Carol: Through the Lens of Lesbian Desire

Tom Haynes’s 2015 melodrama Carol is a film that explores the hidden lesbian sub-culture in the 1950s through the eyes of the young shopkeeper, Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), and the affluent and more mature Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett). Despite the differences between them, the two are instantly drawn to one another. The two embark on a journey of subtle flirtation and lingering touches and glances, that eventually lead to an eventual, undeniable, romantic, and intimate admission of their mutual attraction. However, their blossoming relationship is complicated by the era in which they live as well as a nasty custody battle between Carol and her soon-to-be ex-husband, Harge. This film toes the line of grand romance and tragedy, with beautifully executed camerawork and gorgeously subtle and moving performances, as it weaves together the love shared between two women.  

One of the most beautiful aspects of this film is, of course, its images. Beyond the choices of using film instead of digital cameras or the color grading of the movie that made it wholly authentic to the time it was representing, it truly is a triumph in its camera work and blocking. The most poignant feature in this story is desire. Even with the talents of Blancett and Mara conveying their characters wants so convincingly, it wouldn’t have felt as powerful without the help of the cinematography. “In looking at historical material from the period, what I found was a lot of photojournalism and art photography, maybe not as dramatic or artistically liberated as Leiter’s, but so interesting—and a lot of it by women,” said director Todd Haynes in an interview with Film Comment’s Nick Davis. “Beyond the sets, though, these films informed our overall design, because they were all shot with natural light. I also shared Lovers and Lollipops with Cate and Rooney, and just the physicality of the central female character—very codified and limited in her freedom of expression but combined with something very spontaneous and lovely—revealed a language of femininity that was very particular to this time and place.”

Carol in Carol. Image courtesy of the Weinstein Company

Being a woman in the 1950s came with a lack of freedom, and that freedom became even more limited as a lesbian. The notion of the closet is an integral thread woven throughout this film, and the camera and staging of these characters do a lot of excellent work in conveying how limited these two women were in their expressions of want and expression. Outside of seemingly private motel rooms and the cab of a car, the camera operates from a distance, just as Carol and Therese’s longing must. There are also plenty of shots done through windows. These shots convey a sort of voyeurism that both Carol and Therese partake in but also serve as a visual of the distance between both of these women. Eventually, as the movie progresses, and Carol and Therese grow closer, the camera work becomes closer, and more intimate as well. When Carol drives Therese to her home, we are rewarded with extreme close-ups that almost make the audience feel as though we're intruding on something. We see it again when they fall into bed together, but instead of the camera acting as a lens through which we see the intimacy of Therese’s indulgent glances, we see their love finally able to be conveyed through free and tender touch.

I also think there is something to be said about how these two characters are posed together and opposite of each other. Barriers are what keep Carol and Therese from being together freely, and this is shown through actual, physical barriers throughout the film. When they first meet each other, they’re separated by the barrier of a shop counter. Therese offers to show Carol a train set, but is, in her own words, “sort of confined to this desk” (0:11:00 – 0:11:13). At their first lunch, they’re separated by a table, but when they’re in the privacy of both their respective homes, that barrier is gone. We see each other again separated by this table as they eat at dinner while on their Christmas and New Year's Road trip. When they arrive in Canton, Ohio, they decide to share a suite instead of getting separate rooms. This shifts something between them. After they’ve settled into their room we get a shot of them sitting at a coffee table, but they're sat next to each other instead of across from each other. The next morning for breakfast, Carol sits beside Therese at the table rather than across from her. Of course, this is partly because a man, a supposed salesman, has taken the seat across from Therese. I think it serves both as a visual for how close Therese and Carol have gotten (and maybe how careless they’ve become as a result of their powerful feelings), as well as foreshadowing that this “salesman” will eventually be an uninvited third-party watcher in their closest and most vulnerable moment. This barrier that both of these women have maneuvered around comes back between them again in the diner scene where Carol tries to get Therese back. Then at the end of the film Therese goes to Carol, and this time it’s Carol that sits behind the barrier of a table – a shift from the dynamic we see when they first meet. From the looks they give one another from across the room, it can be inferred that they’ll come back together in the end, despite the barriers that still existed in the 1950s.

Therese in Carol. Image courtesy of the Weinstein Company

Carol in Carol. Images courtesy of the Weinstein Company

Carol is a beautiful film that gives its lesbian romance respect and isn’t done through that of a male gaze, but instead a queer one. I think this movie appeals specifically to lesbians, but also to sapphics of many other identities. I think it’s easy for women who love women, to fall into a film as beautiful as this and be sort of enraptured by the intensity of the romance that doesn’t feel to be working too hard in an effort to appeal to a straight audience. “Postermodern ‘inclusiveness’ also risks erasing the specificity of lesbianism by turning it into a version of desire no different to heterosexual desire,” Anat Pick writes in the essay “New Queer Cinema and Lesbian Films” (104). This film avoids hetero-sexualizing its romance, as desire is depicted in a way that inherently reflects what it’s like to be a lesbian in the 50’s. The carefulness of their love feels a far cry from the more open and brazen examples of heterosexual flirtation we see through both Richard and Dannie’s attempts to romance Therese, as well as Harge’s attempts to cling to Carol. Plus, these women are both highly feminine women who are neither oversexualized to appeal to a male audience nor is one of them made to sacrifice their femininity in order to present a masculine and feminine binary that appeals to heterosexual audiences.

This film does a lot of this well, but I will admit that there are things about this film that perhaps make its audience members feel a bit odd. For one, the age and experience gap between Carol and Therese. It isn’t explicitly stated what the age gap is between them, but it’s safe to estimate that the difference is at least ten years. The age gap between Blancett and Mara is sixteen years, and at the time of filming, Blancett was 45 while Mara was 29. I would wager that the gap between Carol and Therese is somewhere in that rage. I’ve never been one to be too bothered by age gaps unless said age gap toys with that line legality, in a way that is always predatory (for example, how many male celebrities in their 40s and 50s have flaunted around their 19-year-old girlfriend?) Anyway, this relationship could have been depicted in a way that featured a toxic power imbalance, but I didn’t feel like it did that. The movie doesn’t try to hide it. It’s made clear, despite Kate Blancett’s glowing skin, that there is an age gap. The way Carol and Therese dress isn’t only an indicator of their economic status, but also their maturity. “Please don’t be angry when I tell you that you seek resolutions and explanations because you’re young. But you will understand this one day,” Carol writes to Therese in her goodbye letter (1:27:28-1:27:42). While I think the film is aware of and toys with the discomfort and perception people have with age gaps (take the scene of Carol looking at Therese’s baby photo for example) I do feel that the way this film goes about depicting this romance strays away from anything that may feel predatory. Carol doesn’t manipulate Therese or keep her from social or occupational progress, nor is her desire rooted in objectification. Carol is aware that she has more experience, on multiple fronts than Therese, but she never used that as a means to take away Therese’s agency.

Carol and Therese in Carol. Image courtesy of the Weinstein Company

Another critique I have is that, while this film arguably does great in representing queer characters, it is notably lacking in its representation of people of color. I understand that this film deals with relatively affluent communities, and during this period it was even more challenging than it – still – is today for BIPOC people to garner economic success, but I can confidently say that people of color did, in fact, exist during the 1950s. However, we never actually see Carol or Therese cross paths with a person of color, or at least people of color who weren’t white-passing. For a film that strived to remain true to its period and touch on the politics that resulted in the oppression of queer people, the absence of people of color feels glaring. I’m not arguing that this film should have touched on racism or segregation – this film isn’t about that, after all - it’s more of an observation of how this film does utilize a queer gaze, but it is a white queer gaze. While there are plenty of things I love about this movie and things I feel it did well, it does fall under a list of Hollywood features that very easily ignore the existence of people of color. I feel like If I’m going to speak on representation, I shouldn’t ignore where that representation falls short.

Overall, I enjoyed Carol. The acting was phenomenal, and as I’ve mentioned I really admired the cinematography (Plus, I am always a sucker for any movie that uses film).  It’s a movie that, in most respects, is very aware of itself and the stereotypes and tropes that surround the subject matter. While this film has a very hopeful ending there is tragedy in that Carol is forced to give up full privileges to her daughter in order to not lose her true self.  It toes that line without going too far in either direction, which results in a very bittersweet feeling at this film’s conclusion.

 

Works Cited

Carol. Directed by Todd Haynes, The Weinstein Company, 2015.

 

Davis, Nick. “The Object of Desire: Todd Haynes discusses Carol and the satisfactions of telling women’s stories.” Film Comment, 2015, https://www.filmcomment.com/article/todd-haynes-carol-interview/. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024.

 

Pick, Anat. “New Queer Cinema and Lesbian Films.” New Queer Cinema, edited by Michele Aaron, Rutgers University Press, 2004, pp. 104-118.