Love and life are tricky propositions at best. Messy, seemingly random at times, wonderful at the best moments, hell at the worst. One makes the other worthwhile, even as it makes things infinitely more complicated. Love... real love... is so great and so powerful and so special that it heals all wounds, restores a soul, no matter how tired, and inspires great art, great passion, and great pleasure, enough to fuel this world of ours.
Such is the stuff of the work of writer/director
Paul Thomas Anderson.
Just the other day, I complained in a review about New Line’s involvement with a particular picture, but that was momentary irritation, a mere slap on the wrist before the warm embrace of this piece. You see, no matter what, I have got to give the current New Line regime credit for rescuing PT Anderson from Rysher, the company that wrenched control away from the debut filmmaker on HARD EIGHT, a film he still refers to by its original title, SYDNEY. It’s a kick-ass debut picture, smart and somber and heartfelt, and there are moments in it as good as anything he’s done since. In particular, there’s a brilliant move in a scene where Philip Baker Hall has been summoned to a hotel room to help with some situation. When he steps into the room, Anderson simply holds on Hall’s face for minutes and minutes, never cutting away, never showing us what he’s looking at. His mantra of "What the fuck is this, John?" becomes more and more tense, more suspenseful, the longer we have no idea what he’s seeing. That moment made me sit up when I was watching the film for the first time, lean in closer to the film. Anderson grabbed me and held me and forced a reaction I wasn’t expecting, and he won me over in doing so.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons I wasn’t particularly surprised when the buzz started on BOOGIE NIGHTS, his second film, the first he made for New Line. I don’t know exactly what latitude was given to Anderson by producers Mike De Luca, Larry Gordon, Lloyd Levin, John Lyons, Dan Lupi, and Joanne Sellar, but whatever chemistry that laundry list of contributors brought to the table, it set Anderson free. It entitled him to shoot for the moon his second time out. Armed with an amazing crew –- composer Michael Penn, cinematographer Robert Elswit, editor Dylan Tichenor, production designer Bob Ziembicki -– Anderson created a film that is on the surface a loose adaptation of the John Holmes story, but which is actually one of my favorite films about how we create our own families when we don’t have them. There’s an astonishing sense of life to the film. It fairly spills over the edge of the frame in every scene. I’ve never seen a movie that better captures Altman’s goal of creating happenings, moments that are simply recorded and dissected, instead of conventional scenes. Make no mistake... Anderson’s a great narrative storyteller... but he’s tricky. He’s like the cinematic equivalent of his good friend and occasional actor Ricky Jay, a master of misdirection who makes you focus your attention on one thing while he sneaks up on you with his real purpose. Anderson almost seems drunk on technique in the film, an obvious fan of Altman and Scorsese among others, but he is such an intuitive filmmaker that the stylistic cues he takes become his own. He uses them so well, so effortlessly, and the film has such a breakneck energy, that the viewer is simply dragged along on this amazing ride through these lives, this industry, that moment.
New Line released a wonderful Platinum Edition version of BOOGIE NIGHTS once before on DVD, but they weren’t able to secure the rights to all the same bonus materials that had been used by the Criterion Collection on their laserdisc release of the film. It was a shame, too, since the audio commentaries on the Criterion disc were enormous fun, and there were other extras well worth having. Now New Line’s released a second BOOGIE NIGHTS Platinum Edition, and it’s worth owning both if you’re a serious fan of the film, the way I am. There’s great new material like a deleted sequence involving Becky Barnett (Nicole Ari Parker) and her abusive husband, a story thread that simply dwindles away in the release version of the film, one of the few strands left unresolved. There’s a car accident involving Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg in his best role and best performance to date) in this sequence, the aftermath of which you can’t help but notice in the scenes involving Alfred Molina if you look closely. There’s also great features like "The John C. Reilly Files," a gag reel that was cut together by Anderson featuring some great deranged ad-libbing by Reilly, the actor who seems to have become Anderson’s De Niro, the chameleon who goes film to film, delivering one classic character performance after another. There was one feature on the test disc I saw –- an extended excerpt from the John Holmes documentary EXHAUSTED -– that won’t be featured on the final release version next Tuesday, but it hardly matters. New Line has once again put together a worthy tribute to a bold, vital film, one of their finest hours as a company.
The other night, as I was just starting to put this article together, I happened to be flipping around, channel-surfing in the middle of the night. VH1 was showing blocks of videos by the same artist, and I stayed to watch several Fiona Apple videos in a row. Glad I did, too, because it helped me crystallize one of the points I really wanted to make about Anderson and his intense command of the language of film. The first video they showed was his "Across the Universe" clip from the PLEASANTVILLE soundtrack. It’s a stunningly photographed black and white clip that manages to capture the feeling of PLEASANTVILLE without using a single clip, and which is all really centered on that remarkable face of Apple’s. Love her or hate her, you’ll know where you stand at the end of this clip. It’s doesn’t hurt that it’s a pretty damn fine cover of one of my favorite Beatles tunes, either. After that, the "Paper Bag" was played, one I hadn’t seen before. As I was watching it, there were all sorts of things that jumped out at me, thoughts that raced by. I can’t help but notice how much more relaxed she’s gotten as a performer, due no doubt at least in part to the fact that she’s so comfortable with Anderson. He shoots her like an old-fashioned movie star, and she moves through the video, through all the dancing and costume changes and sheer theatricality of the thing, with a grace and a poise that’s electric. Anderson illustrates clearly with this clip that he’s the man to direct musical numbers, that he understands how to shoot dancing, how to sell the emotional heart of a song without losing the beauty of the images. Even in this three minutes, Anderson’s work is moving, compelling, impossible to look away from.
There’s another video by Anderson, this one a bonus included on the new Platinum Edition DVD release of MAGNOLIA that also arrives in stores on Tuesday, this one for the haunting Oscar-nominated song "Save Me." Watching it, one must admit that Anderson is not only suited to direct a full-fledged movie musical... he’s already done it. That’s the only way I can describe MAGNOLIA, a film that grows in the memory, that is far darker, far more wrapped in pain that BOOGIE NIGHTS. There is dark in all of Anderson’s films so far. The suicide of Little Bill in BN is an undeniable turning point for the film, mood-wise, and it’s unforgettable, a virtuoso sequence. But there’s so much humor and hope packed into the sides of the scenes in that film that the dark is never too hard to handle. For many people, that’s the problem with MAGNOLIA... too much pain to take at once. The film is like a symphony or an opera about characters who are damaged, who are looking for some sign, some miracle, some extraordinary moment that will give them a loving father, a happy son, a promise of peace in this world or the next. In particular, it reminds me of a Gorecki symphony used to shattering effect in Peter Weir’s FEARLESS, the way it builds and builds and circles in on itself and just keeps building until finally there is an epiphany, a series of epiphanies, each one more searing than the one before, but it never gets out of control. Instead, it just cycles back down, like a slow throb of a movie, starting and ending with meditations on coincidence. In the center of MAGNOLIA, there is a moment where the figurative musical becomes a literal one, with all the characters united by that one common thought, that ache at the center of each of them expressed by the words of Aimee Mann in the song "Wise Up." Composer Jon Brion deserves special credit for his work on this film. He makes way for Mann’s expressive, eccentric songs that lend so much character to the proceedings, but his score isn’t just wallpaper, either. It’s daring, inventive work, reminiscent to me of the work of New York jazz artist John Zorn, full of cacophony and beauty in equal measure. Brion’s music certainly provides a wonderful support to the songs, but the score gets just as much time in my CD player as the songs do.
Although I was initially disappointed when I realized there was no director commentary on the DVD (Anderson thinks the film speaks for itself), I’d be an ass if I complained about all the wonderful goodies New Line did include. For one thing, check out the color bars chapter, where you’ll find a cleverly hidden blooper reel that is genuinely funny, especially if you’re as fond of Anderson’s rapidly expanding company of regular performers as I am. The first set of outtakes involves Luis Guzman, and the fun is watching how reactive and real he is, take after take, no matter what's thrown at him... even if it’s a glass of milk. Literally. The great and hysterical John C. Reilly provides a wildly inappropriate bare ass during during the "Wise Up" sequence. We get a hint of the lunacy of shooting all those frogs. The biggest bit of gold you’ll find here is Tom Cruise and Mary Jo Rasklub in a scene that was ultimately deleted featuring a distraught TJ Mackey playing the sympathy card in an effort to spread Rasklub’s legs. Listening to him sob inconsolably about "Pookie," his dog, is painfully funny and justifies seaching out this particular Easter egg.
Someone asked me what this film is about the other day, and I had to really stop and consider it. I know what the DVD says it’s about. It says, "MAGNOLIA is a mosaic of American life woven through a series of comic and poignant vignettes. Through a collusion of coincidence, chance, human action, shared media, past history, and divine intervention, nine people will weave and warp through each other’s lives on a day that builds to an unforgettable climax. Some will seek forgiveness, others escape. Some will mend frayed bonds, others will be exposed." I suppose that’s as concise a summary as possible of this sprawling tapestry, and there’s no real point in breaking the film down to its individual plot components. I love the individual moments, but the film’s power comes from the cumulative effect of all of it, the intercutting, the gradual accumulation of feeling that finally cuts loose in that bold and hallucinatory rain of frogs that binds all the characters with one shared experience.
Perhaps the single best feature on the DVD is a documentary by Mark Rance called "That Moment -- MAGNOLIA Video Diary, October 1998 - March 2000". It’s almost 90 minutes long, and it’s not just a collection of talking heads interviewed onset and indulging in a mutual ass kissing society, the way so many of the "documentary" extras are on DVD these days. This goes far beyond what an EPK would even attempt. It actually manages to illuminate the process, the journey that this vital young artist took on this film. There’s a great interview with PT Anderson to open the thing, and he’s revealed as a very funny speaker, full of explosive energy, who is always smoking. He talks about his writing process, about the value of procrastination, and his fear of snakes, all of which are related the way he tells it. As the production gears up, we see him showing movies to his key department personnel. NETWORK is the one we see his screening, and we hear his explanation for why it matters and how it relates. We also hear him mention an upcoming screening for ORDINARY PEOPLE. At the game show rehearsals with the kids versus the adults, Anderson explains his shooting plan for that segment of the movie. He wrote out the whole game show, all 30 minutes of it, and shot the entire thing, even stuff that was never intended for use on film, just so he had the comfort zone while editing.
As shooting gets underway, it’s wild watching the difference between the cast who totally trusts Anderson and the crew, who sometimes seems like they don’t know what to make of him. There’s a sense that these actors knew they were making something strange, hard to pinpoint, delicate, and they all seem willing to go to any lengths to help PT realize his vision. Even so, there are plenty of jokes in the film about running time and frogs. There’s also a number of moments that seem to approach real intimacy, especially in the interviews with Jason Robards, who made the film while recovering from some radical health problems, something which informed his performance in a very real way. I've got a weakness for rowdy Sam Peckinpah stories, and Robards tells a doozy.
One fascinating moment in the documentary involves MAGNOLIA's final shot, one that frustrated many viewers. Melora Walters looks up as John C. Reilly walks into the room and begins talking to her. This is on the heels of their awkward, revealing, memorable first date. In that earlier scene, Melora uses a line that Anderson first heard in an Aimee Mann song, "Deathly," one of the things that inspired the film in the first place. "Now that you’ve met me," she says to a confused Reilly, "would you object to never seeing each other again?" I have actually had quite a bit of trouble writing this review because I am haunted by that line, by that scene. I’ve been seeing someone since earlier this year, and there was a recent evening when whatever it was that was developing between us simply went on hold. It was one of those moments, full of contradiction and conflicting emotion. We didn’t pull apart because things weren’t good. In fact, it was the opposite. Things were good, even very good in many ways, but they were moving fast, getting more serious than either of us expected. The night I sat down to first write this piece was the night we had that conversation, quiet hard words in a candlelit room, and since then, I’ve been blocked. I watched this film, certain moments from it, a dozen times since then, hoping to shake myself free from the almost choking emotion, but that’s the point, isn’t it? We don’t choose who we give ourselves up to, and we don’t choose when. When it happens, we can fight and we can deny ourselves and we can sometimes even convince ourselves that it’s alright. But nothing can replace that feeling when we make the offer, when we take the chance, and our hopes are rewarded. In the documentary, you get a chance to see John C. Reilly rehearsing the film’s final scene, and you can hear the dialogue clearly there if that’s something you really need. To my mind, though, PT made the perfect choice by simply letting us know that Reilly is talking. What he says isn’t important. We’ve all been there. There’s no poetry in that naked offering of love. The poetry, the grace in that moment... it’s in Melora’s face, in that Mona Lisa smile she offers up as she reaches out and takes the outstretched hand. It’s a shattering choice.
If you’re interested in material that was cut from the film altogether, there’s a fairly big sequence with Orlando Jones as the Wurm. We get a look at how it’s not working during shooting. As much as I like Orlando, it looks like PT made the right choices when editing and trimming the film. The documentary wouldn’t be complete without a glimpse at the shooting of the infamous frog sequence. The funniest thing in the documentary is the countdown that divides each segment of the documentary. We see them counting down the schedule. "Day 10 of 79." "Day
30 of 79." Then, with no fanfare, we hit "Day 80 of 79" and just keep going. The shoot ends up tallied at 90 days of shooting with 10 full days of second unit. Our entire look at the scoring session consists of one long beautiful take of Jon Brion and the orchestra at work. For those of you who have never been to a press junket who are curious about them, they have a glimpse here. They also give us a look at the talent as they take a break and try to deal with hearing the same questions over and over. It should serve to deflate the egos of all junketeers just a bit, and went a long way towards convincing me not to work them again. We get a glimpse of PT and Fiona Apple in their limo on the way to the premiere of the film at the Westwood Mann’s Village, and there’s that great combination of weariness and elation writ large on Anderson’s face, the same combination I’ve seen on the faces of several filmmakers now. At the premiere, he and his producer get to announce that they were nominated just that morning for major awards for the cast and the film, and Anderson seems genuinely delighted to share the news.
There’s one other moment on this disc, besides the film’s final shot, that goes a long way towards convincing me that love is possible even in a town as crazy as this, as demanding as this, and as unforgiving as this, and it’s in the documentary, towards the end. Fiona and PT are in his editing room. It’s January 2000. The film is in release, and it’s getting hammered by some people for what they see as its flaws. Fiona actually pretends to be MAGNOLIA, tapdancing for PT, trying to win his approval, even as he lambasts her for being too long, for having no real ending, for that crazy frog sequence, for using too many "f words." He’s laughing the criticisms off, but you can see that they left their mark on him. Finally, he embraces her and says that he’ll always love her, even if she’s "no BOOGIE NIGHTS." In that moment, they’re not celebrities or rock stars or larger than life. They’re just two kids in love, one of them hurting a bit, the other one helping to soothe that. I have no idea what they’re like in real life, but at this moment, the two of them moved me, and I wish them well.
Since the documentary then immediately cuts to PT accepting the Golden Bear in Berlin for MAGNOLIA, I would imagine he isn’t still nursing any wounds over the movie. It’s a rich, wonderful work, and this DVD edition is the best way to celebrate the accomplishment at home. For fans of his work, today’s a great day to have a DVD player. Enjoy. I know I did, and will for years to come.
