David Thomson: Paul Thomas Anderson

“It is also the case that anyone as good and smart as Anderson should be more perceptibly self-critical. In fact, Magnolia is his most youthful and indulgent film — and Hard Eight, his best and most austere. But there are poetic mysteries in the first film that come closer to pretension in Magnolia. In other words, Anderson is not handling himself well. He is drawing fire upon his own vulnerabilities. But is there any other way?

No other American director working today has such sad, tender, and smart ways of looking into the depths of society, or for feeling out their poignant juxtapositions. He writes great, ragged speeches, and he is like a fond parent with his family of actors. All his three films so far have used John Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Philip Baker Hall. In addition, he has done remarkable things with such diverse figures as Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, and Burt Reynolds. His way of blessing actors is so very close to his wish to rescue people from their drabness. Sooner or later, it will be perceived how desperately concerned he is about the society called America.

Of course, Magnolia is like Short Cuts in that both films are symphonies attempting to take in everything. They have the ambition of an Ives, say, who could hardly get his work played, let alone make it popular. Altman has learned cunning ways of making that ambition into a career. But he’s older and far less kind. Anderson’s energy and aspirations are destined to collide with Hollywood thinking, and he may be too young and too good to learn subterfuge. If he is as good as he thinks he is (and I think he is), there are bloody battles to come. But no one has a better chance of offering us new narrative forms for our movies.”

From David Thomson’s The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Expanded and Updated

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8 Responses to David Thomson: Paul Thomas Anderson

  1. Steve Ely says:

    Sheila, I can’t find a film called Hard Eight listed on Anderson’s IMDB page or even on IMDB at all. Help me out here. Am I missing something obvious or is it not there? Who’s in this movie?

  2. red says:

    Gwyneth Paltrow was in it – Philip Baker Hall – it was also known as Sidney – it’s fantastic. It’s his first feature – and SO worth checking out!!

  3. red says:

    At least I think it was his first feature – not sure. I know it was the first time I became aware of the buzz – the buzz about Anderson started after Hard Eight and made Boogie Nights possible.

  4. Steve Ely says:

    Ohhhhhh, yeah, I was missing something obvious. Right there under “Sydney (1996),” it says,”…aka Hard Eight (USA: changed title).”

    Someone needs to pay better attention. (Hint: it’s me.)

  5. red says:

    I’m not sure WHY it had 2 titles … I’ve only known it as Hard Eight myself! Definitely a movie to check out.

  6. Steve Ely says:

    Also, John C. Reilly is fuggin awesome, and while Philip Baker Hall never made as much of a distinct impression on me, seeing his picture on imdb and looking over some past roles, I can recollect enough to feel pretty sure that a film that properly stars and revolves around these two must indeed be well worth seeing.

    The growth of my list of “Films I have to see” is something of a problem, in fact. The NetFlix queue already has got nearly 300 discs in it. (Although, to be fair, that number’s artificially high since I put the account on hold until my cash flow problem is remedied.)

    Still, dreaming of getting around to seeing a great film is its own kind of (somewhat sad, pathetic) pleasure.

  7. Alex Nunez says:

    Hard Eight is sooooo fantastic.

    John C. Reilly and Gwyneth are good, and Samuel Jackson is predictably super, but that movie made me a huge fan of Philip Baker Hall.

    So many great moments for him in that film. When he tells John C. Reilly he loves him like he was his own son, it is so believable.

  8. Erik says:

    PT Anderson wanted to call the movie Sydney (named after the main character) but the studio didn’t like the title and Anderson didn’t have any clout yet (it was his first full length feature) and so he lost the fight over what they would call his movie and it was released as Hard Eight, per the studio. I would imagine it’s called Sydney on imdb because Anderson’s now (rightly) recognized for his genius and hollywood’s ready to let him call his movies whatever he damn wants to call them.

    (I love Paul Thomas Anderson.)

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