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

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