• In my studies I’ve rarely found another film that so rewards multiple viewings. I’m still working it out but Anderson’s films have an almost unparalleled penchant (maybe Kubrick… Tarkovsky) for cinematic layering—or formal layering or formal unpacking. I think I’m getting better and better as evaluator but clearly, as of 2012 I wasn’t getting it and I mainly praised this film for the performances.
  • The processing scene, which I’m sure I’ll get back to, is the singular highlight of the careers of Phoenix and PSH, one of the highlights of PTA’s career and one of the 5-10 greatest scenes capturing screen acting
  • The two leads/characters are point and counterpoint, mirrors, polar opposites and theme and variation. Both lost, both needing each other and both in search of answers (sex and “the cause” is where they end up and neither happy about it). It’s a tremendous pairing with there will be blood in many regards—this, with the two leads (in TWBB it’s oil/greed/ambition and religion/greed/ambition in DDL’s Daniel and Dano’s Eli)
  • The film has clout…it thumps… and it haunts. I’ll try to explain why below
  • The ending clearly mirrors there will be blood’s “I’m finished” but I also see Kubrick’s clockwork “I was cured alright” and the mickey mouse ironic ending in full metal jacket– here we have “I fell out can you put me back in” while he tries a mock-processing scene with the girl. Again it feels like it’s him and Kubrick talking to each other through art
  • Father/son and mentor/mentee present in all of PTA’s work except PDL for the most part but even there he’s doing things with Guzman’s character (dressing up like Sandler’s Barry, etc)
  • The formal rigor of the shot of the water… with the white wake from the boat… these are men adrift (a seaman/sailor—Freddie/phoenix), meets PSH on a boat, sings “slow boat to china” (about escaping—perhaps there’s some homosexual undercurrent here (AA seems to be holding PSH prisoner at this point)). The wake is the past
  • Again, almost unparalleled subtext—baffling and cryptic but as rewarding a 4th visit as I’ve had (maybe only recent comparison in Punch-Drunk Love).
  • It’s one of my favorite openings- we have PTA building Phoenix’s character just like DDL in There Will Be Blood and Sandler in PDL with the crash and the harmonium. Phoenix’s Freddie is primitive man. lost- the void. Shot of the helmet could be from Malick’s thin red line. He makes drinks (he does this at least 6 times in the movie), humps the sand lady, masturbates—women– (dream of everyone naked about half way through the film, the ending), hangs off the ship (stunning shot in 70mm)
  • Travers “Restores your faith in film as art form”—“I believe in the church of Paul Thomas Anderson”
  • PSH’s lines are absolutely hilarious black comedy. Particularly the “linger at bus stations” and When he reads his qualifications as a nuclear physicist.
  • Evolutionary like DDL and the bone at the end of TWBB and the silent opening- “man is not an animal” by PSH. Calls Freddie a “caged animal”
  • First song when Freddie gets job as a photographer “Satan, get thee behind me. I want to resist”
  • Both expansive and intimate
  • It’s not an easy narrative. I think the first hour is easier- but then it stops- it’s a film about how there are not answers.
  • To be clear it’s not just a narrative jigsaw puzzle Rashoman, Memento or 21 Grams or something where you’re combining splices—it’s a formal jigsaw puzzle
  • Many critics struggled- said PT was “chasing his own tale” or had become the master- a leader with no answers
  • The Greenwood score is impeccable- if it’s not as good as TWBB it’s 9/10’s and it’s right there in your face in the beginning along with a gorgeous montage of booze, wrestling, the crabs story, the female in the sand, phoenix hunched over with those arms on his hips and then him passed out
  • The ink blot scene- “pussy” a dozen times
  • Freddie asks if a man (who he is photographing) if these pictures are for his wife. When he says “yes” Freddie tortures him. He can’t have it.
  • Freddie is falling—goes from legit job as photographer to becoming a picker. He kills the guy who he says “you look like my father”
  • PSH says “I’m a man just like you”
  • What’s in this potion? “Secrets”- layering
  • PSH can pull off this “making it up as he goes” because he’s so damn charismatic
  • There is not a glance wasted in 137 minutes. Every piece of the décor, every word, it all has formal meanin
  • I feel like parts of the score echo Bernard Herrmann’s in vertigo– feels surreal—the floating/dream-like quality
  • The second time we have the formal break for the wake water shot is just after processing
  • They smoke after the processing like sex
  • In a key scene with Adams it’s she who is talking/dictating and PSH who is typing—then we have the great scene of her masturbating him in the mirror. He’s not allowed to do this on his own (opposite of Freddie)
  • Jail scene- Phoenix is uncaged early Brando—PTA telling the story of the two character in wordless compare and contrast
  • Dern’s house is in Philly- brotherly love
  • The naked scene- it could be a daydream—but I think there are multiple hints throughout the film that the entire thing is a dream/afterlife/etc. When he first ends up on PSH’s boat Phoenix/Freddie is sleeping and it seems very weird how the girl gets him and brings him to PSH. Plus, we have the phone call in the movie theater. This is not real.
  • 3rd time wake/water interlude after that
  • Blue color (from water) galore
  • Salt mine scene I know I was hoping for more- it’s empty. Answerless. He tries his old girlfriend Doris and nope- love is not the answer for Freddie. That’s gone.
  • A Masterpiece