Director Watch Podcast Ep 1: ‘Safe’ (Haynes, 1995)

Welcome to Director Watch! On this brand new AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision-making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. On episode 1 of the Director Watch Podcast, they discuss the first film in their Todd Haynes series, Safe (1995).

After introducing the show, Ryan and Jay go into a review as to why Safe, Haynes’s second feature, is one of the most remarkable indie films of the 1990s. Released four years after his debut feature film Poison, Haynes makes a startling examination on a housewife slowly losing herself to a mysterious illness caused by the daily environment she lives in. Led by an all-time performance from Julianne Moore, Safe was a film that not only brought together this iconic director-actor duo for the first time, but both were brought to the attention of audiences around the world and would set the stage for their incredible careers going forward. We dive into the film’s themes, its lingering questions, the impeccable blocking by Haynes and his cinematographer Alex Nepomniaschy, if Julianne Moore is the greatest actress of the last thirty years and a whole lot more.

You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 1h39m. We will be back next week to continue their Todd Haynes series with a look at 1998’s Velvet Goldmine. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).