plotting and events - we are also kept at a remove from identifying with the characters in the usual way. This allows all that other stuff I mentioned before to percolate to the forefront.

And yeah, I thought too much time was given to the restaurant kitchen scenes: that was one of the things I found exasperating. I also thought three full-blown sex scenes with Mildred and Monty in a 65-minute episode was one too many (not that I'll ever complain about seeing Kate nude... again). Of course, that's a big part of HBO's brand-identification strategy too...

The thing is: you don't think this project ended up with Todd Haynes because they wanted a straight version of the story, do you?

 

[Lady Day]

And that aspect of it, LD, is what makes it more real than most productions. Life is that way for most of us. No 'hit' or 'pull.' Its linear. Even in day t day life, I dont really know the details of what is going to happen next although I certainly do have the major themes lined up.

I think it's something akin to a Brechtian distancing device: by keeping the storytelling flat and linear - at least in the plotting and events - we are also kept at a remove from identifying with the characters in the usual way. This allows all that other stuff I mentioned before to percolate to the forefront.

But this is a film. So to say its real life at one part and then to say its a film strategy in another to justify it over all is real picking and choosing, isn't it? I mean Im not educated on a lot of filming techniques, so Im taking what is presented to me, and why should I attempt to delve deeper when the filmmaking that is presented to me is so deliberately flat? The feeling this production has given me is apathy, like eating white rice with no salt. I have no emotional investment in these characters.

LD

 

[Doctor Strange]

And that's a perfectly valid response.

I've answered my own film-professor question of why Todd Haynes wanted to do this project, and it's an interesting (if perverse and overly intellectual) approach. But if your gut reaction is that it's not successful in holding your emotional interest, I definitely see where you're coming from. There is indeed a sense that something's missing.

I don't know that I actually like it myself, but it's holding my interest, if only for its sheer strangeness and the opulence of the production (and I do think the actors are holding their own, given the limits of the script and how they've been directed).

 

[scottyrocks]

But this is a film. So to say its real life at one part and then to say its a film strategy in another to justify it over all is real picking and choosing, isn't it? I mean Im not educated on a lot of filming techniques, so Im taking what is presented to me, and why should I attempt to delve deeper when the filmmaking that is presented to me is so deliberately flat? The feeling this production has given me is apathy, like eating white rice with no salt. I have no emotional investment in these characters.

LD

I think one of the problems of taking on a mini-series is that although there is more room to tell a story, there is also more room to make mistakes.

The early days of the mini-series produced some amazing stuff - Rich Man Poor Man, Roots, and my favorite - Lonesome Dove. Another story I think worthy of a mini-series is the Clan of the Cave Bear series. Of course, it has to be done correctly.

Mildred Pierce, perhaps, doesn't deserve having so many hours devoted to it. We are accustomed to quickly paced motion pictures, and a story such as this, with little except 'real-life' drama, is perhaps best served by the more or less standard two hour format.

 

[Doctor Strange]

There's no question that this piece doesn't require five-plus hours: it's pretty self-indulgent.

But I doubt that HBO could have persuaded Kate Winslet to do just a two-hour movie. And that would have been too short... But it could certainly be done as two 90-minute segments and still be called a miniseries - and that strikes me as about the right length. Maybe.

 

[Lady Day]

I love the mini-series format. A chance to explore a piece of a character/history/ etc in a larger story is quite rewarding and often not taken advantage of. I guess its choosing which story the format will work the strongest in, as we in the US seem to think a story has to go on forever until a happy ending is reached, or all the characters are killed.

But 'self-indulgent' I think, Doctor Strange, is the phrase I was looking for. It feels as if it's not made for an audience. Now if that was the point you were trying to make earlier, Scottyrocks, I get it now.

I don't think I like it, but I will finish it because I'd feel cheated if I didn't when I've invested so many hours of viewing and thought into it.

LD

 

[Mike in Seattle]

The girl playing Veda seems way too young to me. I always pictured the character as 17 or so, and Ann Blyth fit the bill well in the original film adaptation of Cain's book. When she slapped Mildred back in this week's installment, like the rest of you, I was thinking "Oh come on - she'd be over any parent's knee in those days and not able to sit down for a week." She gets the bad parenting award for buying the piano to pacify the little twit. When Blyth slapped Crawford, and Crawford threw her out - THAT fit. Winslet just taking it? No way.

I just got the book and have read very little of it as yet. But Moire ("Ray"), the younger daughter, always seemed like such a throw-away character, both in this version and the Crawford version. She's the spunky younger one to the tiresome social climbing older sister, so we get a little comedic relief from her - and they knock her off in both versions. Why all the dialogue about the sore on her lip? Totally pointless, unless she was going to survive and it turned into cancer or something. We'll see how it ends up this coming weekend...

And that's another gripe - why do a five-part mini-series if you're going to show two episodes back to back on the first and third weekend? If you're going to do it that way, break it up into three sections.

 

[scottyrocks]

When she slapped Mildred back in this week's installment, like the rest of you, I was thinking "Oh come on - she'd be over any parent's knee in those days and not able to sit down for a week."

Yeah really. A slap in the face? She needed a boot up her butt right then.

 

[scottyrocks]

I guess I would say that it is self-indulgent mainly because there are too many minutes devoted to it as a story the way that its being told. One of my favorite aspects of it is the way the camera lingers on the period details. Its not often I can get a such a long, close-up, detailed look at clothing, cars, rooms, etc in a period-piece like this. For example, I could almost feel like I was in that summer cottage with Mildred and Monty - the sites and smells of the place, and the roughness of the place. If thats part of what was meant by 'self-indulgent' then I'm for it.

 

[missjo]

I've never heard of the book or movie, so this is a first introduction to Mildred Pierce for me.
It all looks good, very good, too good.
I know you Americans were ahead of us but goodness me, to me this woman is living the lifestyle of the rich and famous!
Refrigerator (not even commercially for sale in my country at this time), the big house, the car, dresses without sleeves, its all so futuristic to me, almost 1950s in some aspects.
And to be honest, I've always been more interested in the history of the average and lower class people, the workers, the poor, the daily grind, the people like me.
Besides that I find it hard to understand her motivation, keep wondering what on earth she is doing and why.
So hard for me to get emotionally attached to Mildred, even though I rather like Kate the actress.

But in the end, it all looks great, the acting is good, the story is interesting, so I'll stick with it for a while.

Either way, always nice to see someone invest a fortune in yet another historical production.
We can't have too many of those!

 

[scottyrocks]

True, there is no deep lengthy soul-searching, but Mildred makes it quite clear early on that she doesn't want, can't, do 'menial' jobs, but takes one anyway, when she hits her version of rock bottom, after being talked into it. She then takes other knowledge and talents she has, and one thing leads to another until she opens up the restaurant. She is unusual for the time, an enterprising woman, who coincidentally, doesn't know how to handle her difficult child.

 

[missjo]

I have no problems with all that, history is full of 'unusual' women who did thinks out of the ordinary, and generally, the idea of a woman on her own starting a restaurant is grand.
But in my eyes she is still very well off, living in luxery, even at her worst.

Just keep seeing her doing things I don't understand, would do differently.
And all the time I keep thinking of the women with no jobs, driving from city to city with their entire family in a job to get some food on the table.
She is doing very very well, has a few bad moments, but still lives like a queen.
And she is not a lady, tsssk tssk, I frown upon her behaviour
Guess I'm too old fashioned

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

Watching the first episode today. I just watched the sets and clothes WOW. My wife enjoyed the story I loved the set decoration and clothing.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

True, there is no deep lengthy soul-searching, but Mildred makes it quite clear early on that she doesn't want, can't, do 'menial' jobs, but takes one anyway, when she hits her version of rock bottom, after being talked into it.

In the 1940s-1970s, it wasn't unusual for a woman to have spent a big chunk of her post-high school / college life raising children, cooking, cleaning, keeping house and taking care her husband in general. That was about all they did until the children were grown, or the husband took off with the secretary. At that point, they would possibly venture out to seek employment and find out that their choices were pretty limited based on their experience. That was part & parcel of the women's rights and equal pay for equal work movements in the 1970s. Part of it started in the 1940s when women went to work to support the war effort while the men were off to war.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Having now dragged myself through all five-plus hours of the miniseries, I confess to having liked it less and less as it went on. Quite apart from the endless shots of Mildred driving and looking concerned, too-long-held shots after characters left rooms, fetishistic lingering close-ups on nearly everything, too many sex scenes (and musical performance scenes)... etc., that could have easily been cut, I had enormous believability issues with the story.

I mean: every bitchy kid who's trained for years as a piano virtuoso turns out to be an outstanding coloratura soprano when she suddenly opens her mouth and sings for the first time when she's 18, right?!?

Remind me again why Monty disappears from the story for years, then reappears? And why does Mildred reconnect with him if he had ultimately been bad news the first time? Oh, and was he supposed to have had a sexual relationship with Veda back when she was a teen, or only after she turned into Evan Rachel Wood? (Ewwww!) And why would Mildred ultmately remarry her nice-but-ineffectual first husband?!?

The acting was excellent (I mean: I refuse to blame Wood - who did the best she could playing an impossible, utterly unbelieable character!) and the production was sumptuous... But it was impossible to be sympathetic to ANY of the characters, believe most of the plot points, or feel that there was any point to it beyond a voyeuristic visit to the 1930s. There was zero character development: Mildred was a plucky, hardworking, tough broad with a gooey emotional center from start to finish. Monty was a purposeless playboy, period. The younger daughter was a saintly sacrificial lamb (a la Beth in Little Women). And Veda was an over-the-top-drag-queen bad-seed monster at every age...

Anyway, I was pretty disappointed beyond the awesome visuals...

 

[Feraud]

I did not yet watch the final two parts but the first three have been utter drudgery. The unbelievable and utter ineffectiveness of Mildred as a mother/role model for her daughter has been intolerable to sit through.
What parent gets berated by their brat, will justify any relationship to a child and ends with, "I'll buy you a piano when I am ready..".
That pug faced twerp Veda would be washing dishes in my restaurant to earn her keep.