Christmas cometh early now that the formerly out of print masterclass Safe is available from the Criterion Collection. To promote its release, director Todd Haynes sat down with star Julianne Moore to discuss the film’s forebears in female alienation (Red Desert, Jeanne Dielman, and DeLillo’s White Noise), as well as its unexpected Sirkian underpinnings. Moore also talks Safe‘s larger context, as a harbinger of the ’90s independent film boom, and how her first collaboration with Haynes ultimately defined the trajectory of her career.

Summer, 1995. Safe. The Usual Suspects. Kids. Living in Oblivion. Double Happiness. The Brothers McMullen. The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love. Art for Teachers of Children. All in the same issue. What a quarter for independent film releases! Julianne Moore from Safe was on the cover, inaugurating our irregular tradition of the big-head cover photo. Larry Gross interviewed Haynes, and it’s a great interview. An excerpt: Gross: Leaving the world of the film for just a second, do you ever feel ambivalent about making a film that’s this pessimistic? Is somebody watching the film gonna say “I […]