Friday, April 22, 2011

Photographer Saul Leiter's influence on Mildred Pierce

The brilliant HBO miniseries, Mildred Pierce, televised its finale a couple weeks ago.  Before the film premiered in March, I watched the making of Mildred Pierce.  As being someone who always loves to watch a “making of,” I was especially enthralled by this one.  Not only was it fascinating to watch how this powerful film was pieced together, but it was quite interesting to learn that director Todd Haynes was inspired by mid-century American photographer Saul Leiter to convey, in a rather unique way, the period of the film using windows and reflections to compose many of his scenes.  So as I watched the film, I made a mental note to pay particular attention to these scenes.  Just as I thought it would, this technique created a wonderful point of view that transcribed the look and feel of the era beautifully.

Leiter's work:



Mildred Pierce scenes:








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