They have worked together for a decade and they have made three joint projects. That may seem in modern times - overloaded with mass produced cinema - quite a small output. However, both of their films “Far from Heaven" and “I'm Not There", and their five and a half hour TV mini-series “Mildred Pierce" are perfectly-made cinematic spectacles, full of emotional and visual excitement, which should be defined in one way only - as true artistic projects of the highest value. What is more, Todd Haynes and Ed Lachman do not try to shape their creations with conventional means, instead they constantly reinvent and tailor the form and structure to the given story. If one can risk a statement that the duo generated some sort of hallmark of their work, it would be the memorable, but varied, visual styles that are composed out of camera language that frame the stories. That is why their work becomes poetic literary prose.

Todd Haynes and Ed Lachman
The visual side - the work of camera, lighting of sets, framing of space, use of colors, describing characters with a color palette - has become essential to Haynes and Lachman's films: it becomes an invisible, intangible, omnipotent hero of the story. It defines all the characters and the worlds in which they live, it helps in understanding their emotions and fears, and it makes all the film elements combine into a monolith of a story. Some film theoreticians even compare their visual style to that of Stanley Kubrick's. Haynes did use all of those means before, especially in “Safe" and “Velvet Goldmine". However, only when he started to work with Ed Lachman did he achieve such visual perfection. What is interesting, is that both filmmakers had a background in studio arts and art history. Only later in college did they become interested in film - both are, to some extent, self-taught filmmakers whose skills and artistic sensibilities were formed outside of their formal educations. Their minds were always open to finding new ways of expression.

Their collaboration began with “Far from Heaven", a film reinventing the themes of filmmaker Douglas Sirk, who used irony in melodrama for a critical examination of American society in the 1950s. "Far From Heaven" tells the story of characters who try to find happiness in the duplicitous American suburbs of the 1950s. Using the cinematic language of melodrama, Haynes and Lachman have faithfully captured the era in terms of production design, costumes, the style of shooting, lighting techniques, and lensing. The artifice and façade of reality is so brilliant that it emphasizes everything that the characters - trapped in racism, homophobia, despair and lonliness - go through. The return to melodrama bore fruit in the shape of a sharp, unique cinematic language, based on the past, but dealing with comtemporary issues in our own lives. Haynes and Lachman moved audiences throughout the world. In 2002 “Far from Heaven" received Plus Camerimage's Silver Frog.

Todd Haynes and Ed Lachman
Next was “I'm Not There", a cinematic portrait of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. An essay-poem on the cultural myth and history surrounding the career and music of Bob Dylan through a mediation on 1960s and 70s European and American cinema. Bob Dylan does not appear on the screen as one character, but rather as six different personnas, who exist in separate worlds and act out distinct parts of his personality. In creating each world the filmmakers drew on a range of influences, from the early New Wave works of Jean-Luc Godard, to stylized black and white visions of Fedrico Fellini's "8 1/2", to Richard Lester's experimental films, and to counterculture Westerns like "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "McCabe & Mrs. Miller". Dylan, through his music, was constantly reinventing himself - Haynes with Lachman's visual brilliance used these different cinematic styles as a visual metaphor for Dylan's transformations. "I'm Not There" received the Plus Camerimage's Bronze Frog.

After two such remarkable projects the duo accepted the challenge of adapting the James M. Cain novel "Mildred Pierce" for an HBO mini-series. Haynes and Lachman rejected the 1930s and 40s stylized studio noir look (and by extension the 1945 film adaptation of the novel) and turned instead towards the expressionistic naturalism of films of the 1970s. The filmmakers also looked to the look of Saul Lieter, a 1950s still photographer, who used his camera like a painter. He used found objects, textures, and reflections as content for the images. Haynes and Lachman employ these devices brilliantly, capturing Mildred through objects, mirrors, and beveled glass doors, fragmenting her world and creating a prismed, dislocated, and ultimately broken state as Mildred is being observed. The images become not only a representation of the physical world, but also the character's psychological state.

Still from "Mildred Pierce"
Todd Haynes and Ed Lachman's visual journey and mastery is best seen on the silver screen. All three projects will be screened during Plus Camerimage as a tribute to this year's recipients of the Cinematographer - Director Duo Award.