PHANTOM THREAD: Paul Tomas Anderson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Fifties London

http://www.focusfeatures.com/phantom-thread/

Thomas typo.

Thomas Typo Types Tentatively

The thread of threads.

Anyway, trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNsiQMeSvMk

this looks insanely boring

So apparently DDL is not a gay dude in this

PTA does M/I.

this looks insanely boring

― Simon H., Monday, October 23, 2017 7:57 AM (twenty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

interest piqued

this does not appeal

well I live in hope that it's not actually about fashion, the most boring topic on earth.

Like one of those Saint Laurent films.

My gf has been super into sewing and making clothes lately, so I'm excited for beautifully-shot sewing action scenes on her behalf.

looks good to me ... is this the first PTA movie to have nothing to do with California?

I'm sure this will be good, because PTA usually delivers the goods, but for all you folks who complained how boring the new Blade Runner is, man, it was a relative struggle for me to make it through this 2-minute trailer.

I'll watch DDL be boring anytime, though.

Y'all are nuts this looks great

I liked The Dressmaker (2015)! Although that combined costume porn with Western tropes.

Previous word on this film suggests that Phantom Thread's story is based on the life of Charles James (1906-1978).

looks good to me ... is this the first PTA movie to have nothing to do with California?

Hard Eight?

oh right!

I'll probably watch this, but yeah, it looks pretty dull

looks good to me ... is this the first PTA movie to have nothing to do with California?

There Will Be Blood is all Texas, isn't it?

Southern California

Looks insanely boring & I fear he shot without a complete script again

why do you all say "boring" like it's a bad thing?

i only hold films in high esteem if i nod off during them

There Will Be Blood has aged pretty poorly (mostly because the last 10 minutes have been parodied and referenced so much - a shame because the ending was so powerful when I first saw it), but The Master has aged really well... I saw that one by myself opening night & then the next day with a bunch of friends and we were all left scratching our heads... haven't seen it since, but it's bloomed in my mind in a way that TWBB hasn't, quite the opposite... maybe the difference between DDL & PSH...

why do you all say "boring" like it's a bad thing?

the cardinal sin in movies is being boring, i don't understand the question

yeah i watched Louis XIV die in bed for 2 hours last night

xp

flappy, have you dodged the entire Slow Cinema trend?

what are some examples

First person that came to mind when I read "slow cinema" was Kelly Reichardt, who's one of my favorite working directors. Certain Women is slow but it's anything but boring.

yeah slow =/= boring. "PTA fashion movie" is my idea of hell if that's really what this is

you can def nap to the work of apichatpong weerasethakul, one of my favorite directors

Guessing it was made with self-awareness of The Age of Innocence and Gosford Park as context, wild energetic American filmmakers telling a story in a restrained and refined world.

wild energetic

this is not a fitting descriptor for PTA imo.

I mean, anxiety is also a form of energy I guess

I keep hearing that the Paul Thomas Anderson/Daniel Day-Lewis movie is sort of an art-house FIFTY SHADES OF GREY...

— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) August 7, 2017

This tweet (coupled with some hints in the trailer) suggest that this movie is not primarily about fashion

Oh hell yeah

Unfortunately, 'art house 50 Shades of Grey' sounds like a movie full of the scenes where he's asking her why isn't she eating and then making her eat.

That does look decidedly boring

He should play WB Yeats soon

don't you remember he retired? (lol)

unless he has some sort of second coming...

There's totally going to be a scene where he sews a dildo into one of those secret pockets

The strange thing is that in real life Daniel Day-Lewis is actually a cobbler and his specialty is embedding dildoes in the soles of his shoes. It's kind of ridiculous when you think about it, this presumption that knowing one thing could actually translate into a meaningful ability to represent the other thing. Hardly method acting, if you ask me.

daniel dild-shoeis morelike amirite

I regret this.

daniel dild-shoeis morelike amirite

hahahaha

This looks great, not boring at all. The photography looks absolutely beautiful. Very excited to see it.

This looks great.

Is that Julia Davis playing the "rival" at the dinner table 1:15 in? She's not on the cast list.

I won't watch the trailer (I don't really watch them) but PTA, whom I don't like much, made Inherent Vice and The Master back to back, both of which tickled me.

i'd like to know what you think of the aesthetic fwiw, and it doesn't give much away. in fact it does the opposite. such a shock to see PTA shoot grey skies, rainy cobbled streets and wild green coastlines.

DDL looks magnificent. 60 years of age!

I can't stop watching this trailer. I hope that this will be one of my favourite films of all time. I know it's stupid to hope that.

The film's aesthetic (if the trailer is to be trusted) is gorgeous--glorious clothes on beautiful people and magnificently preserved old houses. But I fear this will be another Gosford Park, in which a banal story is played out in a plutographic setting. I enjoy such movies while I'm watching them, but afterwards I feel like I've eaten too much candy.

(FWIW (do not read if you hate me) I prefer the 1934 Age of Innocence to the 1993 version, because the latter version seems to me to be bogged down in period detail.)

well, let's see if it can even brush the hem of A Quiet Passion's dress.

if this is DDL's last film, he's going out with the usual raves

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/phantom-thread/critic-reviews

The Daily roundup

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5175-the-daily-paul-thomas-anderson-s-phantom-thread

Every PTA gets the "the only one still making bona fide American masterpieces" reception, but this one's winning over some of the skeptics.

The only two films I hold in especially high esteem are Magnolia and Inherent Vice. So I'm not holding my breath.

The Master and IV for me, with Hard Eight close behind.

I missed the screening last Thursday and won't open for another month. The studio's holding on to it like a precious bauble.

Last 3 are his best for me (cept the ending of Blood)

Not even remotely screening in my area before the new year.

Happened to watch Boogie Nights on a whim last night. Is it possible for a film to be “great” while also showing its seams (pardon the apropos metaphor) so clearly? It’s maybe the pinnacle of the jukebox movie. (I see its daddy Goodfellas as more than that.) I can’t tell if it is so vivid an experience for me because I saw it over and over at an impressionable age (and I’d never seen a movie with such tonal and stylistic flourishes before) or because it really stands up. But as a “hey look at me, look what I can do!” kind of statement it’s really something. I’m not sure his leap into maturity has worn as well. I admire his later movies but few of them really have a hold on me like Boogie Nights does, despite being pretty clear sighted about its flaws.

That said, the Master and Inherent Vice improve on subsequent viewings. Magnolia is almost unbearable to me now.

Most great anythings show their seams!

Boogie Nights and Magnolia never struck me as anything more than wildly uneven, blatantly derivative provocations upon original release, and I haven't cared to revisit them.

That is true! And yet.

Advance P Brad 5 Star review to be taken under the usual advisement:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/07/phantom-thread-review-daniel-day-lewis-paul-thomas-anderson

I won't say yet what I think one of the major themes of this film turns out to be. The elders in the Upper West Side audience were a bit baffled.

Anyway, stands with Inherent Vice as Anderson's best. Variously put me in mind of The Archers, Welles, Hitchcock, Eyes Wide Shut.

(also if you go to a 70mm screening, at least in NYC, you get a glossy program book)

btw it's not boring

DDL v involved with the scripting

http://ew.com/movies/2017/11/02/phantom-thread-paul-thomas-anderson-interview/

there are definite roots in Rebecca and Suspicion, but then detours you can't anticipate.

this was great. had no idea jonny greenwood did the soundtrack, which was just fantastic.

Made a point of driving 2+ hours over the holidays to catch this in the 70mm "special presentation" and it was worth all the time and hassle. Easily my favorite movie of the year as soon as it ended. Very very not-boring and PTA's shortest since Punch-Drunk Love.

only skimmed the review as i havent seen this yet but anthony lane called ddl the federer of film

it's a cute analogy

Film Comment feature

https://www.filmcomment.com/article/paul-thomas-anderson-phantom-thread-love-after-a-fashion/

Q: Is it violent/sadomasochistic? Anderson is so effective w/ scenes of pain and suffering I actually have to be careful which of his films I watch in theaters. During TWBB and TM I came close to panic attacks...

this movie is incredible

i finished watching it and immediately bought a ticket for a 70mm showing

soda: not in a way you would expect, but yes, discreetly.

costume designer Mark Bridges:

I always do try to keep in mind how things are going to photograph. That’s why there’s not a ton of black in the film. I don’t love how black photographs. We made a tux for Daniel that was black. I had hoped it would be like a midnight blue, but at the end we decided on black. So I’m always mindful, as a cinema costume designer, how things photograph, but then I also try to use fabrics that would have been used at the time and be realistic about that. We had a lot of sources: Some of the fabrics came from Italy, some from America, some from London — just trying to get all of the fabrics that evoke the 1950s that were still around....

I always try to take a backseat to what the actor is doing. Especially Lesley Manville: I love it that you’re referring to her dresses as black because Paul wanted them black, and I said, “No, no, no. We have to do them in gray, so they photograph with a little bit of life to them.” It can’t be like running around in a nunnery or something. It’s already a tough, mysterious character who’s solitary. I originally wanted her to be a navy, but Paul had the idea of black. So we settled somewhere quite comfortably in this gray motif for her work clothes. We were informed by the women who were, essentially, the saleswomen at Balenciaga, and you see it all the way through any reference to that period: They would wear navy and pearls, very simple, and allow the fashions to stand out, and I think that’s what we did with Lesley. Of course, she has impeccable tailoring, she is representing the house, but the darkness of her business attire was really something Paul wanted to go with Lesley’s pale skin. There’s also charting “fisherman’s daughter into designer’s muse” as far as Alma goes. But then there’s also trying to be time and place appropriate, and not upstage or take you out of the story with something fancy that’s going to distract you. The things that do distract you in this story are story points, so I feel OK about that.

http://filmmakermagazine.com/104097-clothes-make-the-man/

I loved this, of course

Basically a romantic comedy

I enjoy PTA’s seemingly central concern with the relationships of emotionally stunted monomaniac weirdos

Anyway since I’m a weirdo I thought this was the most romantic thing I’ve seen since the Mad Max Fury Road blood donation scene

Johnny Greenwood exceeded himself here I think.

Quite a remarkable film. Per Morbz's comments earlier, you sense the cinematic bedrock but it doesn't stay there. Score, costume and cinematography all standouts but the shifting dynamics between the central three actors carried them all even further.

I liked that despite being a “period piece” this could easily have taken place in the future

Yeah the trappings and setting are far from unimportant, but this isn't a _Crown_-style hyperfetishization and formalism.

Has anyone here yet seen it in a 70mm screening? If yes, is it worth a surcharge? (Will probably see it tomorrow in 70mm.)

Yeah that was the screening we saw -- it looked great and the brochure's nice, but make or break, I dunno. There's enough gorgeous shots happening to make it all work in that format, though.

i didn't pay a surcharge... however, by the 10th day of projection, there were already hairline scratches in the print.

PTA actually shot it in 35, it was blown up to 70.

I absolutely loved this and plan to see it again ASAP.

Going for round 2 tomorrow

excuse my ignorance but what would be the advantage of seeing it on 70MM rather than on digital which, presumably has the same ratio and will be projected at the same size? will it be discernably different?

texture, babe

grain

scratches

PTA's best film.

very possibly!

I can't tell whether the gowns are any good though.

I didn't expect the last 15 minutes, I gotta admit. I'm still thinking about it.

I'd say the opening sequence, first breakfast scene, Victoria Hotel (rarebit!), and through Alma's full integration in the business is the most sustained, exciting of PTA's career. I was holding my breath.

"chic"

FILTHY littlte word

Manville as Cyril smoothing her hair over her temples was great throughout.

Every time PTA held Manville's face in close-up I froze. What a marvelous camera object. She gave the best performance.

I liked that despite being a “period piece” this could easily have taken place in the future

― The Bridge of Ban Louis J (silby

like A Quiet Passion, it shows the Archers' influence.

Every time PTA held Manville's face in close-up I froze. What a marvelous camera object. She gave the best performance.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, January 20, 2018 4:00 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed, she is quite something.

I may go to Memphis next week to see this on a large screen. There's no way it will come to my little rooty-poot town.

seeing this tomorrow morning, v excited

me too. can't wait!!!

I really liked it. Nevertheless I'm not sure I'd rate it higher than Boogie Nights, Punch Drunk Love, Inherent Vice, or The Master. I loved There Will Be Blood at the time but its meme saturation in the decade since its release has diminished my memories of it. Magnolia was my favorite movie when I was 11 and I don't think I've sat it thru the whole thing since, so I'll reserve judgment. Still, this was a fantastic film. Unfortunately Sofia Coppola beat PTA to the punch with the poisonous mushrooms device in The Beguiled last summer. The "arthouse 50 Shades of Grey" comment ended up being pretty otm! Their tastes were indeed unconventional. Love wins.

spoilerz!

The Beguiled is actually from 1971 btw

in the last cooking scene, during which DDL chews so meticulously, I thought his much-loathed butter would knock him over.

oh hoy haw, you know what I mean. lighting & atmospherics of PT & Coppola's movie were very similar, especially in the mushroom scenes. not a knock, just an unfortunate coincidence. took some of the dramatic edge off for me, but didn't matter in the end when it was just a kink for them.

"I'm hungry"

I can't tell whether the gowns are any good though.

They're gorgeous. I'd say they were true to the period, but do they ever specify when in the 1950s this is supposed to be?

And I was reminded of The Dragon Painter (1919), regarding the relationship between an artist and his muse...and the idea that it may be the muse's responsibility to shake up the artist's life in one way or another.

do they ever specify when in the 1950s this is supposed to be?

No, and I was trying to make out details in the New Year's Eve radio address, no luck.

If you like the dressmaking part of this, definitely worth seeing the Dior & I documentary from a few years ago about Raf Simons putting together a couture collection over two weeks. Many resemblances, and also time spent with all of those lifers doing the sewing.

ughhhh i loved Dior & I, gorgeous doc that

I think decoding the climax requires thinking of it as a "mother" movie to the core (hence the explicit Norman Bates peephole quote). I don't entirely buy it, but close enough. Plus, people are fucking weird.

I still haven't seen it, but intrigued by the idea that it's a mother! movie

The mother material was unnecessary, an attempt to flesh out a man who needed no fleshing -- the man loved work and was his job. Goodness knows we know plenty of people like him.

I still haven't seen mother!, but don't be sassy, Simon.

Almost everybody I know hates their job afaik.

This is a vocation.

well sure, and one that could plausibly be traced to Momism.

and PTA's shortest since Punch-Drunk Love.

― Badmotorfinger Debate Club (MFB)

ha yeah by 35 minutes

Def gonna see this again, sitting really well with me. Really feel my opinion of it will only go up.

~spoilers~

.

I had one of those hypnotized, out of body movie theater experiences when Alma gave the "i'm going to make you sick, and i'm going to take care of you" speech in closeup in the final minutes.

I'm unnerved by the universal acclaim. I'm afraid to look up to see if Armond has reviewed it.

can't wait for that!

Here it is!

Here’s where Anderson reveals the essence of his indie revisionist sarcasm. Phantom Thread is essentially a smart-ass retort to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), repeating Hitchcock’s basic plot of a psychotic male making over a common girl (James Stewart selfishly “correcting” Kim Novak) into his erotic ideal. But Anderson denies viewers the complex pleasure of Kim Novak’s beauty-to-beauty transformation for something that’s even uglier morally — and does so with a self-satisfied sneer. Hitchcock’s film relayed a private tragedy that explored timeless anxieties; Anderson’s revision deliberately counters those conventions with a fascination for modern decadence.

Well, Mr. Anderson, if that’s your indie definition of love — or cinema — I don’t want it. ***

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454995/phantom-thread-paul-thomas-anderson-downsizing-alexander-payne

Saw it with my woke girlfriend who didn’t connect with the toxic male protagonist and the world he was able to create around him, and that was a bit how I felt despite the acting, cinematography, and dialogue all being extraordinary. Up for giving it a second watch.

if that’s your indie definition of love — or cinema — I don’t want it.

If there's a remedy, I'll run from it, from it.

I thought PTA's POV was Olympian in seeing the roundedness of things.

Saw it with my woke girlfriend

lmao

Haha

Woke is good and all but yr gonna have a bad time with a lot of good art if characters are disagreeable to you and not, like, sufficiently shamed or something.

(Haven’t seen this, want to)

Thanks to both Eazy and VG for the Dior and I doc -- we just watched it here and both loved it. It is an interesting complement to be sure, obviously not exact, but the idea again of female labor as a strong link throughout both films, in different ways is especially great. The lifers were all amazing.

Though talk about how things turn on a dime when the full runway/premiere happens and who's noticeable in the front row in one room? Harvey Weinstein. (With Sharon Stone two seats away.)

oof forgot abt that

Poison mushroom omelette made me hungry

Great movie!

I enjoyed this - much funnier than I expected. And I liked how early on Alma was the barometer for the rest of us like, yeah these ppl are WEIRD af... for a while at least lol

So much toast! Made me hungry. And her noisemaking -biting the spoon while eating her cereal, the dramatic water pouring, DDL’s imma kill u glares, it all made me looool so much

Definitely glad I saw Dior & I - as discussed it is highly recommended for anyone who is interested in the mechanics. it’s a very good reference point for the inner workings of the atelier - the Dior atelier is almost identical to Woodcock! Crazy how so little of the traditions have changed over so many decades.

I would like to see it again

The costume designer interview Morbs posted upthread is fascinating

I thought it was so bitingly accurate that Woodcock would rail against “chic” because you do see that he is a little bit more traditional/old fashioned with his lace and that velvet caped gown from the opening. Not that the dresses arent gorgeous but they aren’t very “young”, his style seems more stately.

Bought a copy of the Balenciaga bio, I’m curious now

also this made me laugh

ME: A Welsh rarebit, with a poached egg on top -- not too runny -- bacon, scones... butter... cream... jam -- not strawberry. What else?
BURGER KING DRIVE-THRU: [inaudible]

— Vichy Thought Leader (@i_zzzzzz) January 20, 2018

Also good

when you tell me there’s only digital and vinyl and no CD release. pic.twitter.com/E5IiikhRMK

— Bruce Levenstein (@BruceLevenstein) January 22, 2018

lol

Saw this a few days after stomach flu ravaged my home, so the way illness affects the dynamics of a relationship was already on my mind. Movie resonated a lot, heightened as it is.

I loved this movie so much.

There are very few moments in cinema I’ve found as oddly satisfying as “kiss me my girl before I’m sick again.”

I talked to a couple that owns a gay NYC bar last night... they HAAATED it! One fell asleep.

mr veg wasnt impressed. he said everyone in the movie needed a slap. (he’s not wrong, lol)

no way. both alma and cyril were highly sympathetic. and so was woodcock in the end. deep down he wanted the little tyranny he created to be dismantled.

I like how the whole movie felt poised on the edge of creepiness and disaster, and you know that it is all going to boil over in one way or another, and then it does, but in a way that—while weird—brings everything to a satisfying revolution. just a very well crafted narrative

*resolution.

But Alma also does enact a revolution in the household. There are definitely ways to read this as a political allegory.

look i loved the movie but these arent great people. they’re sympathetic inside their selfmade terrarium but outside in the workd they’re basically assholes of varying degrees
woodcock is a fussy selfinvolved dick
cyril is a codependent control freak
alma = munchausen’s by proxy

I like how the whole movie felt poised on the edge of creepiness and disaster, and you know that it is all going to boil over in one way or another, and then it does, but in a way that—while weird—brings everything to a satisfying revolution. just a very well crafted narrative

― treeship 2, Sunday, January 21, 2018 10:59 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, very refreshing & uncommon tweak on the audience, was a very surprising narrative pinch/twist imo. they're happy together!

look i loved the movie but these arent great people. they’re sympathetic inside their selfmade terrarium but outside in the workd they’re basically assholes of varying degrees
woodcock is a fussy selfinvolved dick
cyril is a codependent control freak
alma = munchausen’s by proxy

Completely and exactly. Like it was nice that it wasn’t another rote examination of the Freudian underpinnings of obsessive maybe genius, but nowhere in that film was anyone who deserved a second glance. Not visiting that London house full of people consumed with dressmaking for the unappreciative classes.

Idk y’all seems to me PTA’s real into the travails of difficult people trying to connect with each other, there’s no monsters in this movie.

Reynolds is coddled and protected from the world by Cyril (and privileged by birth? It’s hard to say) but as he says to Barbara Rose, his place is in the house. Dual in a way to PSH in The Master, he’s loved after a fashion by those who come to see him, but that love is instrumental and conditional upon uh literal fashion. It’s hard to live in the world, and relatable to want to live at a remove from it, if you can be taken care of.

/night thoughts

Agreed, fully.

But: discursively closed narratives of creation (an app, a dress) have been ruined for me by life and TED talks. It’s an old, shitty take that some people are safest with the four walls, roof and a floor that they insist is the root of their success. Hammering that nail vis-à-vis beauty (as opposed to something like Jem Cohen’s Museum Hours where beauty is a public good) in this film seemed captivating while watching, briefly chin stroky afterwards and then just sort of curious: like why would you dedicate such talent to telling these people’s inner lives when Kelly Reichardt can make a film like Certain Women which contains beauty and the insistence of how a life had to be lived in nearly a dozen more ways? Afterward it felt cheap from a psychological standpoint and slick as candy.

I’ve never seen a film which portrays misophonia (which generally manifests in feelings of knife sharp rage when hearing others eat — though all sounds are game) and that was nice. It’s hard with a partner to explain that no, I do have to leave the room if you want popcorn. Otherwise I won’t be who I am.

But everyone has a difficult life. I love nurses; coddling should only be infrequent enough for it to matter.

But the film suggests that this hermetic existence is coming to some kind of end too as shifting fashion trends (the dreaded "chic") affect dressmakers like Woodcock.

I don't care about stuff made exclusively for rich fucks. But the singer not the song etc.

cyril is a codependent control freak

I could do a "chic" rant on "codependent"...

Do it

too much work

I mostly eyerolled my way through this piece on "straightwashing" via Woodcock, but hey, it's David Ehrenstein. I think it's way more ambiguous than what he extracts from it.

http://gaycitynews.nyc/heterosexualitys-phantom-stalking/

Rolled my eyes as promised

finally saw this, disagree w/ alfred that the mother stuff was unnecessary, my friend and I laughed regularly all the way through, with the audience only joining in around the halfway mark

It didn't hurt the film, it just added nothing to what we learn about Woodcock (besides giving PTA an excuse to film a handsome ghost scene). I don't like Freudian claptrap.

idk without DDL's bedridden breakdown I doubt I'd have had even the slighrst whiff of sympathy for Reynolds at all (even if it was mostly just pity)

it's a crime that Krieps didn't get nominated along w/ Manville and DDL

Agreed.

I didn't like anybody onscreen, which is fine because I dislike 98 percent of the people I watch or read about. But the film is sharp about the delusions of men who experiment with the feelings of women but expect solitude to work on their art.

yeah absolutely

the score was unbelievable

My friend who I saw it the first time with remarked that at his much less full second viewing the laughter was much more tentative than when we saw it in a full house. It’s a funny movie!

i heard more laughs at this than at ladybird.

i was howlin ever 90 seconds

maybe they should have ditched jonny greenwood for theme to curb your enthusiasm.

My review of the blasted thing

This was very much worth the long drive to see it.

If your friends are chic
Consider yourself unique

I didn't know/notice PTA ws his own cinematographer. It looked frequently stunning, especially in the party venue.

Although there is no credited DP, he has disputed that he did the job. I don't know whether that's just lip service to please the guild or not.

(if he wanted to be 'recognized' presumably he wd've used a pseudonym a la Soderbergh)

agree with alf about mother stuff, except i don't know how to make sense of the ending without it

yeah strenuously denied being DP p strenuously in the interview morbs posted

denied it strenuously even

saw it again tonite. went by really quickly. it's a very simple, contained, small story. lesley manville is so good.

more interviews

“Anyone who has been in a relationship for a long time will notice that the balance of power can change very quickly. I had Rebecca in my mind and another great film called The Passionate Friends. My feeling about Rebecca is that I wish Joan Fontaine [’s character] would have turned to Laurence Olivier [’s character] at some point and said ‘enough’…I wish she had poisoned him,” the director joked...

...
"The kind of thing you write down is like ‘a man and a woman’, ‘a love story’, and then ‘sister?’ You write down a lot of stuff with a question mark next to it – that’s a great indication of when an idea is starting to come together. It’s funny, when you read other stories about other writers and you realise you’re not alone when you see notes in margins and on script pages, where these guys are doing the exact same thing as you. Asking yourself questions is always a good way to start building a story. So I kept adding to this idea of a strong man who gets sick and the woman in his life who recognises that in that illness he is sweet and vulnerable and in need of her. And then it all happened so quickly, which is such a good feeling. But there’s always half-baked stories kicking around somewhere."

https://www.screendaily.com/news/daniel-day-lewis-reveals-what-he-likes-most-about-working-with-paul-thomas-anderson/5126049.article

http://lwlies.com/interviews/paul-thomas-anderson-phantom-thread/

There’s an interesting link between The Master and this film I think.

I think so too. That wasn’t evident to me initially but there’s something in the bizarre central relationship between the protagonists. That push and pull, that intense dynamic between two people who have a great amount of affection for one another but find it hard to communicate. Yeah, chalk that up to ‘bag of tricks: limited’.

I don't mind returning to that particular well at all.

Never thought I'd be interested in watching scenes of fittings, but those were among the highlights for me. The one of him fitting Alma on their first "date" was slow-burning eroticism. Loved the film.

Structurally, the extended fitting / courtship scene feels much like the first extended interview scene in The Master.

The first hint that this is a comedy (and one of my favorite moments) is during that fitting scene when the sister says "he likes a little belly" and Alma--whom you'd expect to show some kind of stereotypical subdued woundedness in response--has this really broad "wtf did you say" expression and it's so great.

xp yea definitely agree with the interview quote upthread about the connection between this and the master, pta self-deprecating "i have a limited bag of tricks" well this one is still pretty different, obviously funnier & more intimate

haha yeah @ryan i like how quickly alma is integrated into the house and how pta doesn't make her go thru the expected wounded pose. like i think a scene or two after that belly comment is the first breakfast scene with alma. "it's like you road a horse across the room"

is this his first movie where the dude is just irritated rather than tamping down some unresolved father issues boiling rage?

DDL has a good body for portraying a person uncomfortable with existing in a body

xp yes... altho punch drunk-love doesnt have that iirc. but all of his movies are very concerned with masculinity & society's expectations of men and their behavior

?? if you take away the shoobidy shobbidy baby talk from adam sandler all you get is unresolved father issue boiling rage

I suppose, probably misremembering but aren't his parents out of the picture/ was raised by his mom? tho absent father still= father issues often

The mother remarried; Woodcock was old enough to make her gown. There could be an element of Oedipal resentment of the (step)father intruding on their life together; there could be an element of him trying to control his mother's second marriage through the gown. I could be reading too much into this.

On another subject, if anyone rewatches this, could you tell me whether or not Woodcock's designs include any fur? It strikes as a little strange for this period for a high-fashion designer to not use any fur in a collection.

oh i was talking about PDL, but yea you're right about Woodcock's parents. I'm pretty sure I remember at least one fur coat, but it wasn't commented on... but could be another movie I watched recently, not sure...

this was as fantastic as everyone said. hard to pick a place to start but the score was just stunning.

saw this in 70 last night, found it to be good and interesting if emotionally unmoving (to me personally) and glorious to look at which is particularly impressive since almost all of it is just people talking in rooms. thumbs up but i couldn't really tell you why.

From the trailer I am really really not up for this.

I went to see it last night and I loved it. One of PTA's best yet. A peculiar tale about how lovers twist each other inside out with the rigid orderly setting of 50s Brit fashion making a apt setting. DDL will get the plaudits but I think Lesley Manville is the secret MVP

agreed. DDL is pretty unobtrusive in this, unlike everything else he's been in. for one thing he's playing a brit, and like we've discussed upthread, this movie works on a much more intimate scale than all of PTA's other movies. when I saw it a second time, Lesley Manville stuck out even more. just that closeup of her when the first girl is begging Reynolds to talk/pay attention to her.

i saw this last night and enjoyed it for reasons i didn't expect to -- it was much weirder and more complex than i thought it would be, and all within the polite confines of a movie about dresses/dressmaking

has the colossal NYE party been discussed? that struck me as one of the most OTT moments (the extras/costumes alone) and i am not quite sure what to make of it. is this a typical NYE party for 1950s England?!

Loved that party sequence, just imagining this one huge set piece with a ton of people that they got together and then filming around the fringes.

yeah La Lechera, it's kind of a monster movie, but the monsters are recognizable

i found the symbolism and archetypical (archetypal?) nature of their roles ("artist", "muse") really interesting as a canvas for interpretation
also it sure is a good year for odd couples, lol!

i am also interested in talking about cyril
she is the most mysterious character

Cyril doing the Hannibal Lecter sniff when she 1st meets alma

Not a huge PTA fan, but I loved this movie so much. Feels, more than any PTA movie I've seen, like a Kubrick film, with a compelling simple-on-the-surface story that seems to disguise a much bigger one, even if I can't place quite what it is yet. I really can't wait to see it again.

Agree that Cyril is the most mysterious character, aside from Reynolds' mom. Her scene cutting down DDL with a bare minimum of words and motion was one of the highlights, but for a woman who speaks her mind 100% of the time her motives are hard to read.

I need to get over my Cary Grant allergy and watch Suspicion. definitely echoes of Rebecca in this especially with Cyril.

She is more mysterious than her presumed model, Mrs Danvers in Rebecca
xp

or as Nigel Bruce's character calls her, "Danny"

yeah i was gonna say that, Danvers is a very explicit character

Surprised there isn't more love itt for Reynolds' offscreen line about putting some fresh cream in his oatmeal. "It is a bit naughty though, isn’t it?”

That was the big "oh shit, I'm the only person in the theater laughing" moment for me. But I think along with the hungry boy note it says a lot about his psyche.

Highly recommended

Hello, I have degraded Paul Thomas Anderson's cinematically mature, devilishly funny, and tonally sophisticated Phantom Thread by collecting my #tweets about it into a meme-clustering moment titled ⚡️ “Phantom Retreads”https://t.co/juwSU9znZf

— Eric Allen Hatch (@ericallenhatch) February 7, 2018

PHANTOM THREAD (2017):

😋💬🐇🥚🥓🍶🍵.
🎀

💃🏻💘

😋💬🥓.
🎀

💃🏻❤️

😐💃🏻🏠
🎀

💃🏻🍽

🙄💭💥💣
🎀

🤫👉🏻🕰
🎀

💃🏻😍

😡📰
🎀

💃🏻😦

💃🏻🕯🌹🕯🍽

🙄
🎀

💃🏻😧

💃🏻🤔

💃🏻😃💡!

💃🏻🍄🌡⚰️

🤮
🚽

🤢💬💘💍👰🏻❤️💒?
🎀

💃🏻🤔

😧?!
🎀

💃🏻😜👍🏼

— Eric Allen Hatch (@ericallenhatch) February 7, 2018

the dvdscr has leaked.

This was very good. Vicky Krieps is fantastic, It's a real shame she didn't get nominated. the film is about the mother but in a completely different way from I expected. I thought the very particular notations of measurements between Reynolds and Cyril at Alma's first fitting were leading towards a different kind of mothering denouement.

Best dress was the pale pink one he rescued the lace from Antwerp for.

There's something about Reynolds that reminds me of Lucien Freud. The voice was very similar. Also, LF was a maniac about breakfast, having exactly the same breakfast at exactly the same restaurant for two decades. LF was very childlike too and very controlling of his muses and models.

meant to say that he had the same breakfast in the same place EVERY DAY.

The voice was very similar. Also, LF was a maniac about breakfast, having exactly the same breakfast at exactly the same restaurant for two decades

Only two decades? Amateur.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/47287000/jpg/_47287745_gilbert_george_afp.jpg

ah yes, but they are just actors!

Mixed about the film, but his PJs were fire.

I kind of wanted it to end at the point where he asks her to marry him and she hesitates and you see him panic

Interesting you should mention Lucien Freud, Jed- I think I spotted a picture of his in Woodcock's country pad...

In this New Statesman review, Ryan Gilbey claims DDL is doing an "excellent Dirk Bogarde impression" - can't really hear it myself?

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/film/2018/01/phantom-thread-more-compilation-outstanding-scenes-great-movie

I watched Bogarde in King and Country last night, and I don't hear it... Certainly not the way DDL was doing John Huston's voice in TWBB.

A Very Hungry Boy

I am still processing this but one thing that bothered me was Julia Davis's line "I don't want to be racist, but …". I very much doubt anyone would use that phrase in 1950s London, certainly not about someone white! Also, I'm dubious that British marriage ceremonies included the line "you may now kiss the bride" back then.

Entrancing film. Really something. Watched it last night and thought about it all day today. Vicky Krieps is indeed excellent and it goes to show the predictable myopia of American award ceremonies that she was overlooked.

well she's not from here

Ah. Yeah. Touché!

Random question - is this a loud movie? I have tinnitus so I don't see as many movies as I used to, but kind of want to see this. I hated The Master and Inherent Vice (and the Sandler one, come to think of it), so I might be a sucker. But this looks interesting.

There's some very loud toast-scraping, but mostly quiet except for one (party) scene.

My general indifference towards the film aside, I thought it should have gotten an AA nomination for sound. All those little everyday sounds that drive DDL crazy--I share this hyper-sensitivity with him, and tinnitus with Chuck--were rendered bracingly and piercingly sharp throughout.

I hate the extra focus on foley sounds that the audio industry passes off as artistry, it's so fucking annoying and unnecessary, it's worse than teal and orange, make it stop.

There’s a genuine narrative purpose in this case

lmao

https://www.avclub.com/uwe-boll-accuses-paul-thomas-anderson-of-hiding-a-fuck-1822890557

I would never accuse him of hiding a fuck

Lol @ URL

At Cinerama in Seattle for my third viewing.

silby I was there too!

also G&G were in Mangal 2 when I went there

they're doing this w/ live orchestra in Brooklyn. $35, feh.

http://www.vulture.com/2018/02/for-the-hungry-boy-valentines-inspired-by-phantom-thread.html

ha they are great

The only review that makes me want to watch this:

https://blindfieldjournal.com/2018/02/09/fuck-off-to-back-where-you-came-from-notes-on-the-phantom-thread/

that's a really good review

See: designers, chefs, etc.

The masculine gentleman ‘artist’ appropriates the craft of proletarian women like his mother (sewing) and turns it into a private source of immense surplus-value in the production of aristocratic white femininity. This is a regime of value centrally predicated on the normative devaluation of most women: be they lower-class, ‘unladylike,’ fat, not fat enough, old, queer, unpretty, migrant, non-white or otherwise monstrous. This is my time, says Reynolds.

It's perceptive when it's not leaning on jargon.

I missed the whole Alma/Holocaust connection, hadn't heard or read anything about that.

You can always use google for jargon.

I agree with most of the arguments; it's that sentences like these are ungainly:

The Phantom Thread is a morbid depiction of social reproduction, where the gender division of labor appears as a toxic metabolism or circuit of necrotic value. The brutal poison of reification flows forth from Reynolds, attacking Alma’s body, and returns back again in the form of a deadly mushroom, penetrating Reynolds.

yeah no

I like the shapes you get into when the unfamiliar concepts are used. Leading to that last sentence.

Read it yesterday and iirc (and for someone who hasn't seen it) that bit is possibly the toughest xp

wtf

lol it definitely does seem like it's coming directly from the polar opposite of how you approach and enjoy movies, Veg!

I can appreciate a lot of approaches but there were a few passages in that review where I was thinking the interpretation of the film's narrative was being stretched a little far in service of the points being rationalized

does he get paid by the syllable or

*she

That's a good review although yeah that para reads like parody - haven't read any other reviews but are they really not touching on that stuff at all? I somehow don't believe that

I was instantly drawn in by until today I didn’t know who PT Anderson is

That review is glorious. I think the writer is aware of its academic excess, but keeps throwing those concepts out just b/c the review so readily lends itself to them. Her review has the same jaded sense of humor about itself as the film does.

there's an author bio on the 'about' page for the site if you're curious

Loved this - though I can see why some might gripe. I generally agree with David Cairns take on it https://dcairns.wordpress.com/2018/02/07/needling/

Ach, I can't believe I didn't consider the Hitchcock-Alma angle before...

thread

Few notes on third viewing of PHANTOM THEAD:

35mm is clearly the best viewing format for this. Less grain creates a bit more softness that gives it that late 1950s Eastmancolor that's more appropriate given the time period. (The intensity of the 70mm makes it a bit too 60s).

— Peter Labuza (@labuzamovies) February 15, 2018

Could go for a third viewing of this. Maybe I already posted this. But it’s sitting really well with me. And word of mouth is really great for it, hearing quotes from it regularly around town

The blindfield review is very interesting. I have a slight problem with the framing of it - that she saw it by accident, didn't know who this and that even were etc. It maaaay be true, of course, I just find it unlikely. Regardless of that, the review is perceptive and funny. I think it's more likely that she saw it because she thought it might be of use to illustrate an essay she had an inkling to write which, indeed, it did but it did so in ways that she didn't expect at all.

a friend tonight made a very good point by comparing the film to various Henry James stories. By halfway through she was convinced that she was completely in a Jamesian world - The Beast in the Jungle or The figure in the Carpet - the problem being that those James tales never give up their secrets, so that every detail (or clue) may be relevant to the solution that the reader devises or projects onto the story. If you release The Beast, as this film does, you risk exposing the scaffolding as being too flimsy to bear the weight of the conclusion or, conversely, too elaborate. If you don't provide the solution then no detail is extraneous or irrelevant, It just enriches the mystery.

Perhaps that's the point. That the film's conclusion just leaves a lot of dangling/phantom threads.

Totally got Jamesian Osmond/Merle vibes from Reynolds and Cyril.

deffo

has the colossal NYE party been discussed? that struck me as one of the most OTT moments (the extras/costumes alone) and i am not quite sure what to make of it. is this a typical NYE party for 1950s England?!

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera)

LL, came across this last year after a reference in some novel, several years up on yt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAQ4Nis3Eyc

a friend tonight made a very good point by comparing the film to various Henry James stories. By halfway through she was convinced that she was completely in a Jamesian world - The Beast in the Jungle or The figure in the Carpet - the problem being that those James tales never give up their secret

yes OTM...I mean, the point of "The Figure in the Carpet" is that the protagonist never knows what the "figure" is (it's not a favorite of mine; I'm not a fan of his stories about writers and what we call now The Creative Process).

LL, came across this last year after a reference in some novel, several years up on yt:

― by the light of the burning Citroën, Friday, February 16, 2018 9:14 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

whoa thanks for posting this, incredible.

Hitch and "Rear Window" confirmed sources in this recent interview with PTA at the Cinématheque Française.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn0jUdBxKlo

does he get paid by the syllable or

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, February 15, 2018 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just a different level of exploitation lets be cool.

I have a slight problem with the framing of it - that she saw it by accident, didn't know who this and that even were etc. It maaaay be true, of course, I just find it unlikely. Regardless of that, the review is perceptive and funny. I think it's more likely that she saw it because she thought it might be of use to illustrate an essay she had an inkling to write which, indeed, it did but it did so in ways that she didn't expect at all.

I bought it because its a review of someone who isn't really a film-reviewer, that very much comes across.

when will you watch it?!

Been way too busy - maybe next week.

oh wow!! that looks like the same party!!
thank you for posting!! i'd have had no idea. glad i asked :)

"if you wish to have a staring competition with me, you will lose."

Ach, I can't believe I didn't consider the Hitchcock-Alma angle before...

Should you want to hear PTA's and Vicky Krieps's (competing) origin stories for the choice of the name Alma (she was originally going to be Agnes) then I recommend the PTA interview on this episode of BBC's The Film Programme. Also interesting to hear him wholeheartedly agree with interviewer Francine Stock that Cyril and Alma are the two main protagonists of the film: on the Phantom Thread edition of the generally excellent Last Picture Show podcast, I was surprised to hear them all call Cyril a supporting character.

don't know if I mentioned but I watched Suspicion last week and it definitely reminded me of this. more so than Rebecca actually, since Cyril doesn't have the expected blowout/vengeance moment that Ms. Danvers does. but in Suspicion we're (similarly) led to expect an obvious outcome that turns out not to be true, and only in the film's final minutes.

Saw it again and loved every second of it (save for the scene where Cyril smells Alma... that seemed too insidious and over the top). I could see it several more times in theaters, if only for the joy of taking in the audience's response to it (lots seem to hate it, but it's fun watching shocked crowds).

This is my favorite movie in years, probably since It Follows, but I'm actually hoping it doesn't win best picture and attract all the scrutiny that invites. Just let the people who love it have this one.

what? why? you think it can't withstand "scrutiny"? it's a great movie, i'd be thrilled if it wins best picture, doesn't look like it but i would never want to keep a great movie to myself or something

the ability to not read the criticisms or dissections of others is necessary imo

on the other hand, having something gain enough cultural currency that you hear it discussed in dumb terms in public can be irritating

Yeah, it's brilliant art, so it can withstand the scrutiny. I just think it's a much more niche movie than almost any other best picture candidate. I've seen most of them, and this was by far the one audiences seemed to find most objectionable. It just seems more appropriately positioned as an eccentric underdog (it stands no chance of winning, as I understand it) than as a popular crowd pleaser. I can just imagine how horrid the takes would be if it won.

the fact that J-Law turned it off 5 minutes in is probably a bad sign for its prospects

Unfortunately, when you're online all the time you can not read criticisms but still be exposed to them all the time. Like, you don't have to read thinkpieces to understand the general convo around Three Billboards.

Everyone I've talked to who likes film finds Three Billboards much more objectionable

they've actually seen it, though. I'm trusting their judgment

idk if J-Law is a good barometer of film criticism, but might be indicative of some Oscars voters

The internet finds Three Billboards much more objectionable (b/c it is). But general audiences seem to really enjoy Three Billboards, which is amazing, given what a hateful movie that is.

Lawrence's comments do sum up one of the most common objections to the movie ("Another tortured male artist? PASS.") even though that criticism really doesn't hold if you watch the movie.

xp the way jennifer lawrence described what she thought Phantom Thread was - "a narcissistic sociopath 'genius' who humiliates women for his art" - is a pretty apt description of mother! and she said "yeah i don't need to watch that i've been down that road before"

idk if J-Law is a good barometer of film criticism, but might be indicative of some Oscars voters

yeah this is what I meant

I am trying not to mention that J-Law never finished high school because she does seem reasonably intelligent and likeable, buuuuut

i took her comments as either a) salty that mother! was completely shut out of awards season b) she's pissed at aronofsky

tbf mother! did deserve sound noms

Phantom Thread is basically the anti-mother! when it comes to the genius-creator trope.

yeah exactly, her description fits mother! completely. god what a shit movie

b) she's pissed at aronofsky

why would she specifically say that she wasn't talking about him and then go on to discuss dating non-famous people for several minutes afterward then

J-Law doesnt like B&W or silents either; she's a discriminating artiste. (or a mall betty who hasnt made a good film since Winter's Bone)

salty that mother! was completely shut out of awards season

yes, 'transgressive' movies that pancake at the b.o. have such a steady awards track record

oh woops i didn't hear the whole interview just that 3 minute clip

MORBS I am so with you on Lawrence's career has been abysmal. Silver Linings Playbook is one of the worst movies I've seen this decade. and yea she could still be salty that it got trashed & bombed and now a movie with a superficially similar premise or bent is getting praise.

lol wait she doesn't like black & white movies? hit me with a link

not gonna use up a NYT article view, but from a 2012 profile:

“I like making movies, but that doesn't mean I want to watch a black-and-white, freaking boring” — here she amped up the sarcasm with an unprintable word — “silent movie,” she said. Her on-screen characters are often marked by their flinty resolution...

now let's go back to teacups and mushroom soup

lmao wtf

have you met many millennials who like old movies? they tend to be a minority.

they have a flinty resolution

Jennifer Lawrence dismissing b&w movies is basically Vince Staples saying he doesn't listen to Nas. It might rile up purists but it doesn't diminish their craft

Phantom Thread is basically the anti-mother! when it comes to the genius-creator trope.

I still find it hilarious that people watched mother! and thought "this movie thinks creative geniuses are cool and their interpersonal dynamics are fine" (not that this is necessarily the argument you were making)

have you met many millennials who like old movies? they tend to be a minority.

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Friday, March 2, 2018 2:24 PM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well yeah but when you're in the movie-making business i imagine the % is higher

that reminds me, Brie Larson's Criterion top 10 is really great: https://www.criterion.com/explore/180-brie-larson-s-top-10

jennifer lawrence is the queen of the normies

xp I'd judge someone's ability to say why they like a studied list of classic films more than the construction of a list and, although brief, those are some decent quotes. Brie Larson otm about how they say "Lime" in Third Man

I’d rather read KStew’s thoughts on film than JLaw’s

I mean, you can be personally uninterested in film and make good movies, but it's nice to actually be interested in the medium

me too

xxp- yes i agree, i didn't just mean it was a good list, her thoughts are great tho brief

hey wait a minute Criterion put out The Third Man on blu? and it's out of print???????????????????????

well yeah but when you're in the movie-making business i imagine the % is higher

lol, why? how many current baseball players know who Honus Wagner was?

have you met many millennials who like old movies? they tend to be a minority.

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Friday, March 2, 2018 2:24 PM (forty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's not "Filmstruck and Chill"

Millennials basically decided for American that the first century of film is unimportant to keep in regular circulation, but Adam Sandler getting an 8-picture deal Netflix is better because we can watch them right away

lol baseball is a terrible analogy

People that love movies & make movies generally got there by... watching a lot of movies. How many baseball players study old games?

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2011/11/23/1322055186448/Michelangelo-Antonionis-B-007.jpg?w=620&q=20&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&dpr=2&s=d3f98b63aab70140b621faef86ad309d

OOH SOMEONEA GET THESE GIRLS THE COBBLA

flappy, most actors can barely find the doorknob in the morning.

ok mr. hitchcock

BLOOM (screaming) Have you lost your mind? What are you talking about? Kill the actors. You can't kill the actors -- they're not animals, they're human beings!

BIALYSTOCK They are? Have you ever eaten with one?

This man should be in a straightjacket.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBmnU98uk_o

loved, loved, loved this, even though the characters/relationship seemed a bit secondary to everything else. some brilliant/lol/wtf scenes, lines and acting, but it felt like an incredibly lavish terence davies movie (maybe as i saw it on 70mm?) where the script could have had a bit more time spent on it.

Genteel loutishness, bad clothing, (note following shot up stairway), "she seems nice", TOAST!, mince, (wait for it), punchline.

Personally, I loved the part where the villain, an exceedingly well-starched linen handkerchief, staggers through the climactic reel of La Dolce Vita in a desperate attempt to wrest his beloved from the clutches of human happiness. Amazing scene, all bullshit aside. And the daring resolution by vomit fetishism clearly thrilled the audience with which I saw the film. As comprehension dawned, we all tightened our lips for a moment while nodding slightly. I couldn't see this, of course, but the leathery creaking of delighted flesh was unmistakable.

Strongly recommended to fans of sitting very still while eating precisely one third of a saltine.

Feel bad for anyone who saw this in an audience unwilling to laugh out loud.

I found this piece on the New Yorker website, Why Phantom Thread is Propaganda For Toxic Masculinity by Aleksandar Hemon, to be rather astoundingly stupid.

It appears to rest on the idea that the movie condones everything the main character does, and also contains a pretty shocking misreading of the relationship between Reynolds and Cyril, for which I can think of no justification except that the author needed it to make his point.

I'm actually wondering if that review is a prank by the author on the publication or something.

maybe they were checking their phone during the "i'll go right through you" bit

haven't seen it mentioned anywhere but there's a man who's often at dinner with the trio who i read as being Cyril's lover

That piece is the first I’ve read to get at what kept me from being more engaged with this film, while always in awe of the quality of the shots, dialogue, performances, etc.

“Phantom Thread” might appear to some as a critical exploration of male power, but for that to be the case there would have to be alternative positions that are not dependent on the hero’s centrality. The scene in which Alma arranges an intimate dinner seems to provide space for such a position, as she litigates against “all your rules and your walls and your doors and your people.” And yet she remains desperate to remain in the House of Woodcock, where she can be the well-dressed mannequin muse, replenishing with her emptiness the great man’s inner life and creativity.

The second and third sentences undercut the first.

lots of people who use "toxic masculinity" like table salt are... nah, i'm not gonna

That “toxic masculinity” critique is so forced it feels like a deliberate misreading of the film. It’s like saying Leaving Las Vegas was propoganda for alcohol, or Schindler’s List was promoting the holocaust. Like, how is it possible for anybody to leave that movie thinking it’s condoning Reynolds’ abusive (also childish and petty) behavior? And how did so many critics somehow even arrive at that obviously contrarian conclusion?

haven't seen it mentioned anywhere but there's a man who's often at dinner with the trio who i read as being Cyril's lover

This is awesome and enhances the movie greatly for me. I understand that Cyril’s personal life is well outside the scope of the movie, but it’s still important to establish that she at least has one. (Early in the movie Reynolds laughs off the question of whether his sister is married, which I took as kind of a cruel, “no of course she’s not a sexual being” dismissal, but I think it makes more sense that she would conduct her relationships with the same practicality and detachment as Reynolds).

I had assumed that guy was a financier or partner in the business but this reading is much more fun

That “toxic masculinity” critique is so forced it feels like a deliberate misreading of the film. It’s like saying Leaving Las Vegas was propoganda for alcohol, or Schindler’s List was promoting the holocaust. Like, how is it possible for anybody to leave that movie thinking it’s condoning Reynolds’ abusive (also childish and petty) behavior? And how did so many critics somehow even arrive at that obviously contrarian conclusion?

xp Fun fact about that guy: He's played by a shoemaker who's friends with Daniel Day-Lewis: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/a-shoemakers-acting-debut-in-phantom-thread

They cobbled together a role for him

It’s like saying Leaving Las Vegas was propoganda for alcohol, or Schindler’s List was promoting the holocaust. Like, how is it possible for anybody to leave that movie thinking it’s condoning Reynolds’ abusive (also childish and petty) behavior? And how did so many critics somehow even arrive at that obviously contrarian conclusion?

Herman's piece works its way into this by suggesting

One might argue that a similar ideology is at work in American cinema—that “Apocalypse Now” is just as loaded with imperialist racism as is John Wayne's openly propagandistic “The Green Berets”; or that “Zero Dark Thirty” is drama-coated torture advertisement, just as “The Hurt Locker” is a war-recruitment movie; or that the preponderance of superhero movies contributes more to this country’s self-image as a superpower than does the deployment of U.S. troops around the world.

Which is audacious, but after a few decades of "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning" jokes...

*Hermon. F-ing autocorrect

What a magnificent film. I sorta love the subtle transformation of Woodcock from the first half ("DDL really is stunningly handsome, huh?") to the second (the post-surprise party argument scene, in which DDL resembles nothing so much as Mr-Burns-as-vampire in that one Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons)

Favorite scene I haven't seen discussed on this thread: Woodcock's demanding of the return of the dress, Alma's retrieval of it, and the subsequent intoxication of that act apparent when they're all googly-eyed with each other afterward

I agree it's Manville ftw though

Can't wait to see this again

pic.twitter.com/8EkjeTrx5j

— Eric Allen Hatch (@ericallenhatch) April 29, 2018

think about this film every day, hope pta just writes films for manville from now on

what an incredibly strange little film. marketing was 100% off base on this.

He cuts his own trailers iirc

The trailers for this and for The Master both contained lines that didn’t make the final cut of the movie. Alma in the trailer is heard (only in v.o.? I don’t remember) admonishing Reynolds for acting “cursed”, which doesn’t happen in the film; the legend “never cursed” in the hem of the princess’ wedding dress is the only direct reference to the curse that survives i think.

only saw the trailer and read a bit of the synopsis on wikipedia but was waiting for daniel to go pyscho on the waitress

music sounded interesting. looked it up. of course jonny greenwood

pic.twitter.com/78Emi5IG8P

— phantom thread out of context (@andsomesausages) August 24, 2018

Thought this was great and the short film of deleted scenes is really nice, I really like that PTAnderson always seems to make something like a proper little film from his deleted scenes.

I initially thought Alma was crying for the emotional trainwreck woman in the green dress but she was actually crying for the dress. Did anyone else make this initial mistake? Was this a deliberate mislead? Funny either way.

lol iirc the DVD of "Anchorman" came with a whole 90 minute second film cobbled out of deleted scenes, with a different plot and including an entire subplot starring Chuck D.

Whaaaat ? Is it any good ?

No, it is bad

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_Up,_Ron_Burgundy:_The_Lost_Movie

Ahah Malcom Y, though !

Also lol derailing the Phantom Thread thread with... Anchorman !

I've heard that the European-only Blu Ray of The Science of Sleep has a "B-Roll Version" of the film made from deleted scenes and alternate takes.

What a fucking masterpiece this film is

Yeah btw it’s a great looking movie

enthralled and enraptured by this

fave scene was the surprise party argument, his pleasure in his cruelty and her being fit for him in it making him regressively more childish

he really has to play yeats tho, ill say it again

Yeah, that's the scene I think of most.

i get the love for manville but for me its utterly almas film, what a great character, what a turn.

movie it brought to mind, aside from those mentioned upthread- perfume

I watched this again the other day too (that it's just been added to Netflix is maybe the reason we are discussing it. I still love it but still find that the denouement kinda comes out of nowhere.

I assumed that Vicky Krieg would become a massive star after this and I'm surprised it never happened.

his submissions to her throughout the story signal the ending fairly enough imo

once he let her drive it was all over

I think it's just me then.

xxp I was just thinking about her the other day.

Krieps hasn't made a similarly 'big' movie, whether that's her choices or not... soon to be seen as Marvin Gaye's girlfriend in a biopic, directed by Julien Temple.

lmao @ all the "this looks boring" posts upthread

really perfect film, i started to think it was more linear than inherent vice or the master and then there was the scene where he saw his mother in the corner of the room.

the shots of him starting to make a dress for alma on their date, the intoxicating shots of the pinning of fabric, juxtaposed with the weird sudden juddering impositions of control when he starts measuring her... there's so much below surface tension in this movie, which is staggering when thought of next to pta's early films, which are pretty much all surface tension

Variously put me in mind of The Archers

i am a complete film idiot but i'm glad i shared this association with morbs

inherent vice > phantom thread > there will be blood = magnolia = the master > punch-drunk love > boogie nights

idk, that was really frustrating to put together. pta's fuckin great. can't believe my favorite director in high school is having such a rich mature period

I love movies about work.

Alfred I got this new book but haven’t started it yet, looks good though https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-process-genre

Sorry, I've made this point a million times, but whenever I see talk of PTA's or Spielberg's or Scorsese's rich mature period, to me it's like Sarris propping up Seven Women or The Countess of Hong Kong along similar lines in The American Cinema. Loving these late films is fine, I just take issue with the implication that Boogie Nights or Jaws or Mean Streets are, I guess, less rich and immature films. They're the Sex Pistols. I'm glad the Sex Pistols never hung around for their rich mature period. (Ignore reunions and other projects.)

i mean i've got magnolia way up in the rankings so it's not like i'm dissing his earlier work. they're still of markedly different calibers though, and it makes him a more interesting artist to have both periods

pta's division down the center of his filmography is also a way clearer narrative than trying to define a rich mature period for either spielberg or scorsese, for me at least. and even then that's simplifying things too much, phantom thread is totally in conversation with punch-drunk love

I like the "in conversation" idea.

Don't mind me, I'm just a stubborn defender of those guys' earlier films.

Adam Sandler is The Hungry Boy

inherent vice > phantom thread > there will be blood = magnolia = the master > punch-drunk love > boogie nights

No Hard Eight?

i haven't seen it yet!

oh man -- can't wait

Magnolia is my least fave by now, I agree w/ PTA that it should be cut way down.

it was my favorite movie of all time when i was in high school/college and i rewatched it last week and its effect has not diminished, i have no objectivity about it. it is just this cascade of scenes and dialogue and performances i love building up to catharsis. though this time i noticed how the deletion of the worm plotline essentially makes some characters fully disappear from the plot (stanley)

(deleting an entire plotline is still one of the smartest choices pta made with that film)

I saw Magnolia last year for the first time and while it didn’t land the way it would’ve if I were in high school there’s some stuff in it that really landed for me. Much of it to do with Tom Cruise’s hollow-eyed performance.

Still his best movie.

Well yeah. Also a much better version of The Power of the Dog imo.

I've never watched a film in which a director's absolute mystery of visual and sound design and cinematography had me vacillating in sympathy from one character to the other.

lol mastery

It’s interesting to me that altho I have adored PTA’s work since Boogie Nights, nearly all his films have felt incomplete to me. BN and Phantom Thread probably the most complete. But there’s always something unresolved or not quite tucked in. Don’t know if it’s a flaw or a signature.

something unresolved or not quite tucked in

I think he senses it too, which is why his endings can seem like he's wrenching to put all his meanings in order.

he removed an entire story thread from magnolia, he’s def got the impulse

i don’t agree with the sentiment about his endings tho. did the ending of the master give you the feeling he was trying to put all his meanings in order? far from it imo

https://media.giphy.com/media/26DN5ayYLdN6bK62I/giphy.gif

Yes, I think The Master is his most successful film with, no coincidence, his most successful ending.

haha fair! but i love the way inherent vice and phantom thread end too, and neither of them feel like a late massing of the film's themes

I'm shocked a picture as dialectically subtle sprung from the mind of an American writer-director.

John Simon is cheering that post; I am not.

what -- mine?

Simon wouldn't write a thing without a passing gibe at a person's looks, using strained alliteration, or lamenting how even good American movies fall short of a European tradition he's got lodged in his head, which means he's like me.

as an aside my ranking upthread is not correct but i had only seen the master once at the time

Yes; subtlety in American films is hardly rare (maybe dialectically subtle is a distinction I'm missing). Funny you say "from the mind of," though, because Phantom Thread to me very much belongs to the From the Mind Of genre, where you get some portentous voice announcing "From the mind of _________" (Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, etc.--David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick in a previous lifetime) in the trailer.

I mean, it's also a movie about closeups of Welsh rarebit, martinis with a twist, and mushrooms in butter.

now that I think about it Boogie Nights ended with something not quite tucked in

Inherent Vice works because it's somewhat built in that putting everything neatly away by the time it ends was not ever really on the table

rewatched this before christmas, best film hollywood has produced since john ford died

(xxpost) I started to defend Boogie Nights' ending...then I got the joke--nice!

xp hey now devvv, I'm with KJB that A.I. is that movie

rewatched this before christmas, best film hollywood has produced since john ford died

No American film in the last few years makes me more uncomfortable. Letting someone "in your life" is a risk: you look like a manipulative Hitchcock-esque svengali like Woodcock, and that's the benefit of telling the story through Alma's POV; but I'm also annoyed that she won't respect his boundaries, especially since she lives in his house. Scraping the toast, throwing a surprise party for him -- it's clear he's on the spectrum when we see his reactions to them, and I cheer her hilarious, sadistic, cheerfully willful attempts to break him...but why shouldn't he expect (at his age!) to go on drinking his tea at a certain hour and not be disturbed? He's so hateful, and she's so right, and yet.

That scene in the rural inn where he patiently, meticulously, smilingly requests a traditional breakfast, and PTA cuts to Krieps' hungry expression (she's thinking, "OMIGOD he gets it!") is just perfect.

i don't have a fully formed thought on it, but thinking through the relationship dynamics in this and licorice pizza is really interesting bc there are some things that are strikingly similar and some things that are very much not

Also: he's the worst gaslighter in movies since Charles Boyer.

I didn't like anybody onscreen, which is fine because I dislike 98 percent of the people I watch or read about. But the film is sharp about the delusions of men who experiment with the feelings of women but expect solitude to work on their art.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 24, 2018 8:57 PM

still stand by this

Didn’t Morbs say this movie was about “a closet case with a poisoning fetish”? I think about that phrase a lot.

alfred otm

I just love this movie so much

his best movie

incredible

Saw it for the first time on New Year's Day, 10/10 masterpiece