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

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.

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