"A lot of Todd Haynes’ “Dark Waters” is shot from a distance. Lots of squared-off rectangular compositions, lots of corners and windows, lots of flat tracking shots. The colors are muted, greenish-gray and black. In contrast to the imagery of other films in the good old American David vs. Goliath tradition, Todd sets his hero’s very human struggle with the giant corporation DuPont in a visual framework that always looks a lot more corporate than human. It’s a really interesting choice. The handheld camera-work and bleached deserts of “Erin Brockovich” are as far away as the lighted ceiling squares and shadowy parking garages of “All The President’s Men” — the two most-famous exemplars of this genre. Instead, “Dark Waters” looks expensive, angular, and soft-edged. Even the interpolated closeups of Mark Ruffalo as he uncovers one terrible secret after another never break or mottle the movie’s palette. If it’s not stretching the point, “Dark Waters” looks a bit like it was shot on, well, Teflon. It’s a chilly, chilling approach to a drawn-out, turbulent, often soul-crushing struggle. But it makes perfect sense, considering the size and character of the corporate culture Mark’s Robert Bilott both works in and pits himself again. He’s not building a lawsuit house by house from behind the wheel of a pickup truck; he’s a corporate lawyer pursuing a huge corporation from expensive corporate offices. And whenever the movie does linger over the human costs he’s trying to redress, the effect is as gruesome as a mutilated body on a slab in a very clean morgue. These choices are a stark reminder that ultimately, even Bilott’s spectacular, hard-won legal victory is a drop in DuPont’s bucket. And it speaks to the pervasive character of the problem (not to mention the chemicals in our drinking water) that even when the good guys gain some ground, the world Todd captures in this movie is one of cold grays, smooth edges and gleaming surfaces to which nothing ever sticks. Not yet, anyway."

"I didn't know much about Sly and I'd only heard the two hits that he'd had, which were 'Everyday People', which I loved because of that bass line which goes all the way through without changing once, and 'Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)', and I loved them but I didn't think that much of them. Then one evening in 1971 I was round the house of this bunch of London musos who I'd kind of fallen in with and they were all sort of jazz-influenced people. They used to smoke a lot of grass. I didn't, but the room was full of enough stuff to probably affect me. They were all talking about this album and how it set the scene for something totally new, and I was interested because they were the very serious people who were into Coltrane and Charlie Parker, yet this was a pop record. It's so sketchy, the whole thing, it hardly holds together. It's like little flicks of paint. Instead of an organised composition, it's just people throwing in these little touches and somehow it coheres. It's like the first time I saw a Jackson Pollock or something. Another interesting thing about this is I had just started experimenting with rhythm boxes, which were considered completely beyond the pale by most musicians. They had like six rhythms on: bossa nova, Latin, rock & roll... something like that, and they had these terrible sounds [mimics rhythm box] but I really liked them and I was starting to write things over them, and everyone was asking me, ""Well, you'll replace that, won't you?"" and I said, ""Actually, I don't think I will."" Then I heard this (first track, 'In Time'), where one is playing alongside Andy Newmark, one of the great drummers of all time. But there's nothing really holding it together except the rhythm box."