Serious films for grown-ups - 'Michael Clayton,' 'In the Valley of Elah,' 'A Mighty Heart' - these are big Hollywood films, but they have substance and craft and really beautiful performances.

Sirkian films really aren't - at least the way I see them, they're not about identification. They don't have voiceover. A lot of the love stories that are rooted, classic love stories rooted in point of view, use voiceover as a mechanism for locating you there.

Aspects of guilt or handwringing that one might expect in a film set in the '50s about women who discover their love for other women - a lot of these things are not in 'Carol.'

Todd Haynes Quotes