Todd Haynes: "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story": I drank on an empty stomach last night, so i just discovered lots of drafts. i remember This tho!

Todd Haynes [Far from heaven, Safe] burst upon the scene two years after his graduation with his now-infamous 43-minute "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story" (1987).

Seizing upon the inspired gimmick of using Barbie and Ken

dolls to sympathetically recount the story of the pop star's death from anorexia, he spent months making miniature dishes, chairs, costumes, Kleenex and Ex-Lax boxes, and Carpenters' records to create the film's

Bio

Unfortunately, Richard Carpenter's enmity for the film led to the serving of a "cease and desist" order in 1989, and despite the director's offer "to only show the film in clinics and schools, with all money going to the Karen Carpenter memorial fund for anorexia research," "Superstar" remains buried, one of the few films in modern America that cannot be seen by the general public.

Intricate, doll-size muse-en-scene.

The result was both audacious.

and accomplished as

The dolls seemingly ceased to be dolls

leaving the audience weeping for the tragic singer.