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The phantoms of “Phantom Thread” — 16 Comments

  1. RE: “Long long ago I actually cared about the movies themselves.”
    Long long ago the movies were good.

  2. This is the writer director Paul Thomas Anderson. He really seems to like characters that are unredeemable, hard, and abrasive. I’ve seen Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, and There Will Be Blood. I kinda wanted to see The Master because of the subject matter, but the previews were so unappealing that I never did.

    If for some reason you want to see films that represent the low points of human nature, but does so with heart, warmth, and humor; then you should check out Alexander Payne’s films. His best is Sideways. His stuff is an acquired taste too, but worth the effort.

  3. “But who wants to see a movie that has no one to root for by its end?” asks Neo.
    My take is this is the logical devolution of Hollywood, which began in silent film with obvious and clear, black/white delineations between good and evil, heroes and villians, continued in talkies with the good guy winning (Gary Cooper in High Noon is a culmination, as is the original “3:10 to Yuma” in 1953) after which came a period of anti-heroes who conquered the good guys (e.g. “Breaker Morant”), and now we have movies where all is sordid.
    It is inherent in the nature of the beast. Movies are culminating in their self-destruction via their loss of moral compass.

  4. This movie only makes sense as one movie of many out there as happens to much art that seeks to define itself by “difference” itself as if its the same as originality.

    who would want to watch such a movie?

    the kind of people who have watched movies and read stories, and know how they are constructed and so see things like character hate or likability as a “palette” is to a painter. So if likeable be a “color” how do we mix them, what if the movie was all “blue” full of ice cold characters.

    we have accepted this kind of creation as art only for it fills in the gaps skipped over by people who preferred to find the things that people enjoyed… We have long ago attempted to transcend enjoyment as such a bourgeoisie point to “art” as they might say. Its also art that lets one pick winners and losers rather than experience just the best at the top (though it may exploit the best at the top to imbue the mundane with enouch cache. like “girls”)

    but being a brand new Scott Joplin is a lot harder than throwing a tantrum with rubber tape on your nipples, giving the finger and smashing your instrument. the latter being a more equalizing or equal form of art in which the less talented could be more talented if you could be without skills… skill-less talent…

    this was not art to feed upon

    this art left you hungry (often for other art or no art at all)

    like piss christ… or 4′33″… this is art that fills in the squares no one wanted to fill, but others claimed were afraid to fill…

    Without a Jiang Qing i guess the left will set the culture right.

  5. I’ve been waffling on seeing this movie. Good reviews, plus it’s Daniel Day-Lewis’s final movie (he says), and I think he’s probably the greatest actor we’ve had, but on the other hand, it’s directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. His movies mostly lack much of a narrative, dramatic tension, suspense, you know, the sort of things that make a movie fun to watch. I think your comments probably tilt the balance to waiting for the dvd, where I can call it quits if I don’t like it more easily than I would if I went to a theater.

  6. Patrick:

    I haven’t seen his other movies, but this one does have a dramatic arc and tension. It’s also beautifully photographed, so if you’re going to see it at all, I’d actually suggest a movie theater.

  7. We saw the new Clint Eastwood movie yesterday and it is good. Like the review I read, it starts a little slow with the children.

    The next one I will probably see is about the Entebbe raid, which affected me at the time so much I became an ardent Israeli supporter. It comes out in April, I believe.

  8. I loved both Boogie Nights and Magnolia. They are quite different.

    Boogie Nights is a strange, interesting film. There is a lot of darkness in it, but there is a sense in which it emphasizes the light. (The love between the characters.) It doesn’t have a traditional story arc but it certainly is a well-told story. Burt Reynolds was nominated for an acting Oscar in this role and I was rooting for him to win. It’s a tender movie, at heart, although on the surface very crass. The performances transcend the subject matter, which I suppose is a sign of good directing.

    Magnolia is big, loud, brash, and full of darkness writ large. Tom Cruise gives a spectacular performance as a very unlikable character. The movie builds and builds and kind of explodes at the end. For a long time I wondered about the title; eventually I decided that it must describe this odd structure, the way the movie just keeps opening up more and more, unfolding like a flower. Strange movie, but I very much enjoyed it.

    So I figured I liked that filmmaker. But when I saw Punch Drunk Love, I did not like it at all, or understand it in the least!

  9. I don’t follow this criticism at all. Who do you root for in the Iliad? Or Oedipus? Or Faust? And you might feel sorry for Lear or Othello, but it’s hard to actually like them.

  10. y81:

    Actually, I rooted for Hector. And there were other characters who were sympathetic, too.

    People like (and root for) Cordelia and Desdemona, not Lear and Othello. Actually, I rather liked Lear, too. He was foolish, but very human, particularly at the end.

    That’s exactly what I didn’t feel in “Phantom Threads.” There wasn’t a whole lot of humanity in any of the characters.

  11. “But who wants to see a movie that has no one to root for by its end?”

    Most movie critics nowadays. I blame post-modernism.

    Even though I had no love of Roger Ebert’s politics, I respected him as a critic. He was a fairly straightforward guy (for a movie critic) and could review a movie on its merits, judging the movie on what it was trying to be. He could review the high falootin’ stuff and the low, and be fair to the low, if it succeeded at what it was trying for.

    Also, I once emailed him with a question in college for a project. He was very gracious with his answer and actually continued to correspond for a while. Seemed like a decent, honest guy.

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