happiness ( 1998 film )
track 15 - the moment of happiness from the 1998 film version cats the musical. all credits to andrew lloyd webber .
looking for movie tickets? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing happiness (1998) near you .
was the online film & television association' s choice for the best picture of 1998. the film took home a total of 8 awards. below is the list of every nomination for the year 1998 along with the
for 1998 we also considered festen, testsuo, rushmore, pi, the thin red line and ringu .
twelve years after happiness, a critic’s mea culpa and an awkward, in - person encounter with the film’s director .
1999: british independent film awards (bifa): best int. ind. film - english language
karel deburchgrave is the chairman of the belgian film monthly filmmagie and has worked as a film critic for various dutch and english magazines. he teaches film at the film museums of brussels, antwerp and louvain .
for organisations such as the sundance film festival, the academy of motion picture arts & sciences and the film independent spirit awards .
film analysis is the process by which a film is analysed in terms of its visuals, sound, editing and narration. analysing film will help us understand the effectiveness of the intentions and messages of filmmakers and our own interpretations of films. each session will be illustrated with film clips linked to a film programmed at lumière cinema .
' happiness' was a sympathetic portrayal of a paedophile, an obscene caller and other assorted sociopaths .
happiness received an nc - 17 rating from the mpaa, and that caused the film to be limited in distribution; the film also had difficulty in advertising. for that particular reason, happiness surrendered the nc - 17 rating and was instead released unrated. the poster art was done by comic book creator daniel clowes. [ citation needed ]
hansal mehta won the 2013 national film award for best direction for his film shahid (2012). shahid had its world premier at the 2012 toronto international film festival, following which it had an extended run at various international film festivals. he then directed city lights (2014) and aligarh (2015). aligarh premiered at the 20th busan international film festival and went to the bfi london film festival. it was also the opening film at the 17th jio mami mumbai film festival. his latest films are simran (2017) and omerta (2017) .
happiness took $ 3. 2 million in the states, just recovering its costs. according to good machine' s ted hope ,
we hoped happiness would surpass $ 5 million, but i think we were hurt by it being written about as an anti - suburban film .
the title track happiness was written by eytan mirsky. in the film it is sung by actress jane adams in a scene and by michael stipe and rain phoenix over the credits .
the lives of many individuals connected by the desire for happiness, often from sources usually considered dark or evil .
he gave the film four out of four stars, and rated it # 5 in his top 10 films of 1998, saying also ,
it is not a film for most people. it is certainly for adults only. but it shows todd solondz as a filmmaker who deserves attention, who hears the unhappiness in the air and seeks its sources .
ruchika is a writer and director based in mumbai. her debut feature film island city (2015) won the fedeora award for best debut director at venice days, venice international film festival. the film travelled to over 30 international film festivals, winning several awards. she has recently written the story and screenplay of a short film, to be directed by zoya akhtar .
it was almost seven years ago. todd solondz, the director of such films as welcome to the dollhouse, storytelling, and most recently, weiner dog, had just come out with life during wartime, a sort - of - sequel to his 1998 film happiness, an acidic satire about unhappy suburbanites that cemented his reputation as a major american art - house auteur. i was one of the few new york critics who was not entirely enthused by dollhouse, his 1995 breakthrough, and i hated happiness. just hated it .
happiness is tough stuff - - quietly confrontational, genuinely haunting, and, most disturbing of all, unexpectedly moving .
award and the nora ephron prize in the 2014 tribeca film festival for her feature film zero motivation. her short films have also received multiple international awards .
acclaimed film critic roger ebert championed the film and applauded solondz for his honesty in depicting such intense issues: ‘why see the film? happiness is about its unhappy characters, in a way that helps us see them a little more clearly, to feel sorry for them, and at the same time to see how closely tragedy and farce come together in the messiness of sexuality. [ … ] it is not a film for most people. it is certainly for adults only. but it shows todd solondz as a filmmaker who deserves attention, who hears the unhappiness in the air and seeks its sources. ’ (ebert 1998 paras 8 – 9) .
solondz had made a name for himself as ‘one of the most lacerating, funny and distinctive voices in american film’ (maslin 1998 para 3) – at least in the eyes of the new york times – and as such, happiness received overwhelmingly positive praise from the critics, even though its content is anything but standard fare. widely lauded as being imbued with a sense of irony, the over - arching message that the film sends is ‘that happiness is elsewhere, happening to someone (everyone) else’ (murray 2011 p 230) and this feeling motivates all the characters as they struggle to find their place in what appears to be quite a regimented world .
in other words, universal dropped happiness solely because of its content. and while its content (specifically pedophilia) makes happiness an extreme case, the fact that such a well - praised film was so easily jettisoned by the parent company points to a new reality for many independent film distributors: they aren’t as independent as they used to be. while they’re enjoying the deep pockets of conglomerate owners, they also must be prepared to navigate the whims and concerns of overlords made nervous by dipping stock prices and potential boycotts. such a risk - averse environment makes happiness seem like a resonant cautionary tale. ”my sense is that it could happen with any distributor that is owned by a larger company, ” says killer film’s christine vachon, one of happiness ‘ producers .
in life during wartime, solondz revisits his greatest triumph, 1998' s happiness, a lacerating depiction of suburban malaise. happiness won the critics' prize in cannes and earnt a golden globe nomination for best screenplay – remarkable when you consider its main talking - point was solondz' s sympathetic portrait of a paedophile (dylan baker). and if you ever wondered what happened to him and the film' s roster of screwed - up characters, life during wartime catches up with them 10 years on. but don' t expect to see baker, or jane adams, lara flynn boyle and cynthia stevenson as the dysfunctional three sisters at the heart of the story. solondz has recast the entire film, often daringly .
producer of boys don’t cry, far from heaven and happiness discussed her career at the glasgow film festival. in a wide - ranging in conversation session at the glasgow film festival, producer christine vachon revealed a surprising truth about killer films, the new york city - based company she set up in 1995 alongside pamela koffler: still alice is the first and only of their productions to return a net profit to the company. vachon had previously confirmed the same in her 2006 book a killer life: how an independent film producer survives deals and disasters in hollywood and beyond. even in the tough world of independent film, that admission raised eyebrows given killer’s role in films including boys don’t cry (1999), which won hilary swank the best actress oscar, todd solondz ’s happiness (1998), mark romanek ’s one hour photo (2002) and todd haynes ’ far from heaven (2002). vachon has subsequently produced a string of critical hits, including haynes
as hyped as the film was, its takings for its run in the us were just shy of $ 3 million. given that happiness had a budget of $ 3 million to begin with, it could hardly be considered a commercial smash - hit .
clio is a celebrated filmmaker whose work has been shown in cinemas, international film festivals and galleries like the tate modern in london and the museum of modern art in new york. her debut feature, the arbor (2010), won numerous awards, including best new documentary filmmaker at tribeca film festival. her fiction feature the selfish giant (2013) screened in the directors’ fortnight of cannes film festival and won the europa cinemas award. her new film dark river (2017) was screened at toronto international film festival .
some truly hilarious moments, but i spent most of the film with my mouth hanging open in shock .
american film producer christine vachon poses for a portrait at metrograph theater in manhattan, december 16, 2016 .
shreyasi is 14 years old, dreams of interstellar travel and studies in grade 9, at udayachal high school. her favourite film character is shoya ishida from a silent voice. a good film is … “relatable” .
shiv is 14 years old and a student of cp goenka international school. he wants to visit munich and his favourite film character is bane from the dark knight rises. a good film is … “inspiring. ”
these are the kinds of thoughts
happiness
inspires. it is not a film for most people. it is certainly for adults only. but it shows todd solondz as a filmmaker who deserves attention, who hears the unhappiness in the air and seeks its sources .
an interview with writer / director boots riley about his incendiary new film ,
sorry to bother you .
the sundance film festival is jan. 21 - 31. see the full lineup here. also on huffpost :
, that portrays the lives of three sisters, their families and those around them. the film was awarded the
todd solondz' s film, present a jaw dropping dialoge, interesting characters, great black humor together with a tense drama, that show the life, relationships and strange sexuality of ordinary people trying to find they happiness in a disturb world. happiness it' s a bold, captivating, breathtaking and funny classic, of course solondz' s picture it' s not for every audience, just the people that really understand black comedy and accept contoversial themes. it' s also the first film, in a long time ago, that make a scene being sad, funny and surprising at the same time, just like bill and billy' s last talk conclusion. happiness is, without a doubt, one of best films from the 90' s .
i adore todd ,
laughs actress greta gerwig .
i have such faith in him and his weird world .
well, that' s one way of describing the films of writer - director todd solondz. detractors have called him and his work
cruel, misanthropic and mean - spirited
, he says. but then what do you expect in movies where the weak are bullied and trampled upon? even his titles – notably his 1998 prize - winning ensemble drama happiness – are drenched in irony .
to say that happiness had a tumultuous time getting distributed would be an understatement. originally slated to be distributed by october films, the film was later dropped because its content was seen as too ‘morally dubious’ (schamus 2000 p 257) for october’s parent company, universal, to put their name to. in a piece producer james schamus wrote for nation, reflecting on the distribution of the film, he says :
prabhat is 16 and a student of aditya birla world academy. on top of his travel plans is a trip to scotland. his favourite film character is achilles, from troy. a good film is … “something that makes me think. ”
the dark - as - a - black - hole comedy — director todd solondz’s follow - up to his 1996 teen - angst hit welcome to the dollhouse — was completed for less than $ 3 million. happiness had critics cheering at cannes last may, but the honeymoon between october and universal was about to come to an end. execs at universal, including president and coo ron meyer, soon got a look at the film and, according to reports, were horrified by solondz’s sympathetic portrayal of happiness ‘ pedophile (played by dylan baker), a loving father who nevertheless drugs his 11 - year - old son’s classmates and sodomizes them. happiness ‘ stateside release was quashed .
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
abbas is 11 and studies in grade seven at billabong high school. his favourite film character is ron weasley and he hopes to go to hogwarts someday. a good film is... “a picture which you could visualise in your perspective. ”
giving a film a title like happiness somehow suggests that there' s going to be precious little on display, and solondz' s follow - up to his indie hit welcome to the dollhouse indeed presents a cross - section of modern american agonies as an interlocked selection of characters strive for happiness in all manner of doomed ways. it' s a vision of hell, but it has a truthfulness and a humanity that renders it as moving (and, in a weird way, entertaining) as it is horrific .
i, for one, would be thrilled to see solondz' s heart open in his future work. but it would be a mistake to flinch from the greatness of happiness in the meantime .
with this in mind, along with the decision made by solondz to have the film be released as unrated, it’s hardly surprising that happiness had a difficult time securing distribution. bingam ray, one of october’s founders, is alleged to have said in response to the dropping of happiness from universal: ‘my attitude to universal was, buyer beware. tough shit, sherlock, fuck you, you read the script, you knew the kind of company we were, this was the kind of film that you should celebrate not censor. you should be embracing us, you shouldn’t be kicking us in the ass’. (biskind 2005 p 334) in getting the film released, many toes were trodden on and promises broken. ultimately, a deal was done between universal and a company called good machine, which was founded by three of the film’s producers, james schamus, david linde and ted hope. the company didn’t have the money to buy the film for distribution and it’s reported that universal even helped them with the bank loan necessary to make the payment. interesting that a film october had been so supportive of from the beginning ended up being a liability to them .
still, there' s something about solondz and his work that suggests that, like his characters, he will always suffer. even his debut feature film was calamitous – so much so, he doesn' t like to include it on his official cv. made in 1989, fear, anxiety & depression – in which he starred – still evokes the title' s emotions in him. the film was poorly received, and solondz quit film - making for a time, taking a job teaching english to russian immigrants (an experience repeated by the jane adams character in happiness) .
krisha is 10 and studies at akshara high school. she wants to go to paris and has two favourite film characters: sunny gill from sniff and kaaka muttai from kaaka muttai. a good film is … “one that gives some moral and is also entertaining. ”
the film didn’t stay on the shelf long enough to collect dust, however. october quickly sold it back to two of its producers, ted hope and james schamus of good machine, a new york production company that is now releasing the unrated happiness on its own. ”i guess october thought they had more internal freedom than they did, ” says bob berney, one of the execs distributing the film for good machine. neither universal nor october will comment on the decision to drop the film. ”they’ve been silent, ” says vachon. ”i think they just wish this would all go away. ”
the dark dementia lurking beneath placid everyday life bubbles to the surface in todd solondz' s
happiness ,
a disturbing black comedy that, at bottom, is about all the trouble sex causes people .
konkona sensharma is an award - winning actress and film director. beginning her career as a child artist in bengali films at the age of 4, she has now acted in over 40 films in hindi, bengali and english. her performance in mr. and mrs. iyer (2002) earned her a national film award for best actress along with widespread critical acclaim. she won her second national film award
it' s no surprise, given solondz' s past experiences. when he made happiness, outraged executives at parent company universal studios forced their specialist arm october films, who owned solondz' s film, to drop it from release (it was released by another company). he fared little better at new line when he made 2001' s portmanteau storytelling. after the furore around happiness, he was contractually obliged to deliver a more palatable r - rated film. cutting one explicit gay sex scene (featuring dawson' s creek' s james van der beek), he was also forced to place a red box over the genital areas in a graphic multi - racial heterosexual sex scene .
here is my take on todd solondz' s darkly comical masterpiece known as' happiness' - a film that deserves and requires attention. obviously, this analysis contains a handful of spoilers, as well as two clips with slight audio synchronisation issues... for which i completely blame sony vegas. anyway, i hope you enjoy my monotone voice !
srishti arya was to the film industry born. daughter of producer ramesh behl and sister of filmmaker goldie behl, srishti made her production debut with angaaray (1998). following this, sristhi produced goldie’s directorial debut, bas itna sa khwaab hai (2001), which she also co - wrote. apart from bollywood, srishti for herself on the small screen. her shows have been described as bold and new - age. currently rose has the mega scale show, aarambh, on air on star plus, and more shows in the pipeline .
rona murray deconstructs the fine line that the film needed to walk when it came to the visual display of the film: ‘posters, generally, will target audiences through the suggestions of genre, narrative or star value. solondz’s audience was less definable than that of a mainstream film and many arthouse movies’ (murray 2011 p 228). the poster, a cartoon re - imagining of the main characters, shows everyone looking on edge, as if they’re worried someone will discover their secrets. incidentally, in the film their secrets are laid out for us to see .
after his successful 1996 film welcome to the dollhouse, todd solondz’s follow - up film, happiness, takes a turn towards the darker side of the human condition. the film loosely follows the stories of three middle - class sisters from new jersey (and their parents) and their pursuit of happiness in what can be a harsh world without much understanding. trish (cynthia stevenson), the first sister, lives in the suburbs and is married to a paedophile (dylan baker), whose raping of a young boy brought the film under much fire from critics and the mpaa alike. another sister, helen, (lara flynn boyle) is a writer whose neighbour (philip seymour hoffman) begins an obsessive love affair from the other side of her apartment wall, while he himself is being chased romantically by a woman from down the hall (camryn manheim). jane adams plays joy, the unlucky - in - love third sister, struggling to find stability and acceptance in new york city .
i’d seen most, though not all, of solondz’s films and the only one that made me almost violently reject it was happiness. maybe i couldn’t figure it out, or maybe i just didn’t want to go there .
biskind, p 2004, down and dirty pictures: miramax, sundance and the rise of independent film, simon and schuster paperbacks, new york .
aviva is nine. she studies in chatrabhuj narsee school, in grade five. her favourite film character is harry potter and she wants to go travelling through france. a good film is… “something that attracts the interest of the audience and for me, it is more about communicating through storytelling. ”
john philip madden is an english director of film, television, theatre, and radio. an alumnus of the university of cambridge with a b. a. in english literature, he began his career with theatre, before moving on to the bbc and entering the world of radio and television. with several prominent television titles to his credit, including prime suspect 4 and episodes of sherlock holmes, madden turned his focus to feature films in the early nineties. his film shakespeare in love won the oscar for best picture in 1998 as well as the silver bear at the 49th annual berlin international film festival. his recent successes include much - loved the best exotic marigold hotel series and miss sloane (2016). along with his work as a director, madden serves as a jury member for the digital studio filmaka, a platform for undiscovered filmmakers to showcase their work to industry professionals .
renuka is an actress, director and writer. she has been an actress in indian theatre, television and film for the last 30 years. her first directorial feature film rita (2009) was screened at several festivals. it was critically acclaimed, and won her awards for her direction and screenplay .
sloppy, heavy - breathing phone - sex fetishist with coke - bottle glasses. a grossly overweight young tenant who calmly dismembers then refrigerates her building superintendent. a horny manhattan cab driver from russia who serenades a shy new jersey misfit with you light up my life. these are just some of the socially maladroit, sexually frustrated loners who populate todd solondz' s film, happiness .
why see the film ?
happiness
is about its unhappy characters, in a way that helps us see them a little more clearly, to feel sorry for them, and at the same time to see how closely tragedy and farce come together in the messiness of sexuality. does
happiness
exploit its controversial subjects? finally, no: it sees them as symptoms of desperation and sadness. it is more exploitative to create a child molester as a convenient villain, as many movies do; by disregarding his humanity and seeing him as an object, such movies do the same thing that a molester does .
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. what a space it opens…
nitya mehra studied literature in delhi university and filmmaking at new york university. after working on a spike lee production as a production assistant, she returned to india to pursue her dream of making films. in 2016, she released her first feature film, baar baar dekho. the film was produced by excel entertainment (farhan akhtar & ritesh sidhwani) & co – produced by dharma productions (karan johar). she is now working on her next film script .
for her performance in omkara in 2006, which was also the year she debuted as director with her short film naamkoron. in 2016, she established herself as a director with her debut feature film a death in the gunj, while continuing her work as an acclaimed actress with alankrita shrivastava’s lipstick under my burkha .
helly is 15 and studies at lodha world school (palava). on top of her list of places to visit is spain. her favourite film character is the black widow from the avengers series. a good film is… “one that makes you laugh, cry, experience everything and leaves a deep impression on you forever. ”
beware, films of sundance :
wiener - dog
already has our vote for the festival' s most charming movie, sight - unseen. it chronicles a dachshund that inspires the lives of several individuals, including dawn wiener, the ridiculed protagonist of todd solondz' s grand jury prize winner
welcome to the dollhouse .
greta gerwig, who is joined by an all - star cast, plays adult dawn. solondz has a rich history with sundance, with
dollhouse
jump - starting his career before festival rejected his second feature, 1998' s
happiness ,
because of its tough depiction of pedophilia. we expect
wiener - dog
will skip the controversy in favor of joyful tears. - -
what surprises him, however, is that
people took a studio seriously when they said they found the film' morally objectionable'. the idea of attaching any morality to a studio is naive ,
he says. he complains that, contrary to the negative buzz that happiness generated, daytime talk shows are able to address subjects like paedophilia :
they offer entertainment under the guise of a serious discussion .
the film was offered up to the major indie festivals, riding on the coat tails of its success at cannes: ‘the strategy was to release it to film festivals, thus capitalising on its critical success and gaining free exposure’ (murray 2011 pp 228 - 229). interestingly, the film was not accepted to sundance; a festival which had well and truly made a name for itself as the place for independent cinema to thrive, especially when it contained subject matter that might struggle to thrive in any other public forum .
the film was highly controversial for its heavy sexual themes, especially its portrayal of bill, a pedophile and rapist, as a three - dimensional human being with redeeming qualities .
happiness is about the people that movies usually banish to the far corners: the lonely and the depraved, the ”losers” trapped in neurotic, even sick dreams of pleasure and transcendence. at times, the film’s intimacy is almost too lurid, too much, to bear, yet solondz, a scampish showman, has a gift for tweaking our curiosity, so that, like children waiting for a monster to leap from the shadows, we’re left giddy with anticipation at whatever seamy private horror is coming next. for all its taboo - smashing bravado (graphic ejaculations, a sex offender portrayed with something close to sympathy), the film’s true shock is one of recognition. these characters are really us; one way or another, we’re all slaves to the siren song of sexual craving. solondz’s last film, welcome to the dollhouse (1996), was also a comedy of desperation, but an elegantly small - scale one. happiness breaks through to haunted levels of erotic compulsion that place it closer to the hypnotic artistry of blue velvet. it marks the emergence of a major american filmmaker .
the individual sessions 1. the hollywood model: strangers on a train, 1951, alfred hitchcock / case study: diarios de motocicleta (the motorcycle diaries), 2004, walter salles (18 jan) 2. the linear plot, european versus american: spoorloos, 1988, george sluizer / case study: the vanishing, 1993, george sluizer (25 jan) 3. the nonlinear plot: reservoir dogs, 1992, quentin tarantino / case study: happiness, 1998, todd solondz (8 feb) 4. the literary adaptation: wuthering heights, 1939, william wyler / case study: the great gatsby, 2013, baz luhrmann (15 feb) 5. the dream structure: belle de jour, 1967, luis buñuel / case study: dans la maison, 2012, françois ozon (22 feb )
‘october [ … ] was readying the film for a fall release when executives of october’s parent company, universal studios (which is itself owned by the montreal - based seagram company), asked to screen the film in los angeles. while universal - executives were pleased with the overwhelmingly positive response to happiness at cannes, word of the film’s potentially controversial subject matter was causing concern. seagram is a publicly traded corporation whose primary business at the time of the screening was in the “consumer goods” sector - in this case, the tricky alcoholic beverage market. with significant regulatory legislation pending in the united states [ … ] executives were feeling vulnerable to the possibility that right - wing and christian organizations might target the company’s products for a consumer boycott should the film incite much controversy. the negative publicity generated by such a situation could have far - reaching consequences for many of seagram’s core businesses; companies such as disney had come under fire in recent years for art - house films produced by its subsidiaries. ’ (schamus 1999 p 35 )
happiness
occupies the emerging genre of the new geek cinema, films that occupy the shadowland between tragedy and irony. todd solondz also made
welcome to the dollhouse
( 1996), about an unpopular 11 - year - old girl who defiantly improvises survival tactics .
happiness
is harder to take, and yet equally attentive to the suffering of characters who see themselves outside the mainstream - - geeks, if you will, whose self - image is formed by the conviction that the more people know about them, the less they' ll like them .
“you hated happiness, ” he said. he wasn’t sticking the shiv in me. he seemed genuinely bewildered and perhaps a bit hurt, still, after all this time. and curious. “you said it was adolescent. i think you said something about it having a high - school mentality? ”
in his review of the film, roger ebert wrote ,
... the depraved are only seeking what we all seek, but with a lack of ordinary moral vision... in a film that looks into the abyss of human despair, there is the horrifying suggestion that these characters may not be grotesque exceptions, but may in fact be part of the mainstream of humanity .
if the film is less overtly controversial than happiness, solondz reckons this is because the past decade has seen a considerable shift in attitudes to the material – in particular the issues surrounding paedophilia .
i suppose when i made happiness, 10 years ago, the subject matter was more shocking. i don' t think there' s anything shocking about it today. it' s shocking when you don' t read about this stuff. it' s in all the media and so forth. i went to the park recently back home. there' s a little sign and it says:' no adults may enter unless accompanied by a minor.' that kind of thing never existed when i was growing up, and i don' t even know if it existed 10 years ago .
rajendra is the chief curator of film at the museum of modern art. he is also a member of the selection committee for new directors / new films and has served on numerous juries and selection committees
solondz’s deliberate pacing and tendency to run all his scenes at length make the film seem every bit as long as it is; at two hours, 20 minutes, pic feels a bit indulgent and overextended .
dulquer made his acting debut in 2012, with second show and won the filmfare award for best male debut. he has since garnered a following for his performances in award - winning films like kammatipaadam (2016) and charlie (2015). over the past five years, he has acted in over 30 malayalam and tamil films, and is set to enter the hindi film industry with the upcoming film, kaarwaan .
by far solondz' s best film, an original exploration of american suburban angst, with three chekhovian sisters at the center and a gallery of
deviant
characters that are presented with humor in non - judgmental way .
new york – last november, students at reed college in oregon were invited to a public screening of kimberly peirce’s 1999 film “boys don’t cry” in the presence of the director, an event intended to mark the ...
perhaps solondz' s most daring film, it' s also his most gimicky, as eight different actors, of differing race, weight and sex, all take turns playing the same 12 - year - old girl. jm
the dark dementia lurking beneath placid everyday life bubbles to the surface in todd solondz’s “happiness, ” a disturbing black comedy that, at bottom, is about all the trouble sex causes people. a skillfully made examination of the problems a host of intercon - nected characters face even approaching the ideal represented by the title, overlong pic sees [ … ]
with its stylistic emphasis upon the facades that enforce “normalcy” and the codes of civilized behavior, combined with its urge to ex - pose the decidedly impolite, often warped impulses that variously stew or erupt in human beings, “happiness” often brings to mind “blue velvet. ” david lynch’s film may have drawn more directly upon an unmediated descent into its maker’s subconscious, and also served up more striking visual images, but solondz’s picture is unsettling for the similar reason that it explores taboo territory with moral ambiguity, acknowledging its forbidden nature while stressing a common, and undeniable, fascination with it .
i' m telling you, you get it all in
happiness
- - masturbating adults, masturbating children, ejaculations splashing on bedroom walls, sexual predators getting chopped up and stuck in baggies, obscene phone calls, adultery, betrayal, and (as a special bonus) a pedophile father who drugs his young playmates and rapes them during sleep - overs .
based on brad land' s 2005 memoir ,
goat
offers a portrait of
brotherhood
gone wrong in its depiction of a 19 - year - old college student who pledges his brother' s fraternity and is brutally hazed. sundance touts the film as “part neorealism, part horror film, ” which is a description we can get behind, especially when it involves nick jonas in a key role. to top it off, james franco produced the movie. - -
little wonder he' s shocked by the fact he has a new film to promote, life during wartime .
it' s such an anomaly, particularly in these economic times. things are so grim for the non - studio film - maker. i' m just lucky. it' s just weird that this movie got financed, finished and so forth. i can' t account for it .
admittedly, the financing failed several times before the film finally got off the ground. but given solondz' s reputation and the
difficult
material contained within, that' s hardly surprising .
if i had wanted to do something that would be more marketable, i think i wouldn' t have had the same struggle .
with: joy jordan - jane adams bill maplewood - dylan baker helen jordan - lara flynn boyle lenny jordan - ben gazzara vlad - jared harris allen - philip seymour hoffman andy kornbluth - jon lovitz ann chambeau - marla maples trish maplewood - cynthia stevenson diane freed - elizabeth ashley mona jordan - louise lasser kristina - camryn manheim billy maplewood - rufus read rhonda - anne bobby joe grasso - dan moran johnny grasso - evan silverbergcamera (duart color), maryse alberti; editor, alan oxman; music, robbie kondor; music supervisor, susan jacobs; production designer, therese deprez; art director, john bruce; set decorator, nick evans; costume designer, kathryn nixon; sound (dolby), neil danziger; sound designer, damien volpe; assistant director, jude gorjanc; second unit director, oxman; second unit camera, storn peterson; casting, ann goulder. reviewed at cannes film festival (directors fortnight), may 15, 1998. running time: 139 min .
aviva is thirteen, awkward and sensitive. her mother joyce is warm and loving, as is her father, steve, a regular guy who does have a fierce temper from time to time. the film revolves around her family, friends and neighbors .
alankrita shrivastava is an award - winning film director and screenwriter with a penchant for telling women’s stories. she read journalism at lady shri ram college in delhi university and has worked with prakash jha productions on several films. she was the executive producer on khoya khoya chand (2007). she is best known for being the director of the ‘lady - oriented’ film, lipstick under my burkha (2016), which has been widely appreciated both commercially and on the festival circuit, having won 13 international awards .
elsaesser, t 2001, the blockbuster: everything connects, but not everything goes, in j. lewis (ed .) the end of cinema as we know it: american film in the nineties, new york university press, new york & london .
it was a shock to the system. raised in a jewish household and sent to a series of private schools before he went to yale to study english, solondz was an academic high achiever. even his entry into the film industry was covered in glory .
born in slovakia and working in hungary since she was 18, alexandra is a hungarian theatre, television and film actress. she played the role of maria in ildikó enyedi’s on body and soul (2017), which won the golden bear at the berlinale .
strange thing, though: life during wartime floored me. it was one of my favorite films of its year, 2010, and so profoundly affecting that it forced me to go back through my reactions to all of solondz’s films and second - guess them. this was especially vexing for me because wartime was essentially chapter two of happiness, albeit with new characters and an almost entirely new cast reprising roles from the original. and he was employing many of the same techniques, alternating a kind of sorrowful empathy with a satirical mercilessness that brushed up against outright cruelty. okay, cruelty is too strong, though i might have accused solondz of that in my happiness review; you could certainly call him unsparing in the way that he showed people’s deluded self - images in order to puncture them .
todd solondz' s
happiness
is a film that perplexes its viewers, even those who admire it, because it challenges the ways we attempt to respond to it. is it a portrait of desperate human sadness? then why are we laughing? is it an ironic comedy? then why its tenderness with these lonely people? is it about depravity? yes, but why does it make us suspect, uneasily, that the depraved are only seeking what we all seek, but with a lack of ordinary moral vision? in a film that looks into the abyss of human despair, there is the horrifying suggestion that these characters may not be grotesque exceptions, but may in fact be part of the mainstream of humanity. whenever a serial killer or a sex predator is arrested, we turn to the paper to find his neighbors saying that the monster
seemed just like anyone else .
happiness
is a movie about closed doors - - apartment doors, bedroom doors and the doors of the unconscious. it moves back and forth between several stories, which often link up. it shows us people who want to be loved and who never will be - - because of their emotional incompetence and arrested development. there are lots of people who do find love and fulfillment, but they are not in this movie .
this is a terribly difficult film to review because i think a lot of it works beautifully as a character study while remaining wholly distasteful when you consider that there are actual people being victimized in the real world while you' re sitting there watching it. and they aren' t snickering. everybody' s talking about the pedophilia subplot, of course (and it' s certainly the most troublesome part of the film), but that' s just the most obvious of solondz' s over - the - top indulgences .
few enter the world of independent film expecting to get rich, but it doesn’t hurt to do well. in a screen daily interview, longtime producer and indie stalwart christine vachon says that “ still alice ” is the biggest success story in the company’s history. read more: metrograph & indiecollect announce world premiere of ‘gems unseen, ’ featuring early films from todd haynes & christine vachon “‘ still alice ’ is the movie that is sending my daughter to college, ” vachon tells screen daily from the glasgow film festival. “it was a big success and an honest company. it’s done very, very well for us. ” vachon co - founded killer films with pamela koffler in 1995 and has worked extensively with todd haynes, among many others. among her productions to receive critical praise but little in the way of financial success are “boys don’t cry, ” “ happiness ” and “ carol. ” read more: kickstarter campaign hopes to find lost
mainland china ’s film market might be volatile and unpredictable for many hong kong filmmakers, but that does not stop andy lo from trying. the long - time scriptwriter and director of “happiness” says he wants the best of both worlds, and he’s determined to achieve that. “i do want my films to succeed in both hong kong and mainland china, but the harder and more obvious you are, the more likely you will lose, ” says lo. “i think we should separate the two markets: you either make a film that is very hong kong, or one that targets mainland local culture. ” lo began as a scriptwriter for “ gorgeous ” (1999), which starred jackie chan. he went on to co - write many titles including quirky crime drama “crazy ’n the city” (2005), which won the screenplay prize at hong kong’s golden bauhinia awards in 2006; comedy “my name is fame” (2006); and last year’s blockbuster “ the adventurers. ” he made his
solondz has no illusions about universal' s decision .
it was just about money. i don' t think it was as insidious as' we have a moral plan of what americans should or shouldn' t see.' quite the contrary. they are trying to get as large an audience as possible. happiness is just a little movie. there was a lot of controversy and flak that they weren' t anticipating .
whether solondz admits it our not, part of his films’ disturbing appeal springs from their transgressive nature. they are, at times, like psychological horror films: one is scared by the sheer inappropriateness of what’s on screen. happiness is probably still his best picture. it was followed over a decade later by a very interesting, but flawed, semi - sequel called life during wartime. todd is still out there. sleep uneasy in your beds .
set mostly in suburban new jersey, the film takes its time revealing the ways its dozen or so characters are related, and that’s part of solondz’s design; we seem to be discovering how their personalities complete each other. the nerd’s next - door - neighbor goddess is a trendy writer of transgressive poetry (lara flynn boyle) who lords it over her two sisters: melancholy joy (jane adams), a guitar - strumming waif who suffers from pathological niceness, and trish (cynthia stevenson), a chirpy, passive - aggressive housewife. their parents (ben gazzara and louise lasser) are ending a loveless 40 - year marriage, and happiness, indeed, views domestic life as a snake pit of secrets. in the film’s astonishing dramatic centerpiece, trish’s blandly unsmiling husband, bill (dylan baker), turns out to be a feverish gay pedophile. between weirdly kinky fatherly chats with his preteen son (rufus read), he uses sleep - over nights to drug his family into unconsciousness and do unspeakable things to the boy’s friends .
last month’s hong kong film awards was on a special mission. in addition to the usual star - studded glamour, the event was literally a stage for newcomers. lesser - known young actors were given the opportunity to present awards as well as giving speeches to introduce the best film contenders to the audience. the event, with 37 years of history behind it, has never felt so young and refreshing. the special treatment given to the young actors was seen as a response to a crisis of the hong kong film industry. as established stars ranging from chow yun - fat and andy lau to international action heroes jackie chan and donnie yen age well into their 50s and 60s, there’s no new generation of local younger stars to follow in their footsteps. “hong kong has a lot of great young talents but times have changed and they have less exposure and opportunities to practice their crafts in bigger ,
a few of the characters aren’t as richly imagined. boyle’s author vixen is a vindictive caricature, and there are winking throwaways like the deadbeat russian cabbie (jared harris) who offers joy a fleeting moment of amorous hope. yet all of the actors are inspired, and you’d hardly want everyone to be as painful to watch as allen, the masturbating phone perv (played by hoffman with fearless lived - in wonkishness). darting from the tragic to the farcical to the scarily salacious, happiness stares at its characters with a voyeuristic candor so unflinching it becomes a kind of twisted benediction. the film is really inviting us to meditate on the chasm between our public and private selves (a notion that may have special resonance in the age of monicagate) .
perplexed, i watched happiness again 12 years after first reviewing it and thought it was amazing. not just the scene with dylan baker trying to drug and molest that kid — maybe one of the most notorious examples of how a filmmaker can twist an audience’s identification since the heyday of alfred hitchcock — but the entire movie. it was funny, sad, sincere, ugly, tough, weird, occasionally horrifying. you could not watch it and feel nothing .
bingham ray (one of the founders of october films) articulated the niche market that films such as happiness inhabit: ‘”i always wanted to be able to try things that were not necessarily commercially viable. i’m not some avant - gardist, i know the difference between something that’s truly experimental and something that’s wholly mainstream, but i’d like to think that somewhere in the middle is a comfort zone where there’s an audience. it might not be the largest, or the most lucrative, but for me the rewards there are the greatest' ” (murray 2011 p 234). for him, at least, it’s not necessarily the monetary return that a film earns, but more about bringing issues of societal importance up for debate and into the consciousness of the audience.
happiness is a 1998 american comedy-drama film written and directed by todd solondz , that portrays the lives of three sisters , their families and those around them . the film was awarded the fipresci prize at the 1998 cannes film festival for " its bold tracking of controversial contemporary themes , richly-layered subtext , and remarkable fluidity of visual style , " and the cast received the national board of review award for best ensemble performance . the film spawned the pseudo-sequel life during wartime which premiered at the 2009 venice film festival . 
happiness is a 1998 american comedy-drama film written and directed by todd solondz, that portrays the lives of three sisters, their families and those around them. the film was awarded the fipresci prize at the 1998 cannes film festival for " its bold tracking of controversial contemporary themes, richly-layered subtext, and remarkable fluidity of visual style, " and the cast received the national board of review award for best ensemble performance. the film spawned the pseudo-sequel life during wartime which premiered at the 2009 venice film festival.
happiness is a 1998 american comedy-drama film written and directed by todd solondz, that portrays the lives of three sisters, their families and those around them. the film was awarded the fipresci prize at the 1998 cannes film festival for " its bold tracking of controversial contemporary themes, richly-layered subtext, and remarkable fluidity of visual style, " and the cast received the national board of review award for best ensemble performance. the film spawned the pseudo-sequel life during wartime which premiered at the 2009 venice film festival.