I've been hearing about this phantom film for years now. In 1987, a decade and a half before Far From Heaven, Todd Haynes created "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story," a 45-minute dramatization of her rise and fall, acted (almost) entirely by Barbies. Mattel was none to happy, but saved from filing the lawsuit by his failure to clear the music.

I had thought it was impossible for mortals in the hinterland to get a hold of, but an interesting new Salon story by Farhad Manjoo provides a link to see it online. I'm watching right now, and it's pretty interesting. Nice little documentary moment just played out, explaining anorexia, and illustrating with shots of Barbie torsos and appendages. But mostly the Barbies are just the actors. Cleverly conceived. Definitely unique. Here's a fuller description at the site providing the link:

With Barbie dolls as the principal actors, Superstar portrays the life of Karen Carpenter and her battle with anorexia. Haynes never secured the rights to the Carpenters' music he used in the movie, and Richard Carpenter filed an injunction that kept Superstar from public release. Even without Carpenter's court order, the film would probably have been stopped by the notoriously litigious Mattel, the makers of Barbie.

Used without permission.

Watch it now, before it gets yanked. Though maybe it's been online forever and I just didn't know. I'm sure Joe Blitman will let me know. Hopefully. (He's the world's most respected Barbie dealer, and he helped me greatly with my Barbie piece for the Times last year. He's been lurking around these parts lately.) Update from Joe: he predicts it won't be on the internet for long. And I doubt it's going to go unnoticed, with Salon citing it. Watch it while you can!

The Salon piece, which covers much more than Barbie is good too:

Barbie, Starbucks and freedom
Much of the "illegal art" in a major copyright-infringement exhibition is just plain silly. But the giant corporations that dominate our culture want to squash it anyway.

Farhad is right on the mark, for example, about how lame this Food Chain Barbie display is. Just dumb.

(Meanwhile, I'm 2/3 of the way through the film--giving it half my attention as I compose this. Initially I thought it was a worthy novelty, a nice little experiment to watch for ideas, but it's turned into much more than that. It's really drawing me in, I can't take my eyes off it. When I get done here I'm going to start over and watch the whole thing uninterrupted. I could see going out to a theatre to see this. Nice work, Todd. Now that he's a bigtime director maybe he'll go back and get the permissions and get it released, though it's probably better to leave one legendary cult classic on your resume. What was Prince thinking when he finally released The Black Album?)

I'm almost through now; I put off dinner, can't stop watching. Oh God, the music is even growing on me. I had refused, steadfastly refused to participate in the Carpenters rehabilitation, but I feel my grip loosening fast. Crap. Another gayboy into Karen Carpenter. I don't want to be a cliché.