In addition, PTA is in pre-production on Fiona's latest video, "Paper Bag" which should begin shooting next week. Paul promises that it will be "a really special video". Hopefully they will decide to release a Fiona DVD Collection sometime later this year.Finally to wrap up the music video news, it doesn't look like there will be a video for "Wise Up". Originally, I had heard there were plans to release the video using existing footage from the film. It sounds like those plans are off for now. I will post any updates to this as soon as I hear them.
joaquim pheonix, the master joaquin, anderson paul thomas, master blu ray, the master de paul thomas anderson
Wednesday, 29 March 2000
March 29, 2000
Archived update from Cigarettes & Coffee, run by Greg Mariotti & CJ Wallis from 1999-2005
Monday, 27 March 2000
March 27, 2000
Archived update from Cigarettes & Coffee, run by Greg Mariotti & CJ Wallis from 1999-2005
I'm sure you all know by now that Magnolia came up empty at the Academy Awards last night (Didn't Julianne Moore look stunning!). It was nice to see Aimee Mann perform "Save Me" live & it was great to see PTA's facial reaction to Alan Ball winning Best Original Screenplay for American Beauty. His exaggerated surprise was in good fun, as he knew that Alan appeared to be a lock for the award
Sunday, 19 March 2000
March 19, 2000
Archived update from Cigarettes & Coffee, run by Greg Mariotti & CJ Wallis from 1999-2005
Last night I had the opportunity to see Fiona Apple live in my hometown of Seattle. She put on an incredible show as she alternated between center stage and sitting down & playing the piano. Two of her band members were from Seattle, so there were many friends and relatives in the audience. PTA was on hand to see her as he moved from backstage to stage left during "Fast as You Can".After the show, I had a chance to speak with PTA for a few minutes & catch up on the latest happenings. Here's a brief rundown:6th Annual From Concept to Sale Conference: PTA was there to answer questions from attendees after the screening of Hard Eight (which was incidentally shown on DVD).Saturday Night Live : PTA will be contributing to additional shows as he has made good friends on the show & really enjoyed the experience. More specifics as soon as I find out.Jonathan Demme Project: This was recently reported in the New York Times & confirmed by PTA last night. Jonathan Demme & PTA are serving as Executive Producers on Forest Hills Bob a new film written & directed by Robert Downey, Sr. "It's the story of a widower coming to terms with the next chapter in his life," producer Peter Saraf (Ulee's Gold) told New York Times. While the lead hasn't been chosen, expect quirky ensemble casting from the Chelsea-based Clinica Estetico production.Magnolia DVD : We talked briefly about the DVD & looks like there might be a documentary on making the film that will be included. (This is subject to change).Boogie Nights DVD : PTA confirmed that this will be a 2 Disc set (Disc 1 for the movie & Disc 2 for the supplementary content). I am not able to release all the info provided at this time but here is the latest features that PTA is working on.Please remember that things can change quickly & some of these features may change. I will update this info on this page & the Special DVD Page:This will remain PTA's Theatrical/Director's Cut. All deleted scenes will remain as supplementary material on the 2nd disc.The Dirk Diggler Story will not be included on the DVD.Additional deleted scenes will include Becky & Jerome & hopefully more.Additional commentary track by Melora Walters, Luis Guzman & more!A simple menu navigating system (PTA thinks that many of the new DVD menu screens are getting too complicated).I will be conducting an interview with PTA a little closer to the release of the date of these incredible new DVD's. Stay tuned for more info...
Wednesday, 15 March 2000
Interview: USA Today
USA Today, Written By Stephen Schaefer
March 15, 2000
Telling Their Stories Their Way
When Oscar put the spotlight on 1999's best Hollywood writing talent, the motion picture academy found itself saluting not just writers, but writers who direct. Of the 10 nominated screenplays, seven are directed by their writers.
By any measure, writer-directors have found a cheering section in the industry.
"For years, writers have said they've become directors to protect their material," says Hollywood historian Leonard Maltin, the Entertainment Tonight correspondent and Playboy magazine film critic. "That's what got Preston Sturges into directing - and Billy Wilder and many others - right to the present day."
Sturges (Sullivan's Travels, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek) and Wilder (Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot) reside in the pantheon of Hollywood hyphenates alongside Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve), Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock.
Says Maltin: "What I like best about the writer-director in today's movie-making arena is it says to me, 'This is a film by someone who has a story to tell and isn't just a cog in the Hollywood machine.' So many movies today seem manufactured or contrived. At least if you have a storyteller making the film, you hope there is some passion in wanting to tell that story and not just make a deal."
For a studio chief such as New Line Cinema's Michael De Luca, working with writer-directors is "one-stop shopping."
"If you have anything to say," he points out, "you're literally talking to the person who is the two most important aspects of the production. You mention just one thing to one person, and it's done. And if it's good, you're dealing with a vision, and they're on top of all the decisions."
And if they're not good? "It's the writer part who can't take off that hat," he says . "They won't cut scenes or deal with budget issues. If, as a writer-director, you can't deal with actors and like to sit in a room all day, you're in trouble."
New Line is known as a safe place in the industry for hyphenates, a studio that has given chances to people such as Paul Thomas Anderson, nominated for Magnolia. "We're seeing a return of the maverick filmmaker who has a vision and can convey that vision through writing and directing and even marketing and distribution," De Luca says. "Usually they have brilliant ideas."
Yet the genesis of a great movie begins when the words hit the page. As director Alexander Payne (nominated for writing Election with partner Jim Taylor) told Texas' Austin American-Statesman: "When I direct, all I'm doing is executing what Jim and I have written. Sure, I can get performances and fool around with the camera. But, really, it's all in the script."
Like Payne, several of the other nominated writer-directors started out writing. The directing part evolved as a reaction to the ugly realities of the Hollywood process.
"You've heard the horror stories of what the director did to their beautiful script, and I'm no different; I have plenty of stories," says Frank Darabont, nominated for writing The Green Mile, which also is up for best picture. "That's the most compelling reason to direct if you're a writer. It validates what I've been saying for years - that oftentimes nobody understands the script better than the writer does. When the director has a totally different idea, that can create problems."
Darabont has directed only one previous film, the Oscar-nominated The Shawshank Redemption, which, like Mile, he adapted from a Stephen King tale. He has written such movie scripts as A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, The Fly II, The Blob and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
He says the sometimes disappointing path of a screenwriter is exemplified by his experience with Frankenstein, directed by Kenneth Branagh. "Kenneth did a lot of rewriting," Darabont says. "It was a terrible movie - and one of the best scripts I wrote. It was equal to Shawshank or Green Mile. And that's the risk you run working just as a screenwriter."
M. (for Manoj) Night Shyamalan has horror stories, too, but says he doesn't see directing "as an agenda to protect my work. It seems more organic and natural."
Shyamalan (pronounced SHAH-ma-lan) dreamed up The Sixth Sense, a phenomenon that grossed more than $285 million. Among the film's six nominations: picture, director and original screenplay.
Yet he learned early how low a screenwriter can stand in the power structure. He sold his screenplay for Labor of Love ("a real tear-jerker") to 20th Century Fox several years ago with the understanding he would direct. But "they took me off (the project) as soon as they bought it. It was a shock to my system."
He directed his next screenplay, the little-seen Wide Awake with Rosie O'Donnell as a nun, but it was troubled. "They wanted to change the tone and things," he says. "After Wide Awake, I didn't want to direct; I was upset and tired and wanted to do something that was fun, something I didn't want to put my blood in." That turned out to be the original draft for Stuart Little, the talking-mouse movie that was 1999's other sleeper phenomenon.
But with Sixth Sense, Shyamalan's self-image changed. "I used to think of myself as a writer. On Wide Awake, I was a writer who got a chance to direct. On Sixth Sense, there was a balance between the words and visuals. Now I feel I'm a director interpreting a screenplay."
Anthony Minghella, nominated for his version of Patricia Highsmith's thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley and an Oscar winner for The English Patient, also found himself in the director's chair after a series of gradual steps. The writer-director started out as a playwright.
"I have to pinch myself sometimes, realizing what I'm doing," he told Boxoffice Magazine. "My father was an ice-cream man. I made myself up to do the things I wanted to do - to write, to work with other people, to practice an art. I've found them all in one job. It happened by a series of lucky accidents."
But for other writer-directors, the job is the furthest thing from an accident. And the idea of helming another writer's vision seems absurd - if for no other reason than that they have plenty to say. "I have writer's block in reverse," jokes Magnolia's Anderson. "Seriously, I get to direct movies only because I write them."
Hollywood, he says, is desperate for good scripts, and that makes writers some of the most powerful people in town. "Most people don't see that if you write, you're the king, you're the gold mine. You have the power to bribe anyone and say, 'I know it's good, and I want these people in it.'"
And he knows what he's talking about. Magnolia is only his third picture (he also wrote and directed Hard Eight and Boogie Nights), yet he exerted enough artistic control to not only attract Tom Cruise to his relatively low-budget ensemble piece, but also to ensure that it would be seen in its entire three-hour, nine-minute running time.
Artistic control is everything for people like writer-producer-director Mike Leigh. But for him, it's a control exercised by the entire cast. The creator of this year's Topsy-Turvy and previous Oscar nominee Secrets & Lies crafts his films in improvisational sessions with actors, and the process can take months.
For Leigh, there's no distinction between writing and directing. "To tell you the absolute truth, they're part of the same job for me. I don't write a screenplay that I turn into a film; the screenplay and film come together simultaneously as part of an elaborate creative process. It's not an entrenched ideological position; it's a practical thing of how I like to work."
Leigh's idea of practical must seem downright strange to a Hollywood regular like Michael Mann, nominated for director as well as screenplay (with Eric Roth) for The Insider, also up for best picture.
Mann, who has been making movies (including The Last of the Mohicans and Heat) for two decades, has long been known as a filmmaker whose style accents visuals over words. And he feels no compulsion to write his movies. "It's different in every case," he says. "I'd prefer to direct more films I don't write. I don't feel I have the breadth as a writer that I have as a director."
On Insider, Eric Roth was hired to script the story of tobacco-industry whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand, "and it became a team," Mann explains. "He didn't write first and I second. We wrote together. But there is no set formula. It's more organic. On Mohicans there was another writer first, and I started over."
Though his approach to writing and directing is more fluid than what the others use, Mann expresses what they all must feel when they sit behind the camera: "The bottom line is, as a filmmaker, a hands-on filmmaker, I have to make it mine."
Behind the lens and script
The writer-director nominees:
Adapted screenplay
Alexander Payne (with Jim Taylor) for Election
Frank Darabont for The Green Mile
Michael Mann (with Eric Roth) for The Insider
Anthony Minghella for The Talented Mr. Ripley
(Also nominated: John Irving for The Cider House Rules)
Original screenplay
Paul Thomas Anderson for Magnolia
M. Night Shyamalan for The Sixth Sense
Mike Leigh for Topsy-Turvy
(Also: Alan Ball for American Beauty and Charlie Kaufman for Being John Malkovich)
March 15, 2000
Telling Their Stories Their Way
When Oscar put the spotlight on 1999's best Hollywood writing talent, the motion picture academy found itself saluting not just writers, but writers who direct. Of the 10 nominated screenplays, seven are directed by their writers.
By any measure, writer-directors have found a cheering section in the industry.
"For years, writers have said they've become directors to protect their material," says Hollywood historian Leonard Maltin, the Entertainment Tonight correspondent and Playboy magazine film critic. "That's what got Preston Sturges into directing - and Billy Wilder and many others - right to the present day."
Sturges (Sullivan's Travels, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek) and Wilder (Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot) reside in the pantheon of Hollywood hyphenates alongside Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve), Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock.
Says Maltin: "What I like best about the writer-director in today's movie-making arena is it says to me, 'This is a film by someone who has a story to tell and isn't just a cog in the Hollywood machine.' So many movies today seem manufactured or contrived. At least if you have a storyteller making the film, you hope there is some passion in wanting to tell that story and not just make a deal."
For a studio chief such as New Line Cinema's Michael De Luca, working with writer-directors is "one-stop shopping."
"If you have anything to say," he points out, "you're literally talking to the person who is the two most important aspects of the production. You mention just one thing to one person, and it's done. And if it's good, you're dealing with a vision, and they're on top of all the decisions."
And if they're not good? "It's the writer part who can't take off that hat," he says . "They won't cut scenes or deal with budget issues. If, as a writer-director, you can't deal with actors and like to sit in a room all day, you're in trouble."
New Line is known as a safe place in the industry for hyphenates, a studio that has given chances to people such as Paul Thomas Anderson, nominated for Magnolia. "We're seeing a return of the maverick filmmaker who has a vision and can convey that vision through writing and directing and even marketing and distribution," De Luca says. "Usually they have brilliant ideas."
Yet the genesis of a great movie begins when the words hit the page. As director Alexander Payne (nominated for writing Election with partner Jim Taylor) told Texas' Austin American-Statesman: "When I direct, all I'm doing is executing what Jim and I have written. Sure, I can get performances and fool around with the camera. But, really, it's all in the script."
Like Payne, several of the other nominated writer-directors started out writing. The directing part evolved as a reaction to the ugly realities of the Hollywood process.
"You've heard the horror stories of what the director did to their beautiful script, and I'm no different; I have plenty of stories," says Frank Darabont, nominated for writing The Green Mile, which also is up for best picture. "That's the most compelling reason to direct if you're a writer. It validates what I've been saying for years - that oftentimes nobody understands the script better than the writer does. When the director has a totally different idea, that can create problems."
Darabont has directed only one previous film, the Oscar-nominated The Shawshank Redemption, which, like Mile, he adapted from a Stephen King tale. He has written such movie scripts as A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, The Fly II, The Blob and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
He says the sometimes disappointing path of a screenwriter is exemplified by his experience with Frankenstein, directed by Kenneth Branagh. "Kenneth did a lot of rewriting," Darabont says. "It was a terrible movie - and one of the best scripts I wrote. It was equal to Shawshank or Green Mile. And that's the risk you run working just as a screenwriter."
M. (for Manoj) Night Shyamalan has horror stories, too, but says he doesn't see directing "as an agenda to protect my work. It seems more organic and natural."
Shyamalan (pronounced SHAH-ma-lan) dreamed up The Sixth Sense, a phenomenon that grossed more than $285 million. Among the film's six nominations: picture, director and original screenplay.
Yet he learned early how low a screenwriter can stand in the power structure. He sold his screenplay for Labor of Love ("a real tear-jerker") to 20th Century Fox several years ago with the understanding he would direct. But "they took me off (the project) as soon as they bought it. It was a shock to my system."
He directed his next screenplay, the little-seen Wide Awake with Rosie O'Donnell as a nun, but it was troubled. "They wanted to change the tone and things," he says. "After Wide Awake, I didn't want to direct; I was upset and tired and wanted to do something that was fun, something I didn't want to put my blood in." That turned out to be the original draft for Stuart Little, the talking-mouse movie that was 1999's other sleeper phenomenon.
But with Sixth Sense, Shyamalan's self-image changed. "I used to think of myself as a writer. On Wide Awake, I was a writer who got a chance to direct. On Sixth Sense, there was a balance between the words and visuals. Now I feel I'm a director interpreting a screenplay."
Anthony Minghella, nominated for his version of Patricia Highsmith's thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley and an Oscar winner for The English Patient, also found himself in the director's chair after a series of gradual steps. The writer-director started out as a playwright.
"I have to pinch myself sometimes, realizing what I'm doing," he told Boxoffice Magazine. "My father was an ice-cream man. I made myself up to do the things I wanted to do - to write, to work with other people, to practice an art. I've found them all in one job. It happened by a series of lucky accidents."
But for other writer-directors, the job is the furthest thing from an accident. And the idea of helming another writer's vision seems absurd - if for no other reason than that they have plenty to say. "I have writer's block in reverse," jokes Magnolia's Anderson. "Seriously, I get to direct movies only because I write them."
Hollywood, he says, is desperate for good scripts, and that makes writers some of the most powerful people in town. "Most people don't see that if you write, you're the king, you're the gold mine. You have the power to bribe anyone and say, 'I know it's good, and I want these people in it.'"
And he knows what he's talking about. Magnolia is only his third picture (he also wrote and directed Hard Eight and Boogie Nights), yet he exerted enough artistic control to not only attract Tom Cruise to his relatively low-budget ensemble piece, but also to ensure that it would be seen in its entire three-hour, nine-minute running time.
Artistic control is everything for people like writer-producer-director Mike Leigh. But for him, it's a control exercised by the entire cast. The creator of this year's Topsy-Turvy and previous Oscar nominee Secrets & Lies crafts his films in improvisational sessions with actors, and the process can take months.
For Leigh, there's no distinction between writing and directing. "To tell you the absolute truth, they're part of the same job for me. I don't write a screenplay that I turn into a film; the screenplay and film come together simultaneously as part of an elaborate creative process. It's not an entrenched ideological position; it's a practical thing of how I like to work."
Leigh's idea of practical must seem downright strange to a Hollywood regular like Michael Mann, nominated for director as well as screenplay (with Eric Roth) for The Insider, also up for best picture.
Mann, who has been making movies (including The Last of the Mohicans and Heat) for two decades, has long been known as a filmmaker whose style accents visuals over words. And he feels no compulsion to write his movies. "It's different in every case," he says. "I'd prefer to direct more films I don't write. I don't feel I have the breadth as a writer that I have as a director."
On Insider, Eric Roth was hired to script the story of tobacco-industry whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand, "and it became a team," Mann explains. "He didn't write first and I second. We wrote together. But there is no set formula. It's more organic. On Mohicans there was another writer first, and I started over."
Though his approach to writing and directing is more fluid than what the others use, Mann expresses what they all must feel when they sit behind the camera: "The bottom line is, as a filmmaker, a hands-on filmmaker, I have to make it mine."
Behind the lens and script
The writer-director nominees:
Adapted screenplay
Alexander Payne (with Jim Taylor) for Election
Frank Darabont for The Green Mile
Michael Mann (with Eric Roth) for The Insider
Anthony Minghella for The Talented Mr. Ripley
(Also nominated: John Irving for The Cider House Rules)
Original screenplay
Paul Thomas Anderson for Magnolia
M. Night Shyamalan for The Sixth Sense
Mike Leigh for Topsy-Turvy
(Also: Alan Ball for American Beauty and Charlie Kaufman for Being John Malkovich)
Interview: Esquire Magazine
Esquire Magazine, Written By Todd McCarthy
March 2000
The Next Scorsese
The most talented new generation of film directors since the '70s is upon us. They won't all last. They won't all leave a great body of work. And they won't all continue making ambitious movies. Which one of them will become the next Scorsese?
Andrew Sarris nominates...Kevin Smith
Kenneth Turan nominates...David O. Russell
Todd McCarthy nominates...Paul Thomas Anderson
Tom Carson nominates...Alexander Payne
Elvis Mitchell nominates...The Wachowski Brothers
Martin Scorsese nominates...Wes Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson says he doesn't know "if I'm the type of guy who'd want to run the world like Spielberg or retreat to a mansion in London like Kubrick. I haven't got it figured out yet." It takes a lot of hubris for a twenty-nine-year-old director with three films behind him to presume that either route represents a viable option. But it's his sense of certainty, along with a large wad of talent, that has arguably put Anderson at the front of the pack of insurgent young dudes making the edgiest new films in Hollywood.
Due to the way he claims his very promising first picture, Sydney (retitled Hard Eight for release, in 1996), was butchered by its producers (a DVD of his original cut is available for comparison), Anderson has become exceptionally sensitive about maintaining control over his work. Since then, it's not only in the subject matter of Boogie Nights (1997) that he has exhibited a major preoccupation with length. After having been forced to compromise with New Line over the running time of his audacious and surprisingly sweet-natured spin through the world of porn, which stands as one of the key dozen or so American films of the nineties, Anderson demanded final cut from the studio on his next picture, and got it. But as powerful as Magnolia's best moments and performances are, the result raises questions about the director's discipline and tendencies toward self-indulgence.
In all of his films, however, he has demonstrated a natural filmmaking flair, a bent for risk taking, and a predilection for taking actors where they might otherwise never get to go. But what further distinguishes him is a skill much rarer among modern young filmmakers—his ability as a dramatist. Thus far, Anderson has fixed his gaze on the lives, from the exceptional to the mundane, of lower-middle-class suburbanites, particularly those of his native San Fernando Valley: Sydney, with its pared-down scenes devoted to blunt dialogue, often has the feel of a Mamet pressure-chamber drama; far more fluid and commanding, Boogie Nights looks like the love child of Scorsese's visual style and Anderson hero Jonathan Demme's generous humanity; while Magnolia, for better as well as worse, overflows its Altmanesque structure to assume quasi - operatic dimensions.
Anderson appears to have his roots planted so deeply in the irrigated soil of the Valley that it would be difficult to cut himself off from his greatest source of sustenance. As with Scorsese, it will be crucial to see what happens when he takes on other characters, other locations, other eras. Also significant will be his decision whether to continue writing his own scripts; all too many great writer-directors, from Huston to Coppola, went astray when they put aside their typewriters just to cash in irresistible directing fees. But Anderson's talent seems so supple, muscular, and responsive to human foibles, and his ambition is so outsized, that there is every reason to believe that his stature will only continue to grow, as long as he learns that he doesn't have to make a three - hour film every time out.
March 2000
The Next Scorsese
The most talented new generation of film directors since the '70s is upon us. They won't all last. They won't all leave a great body of work. And they won't all continue making ambitious movies. Which one of them will become the next Scorsese?
Andrew Sarris nominates...Kevin Smith
Kenneth Turan nominates...David O. Russell
Todd McCarthy nominates...Paul Thomas Anderson
Tom Carson nominates...Alexander Payne
Elvis Mitchell nominates...The Wachowski Brothers
Martin Scorsese nominates...Wes Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson says he doesn't know "if I'm the type of guy who'd want to run the world like Spielberg or retreat to a mansion in London like Kubrick. I haven't got it figured out yet." It takes a lot of hubris for a twenty-nine-year-old director with three films behind him to presume that either route represents a viable option. But it's his sense of certainty, along with a large wad of talent, that has arguably put Anderson at the front of the pack of insurgent young dudes making the edgiest new films in Hollywood.
Due to the way he claims his very promising first picture, Sydney (retitled Hard Eight for release, in 1996), was butchered by its producers (a DVD of his original cut is available for comparison), Anderson has become exceptionally sensitive about maintaining control over his work. Since then, it's not only in the subject matter of Boogie Nights (1997) that he has exhibited a major preoccupation with length. After having been forced to compromise with New Line over the running time of his audacious and surprisingly sweet-natured spin through the world of porn, which stands as one of the key dozen or so American films of the nineties, Anderson demanded final cut from the studio on his next picture, and got it. But as powerful as Magnolia's best moments and performances are, the result raises questions about the director's discipline and tendencies toward self-indulgence.
In all of his films, however, he has demonstrated a natural filmmaking flair, a bent for risk taking, and a predilection for taking actors where they might otherwise never get to go. But what further distinguishes him is a skill much rarer among modern young filmmakers—his ability as a dramatist. Thus far, Anderson has fixed his gaze on the lives, from the exceptional to the mundane, of lower-middle-class suburbanites, particularly those of his native San Fernando Valley: Sydney, with its pared-down scenes devoted to blunt dialogue, often has the feel of a Mamet pressure-chamber drama; far more fluid and commanding, Boogie Nights looks like the love child of Scorsese's visual style and Anderson hero Jonathan Demme's generous humanity; while Magnolia, for better as well as worse, overflows its Altmanesque structure to assume quasi - operatic dimensions.
Anderson appears to have his roots planted so deeply in the irrigated soil of the Valley that it would be difficult to cut himself off from his greatest source of sustenance. As with Scorsese, it will be crucial to see what happens when he takes on other characters, other locations, other eras. Also significant will be his decision whether to continue writing his own scripts; all too many great writer-directors, from Huston to Coppola, went astray when they put aside their typewriters just to cash in irresistible directing fees. But Anderson's talent seems so supple, muscular, and responsive to human foibles, and his ambition is so outsized, that there is every reason to believe that his stature will only continue to grow, as long as he learns that he doesn't have to make a three - hour film every time out.
March 15, 2000
Archived update from Cigarettes & Coffee, run by Greg Mariotti & CJ Wallis from 1999-2005
I hope you all went out yesterday & picked up the incredible new Magnolia score by Jon Brion. It's great to see this finally released. There's a nice introduction/liner notes by PTA & after hearing this, it just reinforces my original thoughts of how the hell this did not get nominated by the Academy.PTA & Tom Cruise were among the nominees who attended the annual Oscar luncheon on Monday in Los Angeles as we inch closer to the show on March 26. Here's a picture from the event:Today I added a piece from Esquire Magazine entitled "The Next Scorsese". Although it's ludicrous to make comparisons, it's fun to see who some of the top film critics selected. There is also an online poll on their site where you can cast your vote. Currently PTA resides in 2nd place behind Wes Anderson.PTA is also featured prominently in the USA Today Life Section cover story on Oscar nominated writers who direct. I have included the article below.Finally, Aimee Mann's appearance on Saturday Night Live has been pushed back to a later date & the latest Magnolia Box Office numbers are posted as the number of screens in the U.S. is down to 56.
Sunday, 12 March 2000
Interview: The Age
The Age, Written By John Patterson
March 12, 2000
When all the simmering conflicts finally come to a boil in Paul Thomas Anderson's 70s porn-industry epic Boogie Nights, protagonist Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), porn star and possessor of a much-coveted 13-inch penis, issues a perfectly inarticulate, impassioned, if ultimately useless declaration of independence.
Dirk's erectile capacity has been badly eroded by his coke intake and he knows at best he only has a 20-minute window of tumescence to exploit before his talent turns once again to, well, to ashes in his hand. But director and father-figure Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) isn't ready, and there's a big fight that turns nasty. Before long they're being pulled off each other by the crew members as Dirk screams, "You're not the boss of me, Jack! You're not the king of Dirk! I'm the boss of me! I'm the king of me. I'm Dirk Diggler! I'm the star! It's my big dick and I say when we roll!" Anderson is 30 years old. He's made three movies, Hard Eight, Boogie Nights and now Magnolia, each of which has been called a masterpiece. He is routinely heralded as one of the great hopes of the American cinema, someone who got started early and who may have a lifetime of great movies inside him.
The producers of his first movie, Hard Eight - which he still calls by its original title, Sydney - tried to be the boss of Paul, the king of Paul, but he fought to have his own version released and against all the odds, he won. "It fucked up my entry into this whole world," he says. "Or maybe it actually helped, because it sure as hell put me on my guard." On Boogie Nights, Anderson was able to release the movie he'd envisaged, having developed the armour to keep the money men off his back. And with Magnolia, he got what every director twice his age still dreams of the moment his head hits the pillow: Final Cut.
Even Martin Scorsese had to wait more than 25 years for the right not to have his films molested by the suits. "It's pretty unusual," says Anderson, "but the concept is that once you've got it, you've got it for life. It feels great!" Now no one's the boss of Paul Thomas Anderson. Paul's the king of Paul. It's his big dick, and he says when we roll. There are those who'll say that Magnolia, at 188 minutes and featuring some 20 characters, is a repudiation of the very notion of final cut, that no movie deserves to carve that much time out of a viewer's life, that surely the backers could have imposed some discipline and order on the project had it not been for the director's special privilege.
This might be more plausible if Magnolia weren't as compelling and cussedly ambitious as it is, but it isn't the kind of film that can be shoehorned into any safe categories, and that alone will always make the unimaginative critic reach elbow-deep into his arsenal of uncomprehending put-downs. Magnolia is hip enough, I suppose, but it's also unabashedly, transcendently emotional, which is about as unhip as you'll ever get in Los Angeles. It's a semi-independent movie in financial terms (mini-major Fine Line is the backer) but it's about parents and children, life's bystanders, and about love and security lost and found. There are none of the tired tropes and tics one associates with post-Tarantino indie film-making - no five-way Mexican stand-offs, no arch quoting of naff movies, no brand-name humour, and no genre-twisting. The result is a giant mosaic that makes up one day in the life of the characters, constructed tile by tiny tile until a huge collective portrait emerges, with characters linked by what the film's narrator call "things that are not, one hopes, merely a matter of chance".
Anderson never intended that it become so big. "It came from a much smaller plane," he explains. "I wanted to make something that was intimate and small- scale, and I thought that I would do it very, very quickly. The point was that I wanted to shed myself of everything that was happening around Boogie Nights. And I started to write and well, it kept blossoming. And I got to the point where still it's a very intimate movie, but I realised I had so many actors I wanted to write for that the form started to come more from them. Then I thought it would be really interesting to put this epic spin on topics that don't necessarily get the epic treatment, which is usually reserved for war movies or political topics. But the things that I know as big and emotional are these real intimate everyday moments, like losing your car keys, for example. You could start with something like that and go anywhere."
As a writer, Anderson starts with lists, actors and music. "Magnolia came out of Aimee Mann's songs, which I was listening to at the time I was starting to write. I had her two solo albums and a lot of her demos, because she's a friend, and I think the tone she gets is really beautiful. So I thought about using them as a basis, or as inspiration for the film."
Indeed, certain lines of dialogue in Magnolia come directly from Mann's songs, including "Now that you've met me, would you object if you never saw me again?" which is the crux of one thread of the narrative. And towards the finale, Anderson lays Mann's Wise Up on the soundtrack and cuts all across the San Fernando Valley to his different characters, who all dreamily sing along with a line each from the song. It should be a ridiculous moment, but it's the emotional high point of the movie, capable of reducing entire rows of filmgoers to tears.
"I wondered about that moment too," says Anderson, "but I tricked everyone by getting Julianne Moore to do it first. She can always set the pace, because actors are so competitive. Then everyone was up for it." Anderson's scripts, he says, start out as "lists of things that are interesting to me, images, words, ideas, and slowly they start resolving themselves into sequences and shots and dialogue."
For Magnolia, he first saw an image of the smiling face of his friend, actress Melora Walters, and went from there. Having consolidated an Altmanesque de facto repertory company in the course of making Hard Eight and Boogie Nights, Anderson is now free to write with specific actors in mind, actors who he stresses are his friends off-set, not just his employees. "John Reilly came up with most of his character a couple of summers ago, after he grew a moustache for fun. He started to work up this not very smart cop character and we did a sort of take off on Cops (a Fox reality show in which camera crews go on police call-outs) with me chasing him around the streets with a video camera. We did several - Jennifer Jason Leigh was in one - and some of the Reilly character's line come from that far back.
"That's a case of an actor really bringing something in, because John basically co-created the character. But I always try to sneak a little bit of them in there, their little traits that I know. I also wanted to make John a romantic lead, because I've always seen him that way." The other actors all received similar care in the development of their roles. "I really didn't want Phillip Seymour Hoffman to play another character-character, you know what I mean? I wanted him to play a really simple, uncomplicated, caring character.
"And Julianne Moore, I just thought I really wanted to see her explode. I just haven't seen her do that. I said, 'I want you to go fucking nuts!' Crazy is so hard to play, there's nothing you can really tell an actor. You end up saying, 'She's nuts, and she's on so many pharmaceuticals, and I can't rationalise her behaviour. Just go nuts'." As for William H Macy, "I think he's scared of big emotional parts - he thinks actors shouldn't cry - so I wrote a big tearful, emotional part just for him."
Anyone who knows Anderson's movies knows that they celebrate the San Fernando Valley, the city "over the hill" that Angelenos feel duty bound to hate in the way other Americans feel duty bound to loathe Los Angeles itself. "Boogie Nights and Magnolia are both fuck-you celebrations of the Valley," says Anderson. "I don't hate it simply because I grew up there, in Studio City. I'm just always nostalgic for it. It makes me comfortable. I wrote this article for the New York Times about it and I said as a kid I was really self-conscious, because I wanted to be a director but I was 'from the Valley...' It wasn't like I was in a war with John Ford, or I grew up on the streets of New York. I'm from the Valley. What do I have to offer? And once you get past that insecurity, you're all set. So many people from Hollywood, the other side of the hill, they just rag it so hard. Whatever, fuck it, I love it."
Anderson's late father Ernie, to whom Boogie Nights was dedicated, was for years "The Voice of ABC" and made a living doing voiceovers for the ABC network. In a previous life, back in Cleveland, Ohio, Ernie had worked as a local TV announcer who gained fame as the Ghost-Host Ghoulardi. He introduced broadcasts of horror movies in a costume and mask, interrupted the screenings, talked over the dialogue and generally delighted his juvenile audience with every manner of inspired idiocy.
They still mention him from time to time on The Drew Carey Show - and always in tones of reverence. "He was very wonderful, totally unique," says Anderson, whose films are filled with fathers both real and surrogate. Anderson scorned film school, though he attended NYU for two days. "I had a feeling that I didn't want to go there anyway. The first day I took some pages from a David Mamet script and handed them in as my own - and it got a C-plus. I thought they should go fuck themselves because Mamet - you know, Pulitzer prizewinner, great playwright - he deserved a little better than a C-plus.
"I met all these people who said 'I'm gonna go learn about movies at film school.' And I would say, 'You're what? Watch your fucking TV! That's what it's for!'" Anderson once said you could learn more from the director's commentary on the laser-disc version of Bad Day at Black Rock than from 10 years in film school.
After that he worked odd-jobs ("messenger, bird shop assistant") before securing a place in the Sundance director's workshop. "I'm not really a Sundance baby, but they helped me so much I feel I have to acknowledge it," he says, perhaps reluctant to associated himself too closely with Planet Redford. Then came Sydney, a noirish character study with Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow and Philip Baker Hall ("one of the best American actors alive" and an Anderson regular) set in Reno. Anderson is very happy that the backer, Rysher Entertainment, is now defunct. "They were altering the performances. They were butchering it. Rescoring it, reformatting it. I shot the film widescreen and they reformatted it 1:1.85. I mean that's fucking insane - its a very conscientiously framed movie - and every shot changed. Literally every composition."
Luckily he had his own cut and it was this version that won awards at several festivals. "It made me very gun-shy, anxious to be in total control." With Boogie Nights he was in the gentler care of Fine Line, but still had to deal with the MPAA ratings board. "They're not bad people and a lot of the things make perfect sense, but a lot of them don't. We'd say, 'I understand that blood and sex is not good in the same scene or the same shot, but can you explain about humping and talking at the same time?' I don't get that - what should I do?"
You meet the megaplex movie fan in Anderson when you ask him who he'd like to work with in future and whose work he's looking forward to. Where previously he has sung the praises of Max Ophuls as the world's greatest proponent of the moving camera, and namechecked Douglas Sirk and Nicholas Ray, now he's talking about how much he wants to see the new Jonathan Demme movie ("Whatever it is, I don't care"), and the next Tarantino film. "I'm really looking forward to Mission: Impossible 2. I'm a John Woo fan, sure, but I'm really a Tom Cruise fan. I asked Cruise about it after I saw the trailer (an absurdly kinetic 45 seconds of Woo magic) and he said, 'It's all like the trailer!' I can't wait."
The real surprise came when I asked him who he'd like to work with. "Somebody I'd really like to use is Adam Sandler. I just cry with laughter in his movies." As far as I can determine he's not being facetious. He also admires Daniel Day-Lewis. "He's just a powerhouse. All of his films are really solid." And of his own future? "Images, thoughts, ideas, preliminary stuff. But I'm determined it'll be 90 minutes. I'm gonna show the whole world."
March 12, 2000
When all the simmering conflicts finally come to a boil in Paul Thomas Anderson's 70s porn-industry epic Boogie Nights, protagonist Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), porn star and possessor of a much-coveted 13-inch penis, issues a perfectly inarticulate, impassioned, if ultimately useless declaration of independence.
Dirk's erectile capacity has been badly eroded by his coke intake and he knows at best he only has a 20-minute window of tumescence to exploit before his talent turns once again to, well, to ashes in his hand. But director and father-figure Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) isn't ready, and there's a big fight that turns nasty. Before long they're being pulled off each other by the crew members as Dirk screams, "You're not the boss of me, Jack! You're not the king of Dirk! I'm the boss of me! I'm the king of me. I'm Dirk Diggler! I'm the star! It's my big dick and I say when we roll!" Anderson is 30 years old. He's made three movies, Hard Eight, Boogie Nights and now Magnolia, each of which has been called a masterpiece. He is routinely heralded as one of the great hopes of the American cinema, someone who got started early and who may have a lifetime of great movies inside him.
The producers of his first movie, Hard Eight - which he still calls by its original title, Sydney - tried to be the boss of Paul, the king of Paul, but he fought to have his own version released and against all the odds, he won. "It fucked up my entry into this whole world," he says. "Or maybe it actually helped, because it sure as hell put me on my guard." On Boogie Nights, Anderson was able to release the movie he'd envisaged, having developed the armour to keep the money men off his back. And with Magnolia, he got what every director twice his age still dreams of the moment his head hits the pillow: Final Cut.
Even Martin Scorsese had to wait more than 25 years for the right not to have his films molested by the suits. "It's pretty unusual," says Anderson, "but the concept is that once you've got it, you've got it for life. It feels great!" Now no one's the boss of Paul Thomas Anderson. Paul's the king of Paul. It's his big dick, and he says when we roll. There are those who'll say that Magnolia, at 188 minutes and featuring some 20 characters, is a repudiation of the very notion of final cut, that no movie deserves to carve that much time out of a viewer's life, that surely the backers could have imposed some discipline and order on the project had it not been for the director's special privilege.
This might be more plausible if Magnolia weren't as compelling and cussedly ambitious as it is, but it isn't the kind of film that can be shoehorned into any safe categories, and that alone will always make the unimaginative critic reach elbow-deep into his arsenal of uncomprehending put-downs. Magnolia is hip enough, I suppose, but it's also unabashedly, transcendently emotional, which is about as unhip as you'll ever get in Los Angeles. It's a semi-independent movie in financial terms (mini-major Fine Line is the backer) but it's about parents and children, life's bystanders, and about love and security lost and found. There are none of the tired tropes and tics one associates with post-Tarantino indie film-making - no five-way Mexican stand-offs, no arch quoting of naff movies, no brand-name humour, and no genre-twisting. The result is a giant mosaic that makes up one day in the life of the characters, constructed tile by tiny tile until a huge collective portrait emerges, with characters linked by what the film's narrator call "things that are not, one hopes, merely a matter of chance".
Anderson never intended that it become so big. "It came from a much smaller plane," he explains. "I wanted to make something that was intimate and small- scale, and I thought that I would do it very, very quickly. The point was that I wanted to shed myself of everything that was happening around Boogie Nights. And I started to write and well, it kept blossoming. And I got to the point where still it's a very intimate movie, but I realised I had so many actors I wanted to write for that the form started to come more from them. Then I thought it would be really interesting to put this epic spin on topics that don't necessarily get the epic treatment, which is usually reserved for war movies or political topics. But the things that I know as big and emotional are these real intimate everyday moments, like losing your car keys, for example. You could start with something like that and go anywhere."
As a writer, Anderson starts with lists, actors and music. "Magnolia came out of Aimee Mann's songs, which I was listening to at the time I was starting to write. I had her two solo albums and a lot of her demos, because she's a friend, and I think the tone she gets is really beautiful. So I thought about using them as a basis, or as inspiration for the film."
Indeed, certain lines of dialogue in Magnolia come directly from Mann's songs, including "Now that you've met me, would you object if you never saw me again?" which is the crux of one thread of the narrative. And towards the finale, Anderson lays Mann's Wise Up on the soundtrack and cuts all across the San Fernando Valley to his different characters, who all dreamily sing along with a line each from the song. It should be a ridiculous moment, but it's the emotional high point of the movie, capable of reducing entire rows of filmgoers to tears.
"I wondered about that moment too," says Anderson, "but I tricked everyone by getting Julianne Moore to do it first. She can always set the pace, because actors are so competitive. Then everyone was up for it." Anderson's scripts, he says, start out as "lists of things that are interesting to me, images, words, ideas, and slowly they start resolving themselves into sequences and shots and dialogue."
For Magnolia, he first saw an image of the smiling face of his friend, actress Melora Walters, and went from there. Having consolidated an Altmanesque de facto repertory company in the course of making Hard Eight and Boogie Nights, Anderson is now free to write with specific actors in mind, actors who he stresses are his friends off-set, not just his employees. "John Reilly came up with most of his character a couple of summers ago, after he grew a moustache for fun. He started to work up this not very smart cop character and we did a sort of take off on Cops (a Fox reality show in which camera crews go on police call-outs) with me chasing him around the streets with a video camera. We did several - Jennifer Jason Leigh was in one - and some of the Reilly character's line come from that far back.
"That's a case of an actor really bringing something in, because John basically co-created the character. But I always try to sneak a little bit of them in there, their little traits that I know. I also wanted to make John a romantic lead, because I've always seen him that way." The other actors all received similar care in the development of their roles. "I really didn't want Phillip Seymour Hoffman to play another character-character, you know what I mean? I wanted him to play a really simple, uncomplicated, caring character.
"And Julianne Moore, I just thought I really wanted to see her explode. I just haven't seen her do that. I said, 'I want you to go fucking nuts!' Crazy is so hard to play, there's nothing you can really tell an actor. You end up saying, 'She's nuts, and she's on so many pharmaceuticals, and I can't rationalise her behaviour. Just go nuts'." As for William H Macy, "I think he's scared of big emotional parts - he thinks actors shouldn't cry - so I wrote a big tearful, emotional part just for him."
Anyone who knows Anderson's movies knows that they celebrate the San Fernando Valley, the city "over the hill" that Angelenos feel duty bound to hate in the way other Americans feel duty bound to loathe Los Angeles itself. "Boogie Nights and Magnolia are both fuck-you celebrations of the Valley," says Anderson. "I don't hate it simply because I grew up there, in Studio City. I'm just always nostalgic for it. It makes me comfortable. I wrote this article for the New York Times about it and I said as a kid I was really self-conscious, because I wanted to be a director but I was 'from the Valley...' It wasn't like I was in a war with John Ford, or I grew up on the streets of New York. I'm from the Valley. What do I have to offer? And once you get past that insecurity, you're all set. So many people from Hollywood, the other side of the hill, they just rag it so hard. Whatever, fuck it, I love it."
Anderson's late father Ernie, to whom Boogie Nights was dedicated, was for years "The Voice of ABC" and made a living doing voiceovers for the ABC network. In a previous life, back in Cleveland, Ohio, Ernie had worked as a local TV announcer who gained fame as the Ghost-Host Ghoulardi. He introduced broadcasts of horror movies in a costume and mask, interrupted the screenings, talked over the dialogue and generally delighted his juvenile audience with every manner of inspired idiocy.
They still mention him from time to time on The Drew Carey Show - and always in tones of reverence. "He was very wonderful, totally unique," says Anderson, whose films are filled with fathers both real and surrogate. Anderson scorned film school, though he attended NYU for two days. "I had a feeling that I didn't want to go there anyway. The first day I took some pages from a David Mamet script and handed them in as my own - and it got a C-plus. I thought they should go fuck themselves because Mamet - you know, Pulitzer prizewinner, great playwright - he deserved a little better than a C-plus.
"I met all these people who said 'I'm gonna go learn about movies at film school.' And I would say, 'You're what? Watch your fucking TV! That's what it's for!'" Anderson once said you could learn more from the director's commentary on the laser-disc version of Bad Day at Black Rock than from 10 years in film school.
After that he worked odd-jobs ("messenger, bird shop assistant") before securing a place in the Sundance director's workshop. "I'm not really a Sundance baby, but they helped me so much I feel I have to acknowledge it," he says, perhaps reluctant to associated himself too closely with Planet Redford. Then came Sydney, a noirish character study with Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow and Philip Baker Hall ("one of the best American actors alive" and an Anderson regular) set in Reno. Anderson is very happy that the backer, Rysher Entertainment, is now defunct. "They were altering the performances. They were butchering it. Rescoring it, reformatting it. I shot the film widescreen and they reformatted it 1:1.85. I mean that's fucking insane - its a very conscientiously framed movie - and every shot changed. Literally every composition."
Luckily he had his own cut and it was this version that won awards at several festivals. "It made me very gun-shy, anxious to be in total control." With Boogie Nights he was in the gentler care of Fine Line, but still had to deal with the MPAA ratings board. "They're not bad people and a lot of the things make perfect sense, but a lot of them don't. We'd say, 'I understand that blood and sex is not good in the same scene or the same shot, but can you explain about humping and talking at the same time?' I don't get that - what should I do?"
You meet the megaplex movie fan in Anderson when you ask him who he'd like to work with in future and whose work he's looking forward to. Where previously he has sung the praises of Max Ophuls as the world's greatest proponent of the moving camera, and namechecked Douglas Sirk and Nicholas Ray, now he's talking about how much he wants to see the new Jonathan Demme movie ("Whatever it is, I don't care"), and the next Tarantino film. "I'm really looking forward to Mission: Impossible 2. I'm a John Woo fan, sure, but I'm really a Tom Cruise fan. I asked Cruise about it after I saw the trailer (an absurdly kinetic 45 seconds of Woo magic) and he said, 'It's all like the trailer!' I can't wait."
The real surprise came when I asked him who he'd like to work with. "Somebody I'd really like to use is Adam Sandler. I just cry with laughter in his movies." As far as I can determine he's not being facetious. He also admires Daniel Day-Lewis. "He's just a powerhouse. All of his films are really solid." And of his own future? "Images, thoughts, ideas, preliminary stuff. But I'm determined it'll be 90 minutes. I'm gonna show the whole world."
Saturday, 11 March 2000
March 11, 2000
Archived update from Cigarettes & Coffee, run by Greg Mariotti & CJ Wallis from 1999-2005
Just some quick revisions to the Events in the PTA Universe calendar. PTA will not be involved with this weekend's Saturday Night Live as previously reported. I have also added tons of new Aimee Mann appearances above as she will be invading your television leading up to the Oscars. She will be performing "Wise Up" on MTV's 120 Minutes this Sunday, then hitting VH1 & Rosie O'Donnell on Thursday, Saturday Night Live next Sunday & Letterman on the 22nd!
Friday, 10 March 2000
March 10, 2000
Archived update from Cigarettes & Coffee, run by Greg Mariotti & CJ Wallis from 1999-2005
Great news today as I have learned more about PTA's involvement at the upcoming 6th Annual From Concept to Sale Conference which is being held at the Bel Age Hotel in Los Angeles on March 17 - 19. PTA will be screening his debut feature, Hard Eight on Friday, March 17th at 7:00 p.m.! If you haven't purchased your tickets to the conference, time is running out. For more info on the event click here.
Tuesday, 7 March 2000
March 7, 2000
Archived update from Cigarettes & Coffee, run by Greg Mariotti & CJ Wallis from 1999-2005
Just a few tidbits today as we get closer to the much anticipated release of Jon Brion's score for Magnolia. I have obtained the tentative track listing for the CD which will be released on March 14, 2000:1. A Little Library Music/Going to a Show 2. Showtime 3. Jimmy's Breakdown 4. WDKK Theme 5. I've Got a Surprise for You Today 6. Stanley/Frank/Linda's Breakdown 7. Chance of Rain 8. So Now Then 9. Magnolia
Sunday, 5 March 2000
Interview: Cinelive Magazine
Cinelive Magazine, Written By Sandra Benedetti
March 2000
Cinelive : Why did you choose this picture?
PTA: Because it's the picture of a father and his son and because it's the picture of a star and it's going to draw people to the theater ! (laughs) Because Magnolia is based on the father/son relationship. (Pensive)
And because, like the other characters in the film, the character played by Tom Cruise says "I love you" in his own way, that is by saying "I hate you"?
PTA : Yes, that's exactly what I wanted to hear you say. Frank Mackey feels anger toward his dying father but even when he’s saying he's glad he's dying, these are words filled with love that he’s pronouncing; he doesn't want him to die, no way. What's even more disturbing about Frank is that he's full of contradictions. Here's a kid whose mother dies and whose father abandons. And he'll be mad at his mom until she dies and mad at women in general since he gives seminars on how to seduce and destroy women. There, you feel like saying "hey wait a second !Why aren't you mad at your dad? Why is your mother the mean one? It doesn't make any sense !" That's the kind of mistake we all do in our lives. It's universal. That's what makes the strength of the character played by Tom.
Is this seminar made to ridicule women who keep complaining about men in articles, magazines, TV shows... ?
PTA: You might not believe it but this show does exist in the United States !It's not very popular because it's very cracked and it makes everybody laugh. Every time I see something so absurd, I always wonder how someone can com up with this idea. What happened in his life to make him say what he's saying? And so, I used that, I invented a past to this MC who shores up his emotional confusion and turns aside his true anger.
Magnolia talks about redemption, like a lot of movies lately. Tell us, what's going on?
PTA: For me, the real redemption consists in acknowledging one's errors and doing everything you can not to do them again. In the other movies, they're just saying "OK, you made a mistake, you're forgiven". There's a margin. But that's the current trend, it's so easier this way. You're forgiven and then you can do the same crap again. It reflects an awareness of the contemporary world which doesn't really assert itself, I think.
Does the sentence "I have so much love to give but I don't know where to put it" pronounced by William H. Macy who plays Donnie Smith, reflect the movie?
PTA: Well it reflects a good deal of it. What am I gonna do with all this love? Sometimes, like in Claudia's case, you feel so bad, you're so lost that you don't want to take the risk of falling in love. You're scared you might hurt the other person. And then you start saying " all I'm gonna bring you is trouble so push off while you can". That's one of the mainsprings of the film.
What were you thinking about when you started writing the script?
PTA: I wanted to do just the opposite of what I did !I wanted to do a short film, with a small budget that I could have shot in 3 weeks. I was so exhausted after Boogie Nights, the promotion had left me dead beat,... I thought that would do me good to try to do something easy. I started to write and then I couldn't stop. I think it's because I had a lot of things in my mind that I thought I had repressed and which took this opportunity to reappear suddenly. At one point, I wondered if it was a good idea to let myself be carried away by what was fundamentally self-pity, a kind of indulgence, of laziness too. And the answer turned out to be yes.
Was your starting point, by any chance, the prelude of the film?
PTA: It was ! I had found these three stories intriguing. I thought they would be a good basis for a script about chance, coincidence whether they were good or bad ones. I still don't know what I wanted to get from them. But I know I was concocting something comic because I've always wanted to write a comedy. It turned out that my comic inclination didn't last very long.
Did you take your inspiration from real-life character, like you did for Boogie Nights?
PTA: Yes. They are my friends, famous or less famous people, people from my entourage. When I started working, I worked as a PA on game shows where I met some exceptionally gifted kids, like Stanley or Donnie in Magnolia, and who had the same behaviors because they were pushed by their parents who were only interested in the money. Even myself, I was in the same state of mind as these kids after I did Boogie Nights. Faced with the success of the film, I got out of my depth, I was feeling too young, too immature to assume this success, to take on the responsibility that people were imposing me.
Do you feel more mature now?
PTA : No I'm just pretending.
But you talk about very delicate, almost taboo topics in your films.
PTA: I do but it's not a sign of maturity !(laughs)
Magnolia is both cruel, depressing, pleasure-giving and ironic but there's no cynicism. Did you pay close attention not to be cynical ?
PTA : It's funny : that's what I realized when I saw the film : I'm not cynical. But while I was writing, it was unconscious, I hardly thought about it. I can be quite a knocker, I can kick up a fuss like kids do but fundamentally I realized recently that I wasn't cynical. Its' a good thing because I don't like cynical movies. It's easy, it's lazy.. it allows you not to go deeply into it.
The actors were said to be frightened by the complexity and intensity of their characters. How did you direct them?
PTA: It's true that each character constituted a challenge because it called for intense emotions which were often contradictory. Some actors didn't even have any indication about the reasons of their character's behavior. Julianne Moore in particular, was scared because she had to play a woman who's having a nervous breakdown when faced with death. I couldn't tell her how to play it because you need to have gone through that, everybody reacts to it differently. It's innermost and personal. Usually I'm very descriptive, I give loads of details. In that case, the only thing I could do was to tell them to draw from their own emotions, to give way but while sticking to the script.
You entertain very affectionate relations with your actors. Is it a need or a necessity?
PTA: I really love them. I love watching them play. I always have the feeling to attend a voodoo session. I don't know how they do it, they amaze me. It's a show for me. I need them to be my friends because their friendship is what makes me want to keep writing, because they make me stronger. And it's convenient, I can pay them a lot to be my friends ! (laughs)
Do you do your movies for them?
PTA: I do. I know people think that I should do movies for the public but for the moment, I'm doing them for the actors. It's true that my movies don't touch a lot of people as far as the box office is concerned but I'm in the average, even if critics like my movies. One day I'd like to do a movie which would move everyone, which would mean that I'd be in complete sympathy with everybody. If I can achieve this, without lying or cheating, I'll be happy. Spielberg is very successful, mainly because he tells fairy tales. Maybe I should do a realistic fairy tale?
Well you have a frog rain in Magnolia, that's a good start !Does it have something to do with the Egyptian plight?
PTA: Originally, it's from a book written in the 20's, 30's about strange phenomenon. The author collected newspaper articles without giving any further explanation. That was enough for me. I thought that it would be both funny and beautiful to put that in Magnolia. It's crazy to see a frog rain but at a moment in your life, you may think "OK it's raining frogs, everything is fine, and besides, it's in the Bible!".
Which movies did you have in mind during the shooting?
PTA: Ordinary People from Robert Redford, Terms of Endearment from James L. Brooks. At first I wanted to do a punk-rock version of Terms of Endearment, it'd be my big thing. In my opinion, it's a pure work of art on human relationships, it's so sad and terribly honest. It's sweet but not sentimental. It's such a great film !
And Short Cuts from Robert Altman?
PTA: It's weird, I had Short Cuts and Nashville in mind when I was shooting Boogie Nights but not during Magnolia shooting. After the event, it's true that they look like twin films. I did it in spite of myself. Short Cuts is one of the films written in my genes. You know, you don't create anything new...
March 2000
Cinelive : Why did you choose this picture?
PTA: Because it's the picture of a father and his son and because it's the picture of a star and it's going to draw people to the theater ! (laughs) Because Magnolia is based on the father/son relationship. (Pensive)
And because, like the other characters in the film, the character played by Tom Cruise says "I love you" in his own way, that is by saying "I hate you"?
PTA : Yes, that's exactly what I wanted to hear you say. Frank Mackey feels anger toward his dying father but even when he’s saying he's glad he's dying, these are words filled with love that he’s pronouncing; he doesn't want him to die, no way. What's even more disturbing about Frank is that he's full of contradictions. Here's a kid whose mother dies and whose father abandons. And he'll be mad at his mom until she dies and mad at women in general since he gives seminars on how to seduce and destroy women. There, you feel like saying "hey wait a second !Why aren't you mad at your dad? Why is your mother the mean one? It doesn't make any sense !" That's the kind of mistake we all do in our lives. It's universal. That's what makes the strength of the character played by Tom.
Is this seminar made to ridicule women who keep complaining about men in articles, magazines, TV shows... ?
PTA: You might not believe it but this show does exist in the United States !It's not very popular because it's very cracked and it makes everybody laugh. Every time I see something so absurd, I always wonder how someone can com up with this idea. What happened in his life to make him say what he's saying? And so, I used that, I invented a past to this MC who shores up his emotional confusion and turns aside his true anger.
Magnolia talks about redemption, like a lot of movies lately. Tell us, what's going on?
PTA: For me, the real redemption consists in acknowledging one's errors and doing everything you can not to do them again. In the other movies, they're just saying "OK, you made a mistake, you're forgiven". There's a margin. But that's the current trend, it's so easier this way. You're forgiven and then you can do the same crap again. It reflects an awareness of the contemporary world which doesn't really assert itself, I think.
Does the sentence "I have so much love to give but I don't know where to put it" pronounced by William H. Macy who plays Donnie Smith, reflect the movie?
PTA: Well it reflects a good deal of it. What am I gonna do with all this love? Sometimes, like in Claudia's case, you feel so bad, you're so lost that you don't want to take the risk of falling in love. You're scared you might hurt the other person. And then you start saying " all I'm gonna bring you is trouble so push off while you can". That's one of the mainsprings of the film.
What were you thinking about when you started writing the script?
PTA: I wanted to do just the opposite of what I did !I wanted to do a short film, with a small budget that I could have shot in 3 weeks. I was so exhausted after Boogie Nights, the promotion had left me dead beat,... I thought that would do me good to try to do something easy. I started to write and then I couldn't stop. I think it's because I had a lot of things in my mind that I thought I had repressed and which took this opportunity to reappear suddenly. At one point, I wondered if it was a good idea to let myself be carried away by what was fundamentally self-pity, a kind of indulgence, of laziness too. And the answer turned out to be yes.
Was your starting point, by any chance, the prelude of the film?
PTA: It was ! I had found these three stories intriguing. I thought they would be a good basis for a script about chance, coincidence whether they were good or bad ones. I still don't know what I wanted to get from them. But I know I was concocting something comic because I've always wanted to write a comedy. It turned out that my comic inclination didn't last very long.
Did you take your inspiration from real-life character, like you did for Boogie Nights?
PTA: Yes. They are my friends, famous or less famous people, people from my entourage. When I started working, I worked as a PA on game shows where I met some exceptionally gifted kids, like Stanley or Donnie in Magnolia, and who had the same behaviors because they were pushed by their parents who were only interested in the money. Even myself, I was in the same state of mind as these kids after I did Boogie Nights. Faced with the success of the film, I got out of my depth, I was feeling too young, too immature to assume this success, to take on the responsibility that people were imposing me.
Do you feel more mature now?
PTA : No I'm just pretending.
But you talk about very delicate, almost taboo topics in your films.
PTA: I do but it's not a sign of maturity !(laughs)
Magnolia is both cruel, depressing, pleasure-giving and ironic but there's no cynicism. Did you pay close attention not to be cynical ?
PTA : It's funny : that's what I realized when I saw the film : I'm not cynical. But while I was writing, it was unconscious, I hardly thought about it. I can be quite a knocker, I can kick up a fuss like kids do but fundamentally I realized recently that I wasn't cynical. Its' a good thing because I don't like cynical movies. It's easy, it's lazy.. it allows you not to go deeply into it.
The actors were said to be frightened by the complexity and intensity of their characters. How did you direct them?
PTA: It's true that each character constituted a challenge because it called for intense emotions which were often contradictory. Some actors didn't even have any indication about the reasons of their character's behavior. Julianne Moore in particular, was scared because she had to play a woman who's having a nervous breakdown when faced with death. I couldn't tell her how to play it because you need to have gone through that, everybody reacts to it differently. It's innermost and personal. Usually I'm very descriptive, I give loads of details. In that case, the only thing I could do was to tell them to draw from their own emotions, to give way but while sticking to the script.
You entertain very affectionate relations with your actors. Is it a need or a necessity?
PTA: I really love them. I love watching them play. I always have the feeling to attend a voodoo session. I don't know how they do it, they amaze me. It's a show for me. I need them to be my friends because their friendship is what makes me want to keep writing, because they make me stronger. And it's convenient, I can pay them a lot to be my friends ! (laughs)
Do you do your movies for them?
PTA: I do. I know people think that I should do movies for the public but for the moment, I'm doing them for the actors. It's true that my movies don't touch a lot of people as far as the box office is concerned but I'm in the average, even if critics like my movies. One day I'd like to do a movie which would move everyone, which would mean that I'd be in complete sympathy with everybody. If I can achieve this, without lying or cheating, I'll be happy. Spielberg is very successful, mainly because he tells fairy tales. Maybe I should do a realistic fairy tale?
Well you have a frog rain in Magnolia, that's a good start !Does it have something to do with the Egyptian plight?
PTA: Originally, it's from a book written in the 20's, 30's about strange phenomenon. The author collected newspaper articles without giving any further explanation. That was enough for me. I thought that it would be both funny and beautiful to put that in Magnolia. It's crazy to see a frog rain but at a moment in your life, you may think "OK it's raining frogs, everything is fine, and besides, it's in the Bible!".
Which movies did you have in mind during the shooting?
PTA: Ordinary People from Robert Redford, Terms of Endearment from James L. Brooks. At first I wanted to do a punk-rock version of Terms of Endearment, it'd be my big thing. In my opinion, it's a pure work of art on human relationships, it's so sad and terribly honest. It's sweet but not sentimental. It's such a great film !
And Short Cuts from Robert Altman?
PTA: It's weird, I had Short Cuts and Nashville in mind when I was shooting Boogie Nights but not during Magnolia shooting. After the event, it's true that they look like twin films. I did it in spite of myself. Short Cuts is one of the films written in my genes. You know, you don't create anything new...
Friday, 3 March 2000
March 3, 2000
Archived update from Cigarettes & Coffee, run by Greg Mariotti & CJ Wallis from 1999-2005
Update : Happy Friday! As you can probably tell, there is a brand new introduction to the site (Thanks to Ryan Worley!), but it has caused havoc with my navigation buttons that normally appear on your left. Please be patient until I get this sorted out and use the links across the bottom of the site to move around.According to Bumble Ward, Paul's publicist, PTA has been extremely busy helping Fiona kick off her tour and has decided not to travel to Australia and the U.K. to do press for Magnolia. He will be attending the Writers Guild of America Awards this Sunday and will begin working on a script for his next project shortly. And before you ask, no, I don't have any idea what he's working on. We'll just have to be patient and continue to enjoy his first three films.Facets is reporting that Ghoulardi, the production company established by director Paul Thomas Anderson for his own films, is expanding to develop the works of other filmmakers. Anderson's Ghoulardi partner, producer Joanne Sellar, announced the company is developing a crime picture set in the 18th century and a film about Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson's peculiar relationship with therapist Eugene Landy. (Thanks Jared!)I have completely revamped the Magnolia Picture Menu and added tons of new promo, Oscar, behind the scenes & posters, so check it out. Lastly, to celebrate another Flashback Friday, I have uploaded a short but interesting interview with Paul that was done by Girls On (a site geared towards women).I have also added the Magnolia and Boogie Nights DVD's to the calendar above. These dates are tentative and I have created a DVD Page for all the latest news on these releases!I will be back Sunday, with the PTA section of my Multimedia page (and hopefully functioning navigation buttons!)
Interview: Frederick News Post
Frederick News Post, Written By Nick Antosca
March 3, 2000
Film director Paul Thomas Anderson discusses Magnolia
(Editor's note: Nick Antosca, a student at Brunswick High School, was accepted to Yale University at age 16. He plans to graduate early, and then study writing and film at Yale. Recently he was given the opportunity to interview one of his favorite screenwriters and directors, Paul Thomas Anderson. That interview follows.)
"Magnolia," writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's third film after the acclaimed "Boogie Nights" and "Sydney" (studio title "Hard Eight"), opened to nationwide audiences on Jan. 7. It has since earned a Golden Globe for Tom Cruise and Best Film at the Toronto Film Festival among other awards, and three Academy Award nominations including Best Screenplay (Anderson) and Best Supporting Actor (Cruise).
Recently I spoke with Anderson on the phone from Los Angeles.
To start with a pretty general question, where did "Magnolia" come from? It's so dense and complex, what was your process, not just in writing it, but in imagining it?
I think maybe it's like my other two movies, in the sense that it's a combination of real life events, things that you hear about and read about, things that have happened to people I know, that have happened to me, and generally I mixed them up.
What parts are those that are taken from your life?
Well, I don't like to go too deeply into that. I think it's better to keep a sense of mystery about the thing. Many similar things have happened in real life, and that's where part of the movie comes from, with people dying, and with trying to fall in love, and it gets mixed in, and that's a fun kind of storytelling.
Speaking of mysteries, there are some in the movie. Who shoots at Reilly and who kidnaps that kid?
(Laughs) Well, I think it's something for the audience, it's a thing where they can form their own ideas, and there may not be an answer. I know I have an answer in my own mind for what happens.
How much revising and rearranging did you have to do with so many stories?
Well, not that much, really. I'm revising as I write. I wrote maybe three to four drafts of "Magnolia," but just in that first draft, it's maybe a hundred drafts, but then the one thing's changed so much that you just call it the first draft.
Do you plan or outline when you write?
Mostly, it's more that I'm just making it up as I go along. What I'll do is write some, maybe 20 pages, and think of where the story could go, then write it down on a piece of paper on the side, and hope that the story will get there on its own as it naturally develops; but sometimes you surprise yourself. Sometimes a character goes left when you thought it would go right. Sometimes a character goes inside a room, when you thought they wouldn't go inside, and then you find yourself there.
But when you start out, do you know how it's going to end? Did you know about the frog storm in "Magnolia?"
I did know that it would rain frogs, yes. I knew that when it got to the point when everything had built up, and every character had gotten to this point with emotion --
-- then it would rain frogs?
Right.
I'm interested, you have this dialogue throughout your movie that's great, but then how do you translate what you've written into something that's so visual?
Well ... I visualize as I'm writing. I know what the scenes are going to look like already, and I put them together as I write them. That's one good thing about being a writer-director.
So you write camera directions in the script?
The big ones, yeah. Other things I write down on another piece of paper, so I remember, and I write with specific locations in mind so then I know I can get that location.
And you also write with specific actors in mind, actors who you know you can get?
Yeah, definitely, most of them are my friends anyway, and it's great because it means I can show the script to the actors as I'm still writing, and I can get what they think about it and their input and maybe make changes so it really works well.
Now, you work with a lot of the same actors on each film. Do you think that fosters richer performances?
Oh, absolutely, definitely. There's really a healthy competition between them. It means they can throw each other curve balls and surprise each other, so it does add to what you have.
And what's the story with Tom Cruise ... He invited you to meet Stanley Kubrick?
Yeah, actually it was really great. I was in England to promote "Boogie Nights," and Tom Cruise loved "Boogie Nights," and of course he's in "Magnolia," but he invited me to the "Eyes Wide Shut" set ... (Me meeting with Kubrick) was only about 10 minutes, and they were filming a scene where Tom was just walking down the street. Kubrick had a really small crew, but I guess that's good, because it's having a small crew that allows you to film for two years.
So now that you're done with "Magnolia," what's next?
I don't know, I really don't know. Right now I'm just relaxing, really. There's not a lot. I'm playing around with some screenplay ideas.
Lennon?
No, actually, that's just a rumor that got started. I talked to somebody about it, but I never said I wanted to do it. I love John Lennon, but I don't want to make a movie about his life; there's no way I could do it justice.
When "Magnolia's" released on DVD, are you going to record a commentary track?
I don't think so. I think that when you've actually made a movie that you're really happy with and really proud of, then you should just shut up.
March 3, 2000
Film director Paul Thomas Anderson discusses Magnolia
(Editor's note: Nick Antosca, a student at Brunswick High School, was accepted to Yale University at age 16. He plans to graduate early, and then study writing and film at Yale. Recently he was given the opportunity to interview one of his favorite screenwriters and directors, Paul Thomas Anderson. That interview follows.)
"Magnolia," writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's third film after the acclaimed "Boogie Nights" and "Sydney" (studio title "Hard Eight"), opened to nationwide audiences on Jan. 7. It has since earned a Golden Globe for Tom Cruise and Best Film at the Toronto Film Festival among other awards, and three Academy Award nominations including Best Screenplay (Anderson) and Best Supporting Actor (Cruise).
Recently I spoke with Anderson on the phone from Los Angeles.
To start with a pretty general question, where did "Magnolia" come from? It's so dense and complex, what was your process, not just in writing it, but in imagining it?
I think maybe it's like my other two movies, in the sense that it's a combination of real life events, things that you hear about and read about, things that have happened to people I know, that have happened to me, and generally I mixed them up.
What parts are those that are taken from your life?
Well, I don't like to go too deeply into that. I think it's better to keep a sense of mystery about the thing. Many similar things have happened in real life, and that's where part of the movie comes from, with people dying, and with trying to fall in love, and it gets mixed in, and that's a fun kind of storytelling.
Speaking of mysteries, there are some in the movie. Who shoots at Reilly and who kidnaps that kid?
(Laughs) Well, I think it's something for the audience, it's a thing where they can form their own ideas, and there may not be an answer. I know I have an answer in my own mind for what happens.
How much revising and rearranging did you have to do with so many stories?
Well, not that much, really. I'm revising as I write. I wrote maybe three to four drafts of "Magnolia," but just in that first draft, it's maybe a hundred drafts, but then the one thing's changed so much that you just call it the first draft.
Do you plan or outline when you write?
Mostly, it's more that I'm just making it up as I go along. What I'll do is write some, maybe 20 pages, and think of where the story could go, then write it down on a piece of paper on the side, and hope that the story will get there on its own as it naturally develops; but sometimes you surprise yourself. Sometimes a character goes left when you thought it would go right. Sometimes a character goes inside a room, when you thought they wouldn't go inside, and then you find yourself there.
But when you start out, do you know how it's going to end? Did you know about the frog storm in "Magnolia?"
I did know that it would rain frogs, yes. I knew that when it got to the point when everything had built up, and every character had gotten to this point with emotion --
-- then it would rain frogs?
Right.
I'm interested, you have this dialogue throughout your movie that's great, but then how do you translate what you've written into something that's so visual?
Well ... I visualize as I'm writing. I know what the scenes are going to look like already, and I put them together as I write them. That's one good thing about being a writer-director.
So you write camera directions in the script?
The big ones, yeah. Other things I write down on another piece of paper, so I remember, and I write with specific locations in mind so then I know I can get that location.
And you also write with specific actors in mind, actors who you know you can get?
Yeah, definitely, most of them are my friends anyway, and it's great because it means I can show the script to the actors as I'm still writing, and I can get what they think about it and their input and maybe make changes so it really works well.
Now, you work with a lot of the same actors on each film. Do you think that fosters richer performances?
Oh, absolutely, definitely. There's really a healthy competition between them. It means they can throw each other curve balls and surprise each other, so it does add to what you have.
And what's the story with Tom Cruise ... He invited you to meet Stanley Kubrick?
Yeah, actually it was really great. I was in England to promote "Boogie Nights," and Tom Cruise loved "Boogie Nights," and of course he's in "Magnolia," but he invited me to the "Eyes Wide Shut" set ... (Me meeting with Kubrick) was only about 10 minutes, and they were filming a scene where Tom was just walking down the street. Kubrick had a really small crew, but I guess that's good, because it's having a small crew that allows you to film for two years.
So now that you're done with "Magnolia," what's next?
I don't know, I really don't know. Right now I'm just relaxing, really. There's not a lot. I'm playing around with some screenplay ideas.
Lennon?
No, actually, that's just a rumor that got started. I talked to somebody about it, but I never said I wanted to do it. I love John Lennon, but I don't want to make a movie about his life; there's no way I could do it justice.
When "Magnolia's" released on DVD, are you going to record a commentary track?
I don't think so. I think that when you've actually made a movie that you're really happy with and really proud of, then you should just shut up.
Wednesday, 1 March 2000
March 1, 2000
Archived update from Cigarettes & Coffee, run by Greg Mariotti & CJ Wallis from 1999-2005
I'm back today with a large update and some great news if you are an aspiring screenwriter or live in the L.A. area and want to see Paul Thomas Anderson in person! He will be a featured speaker at the 6th Annual From Concept to Sale Conference where you can rub elbows with PTA, Frank Darabont (Shawshank, Green Mile), Kevin Smith (Chasing Amy, Dogma) & more! The conference will be at the Bel Age Hotel in L.A. from March 17th - 19th. You can go here for all the details and registration information.In other PTA news, east coast fans will get a rare chance to see Hard Eight (Along with Mamet's House of Games) on the big screen, as it will be featured March 16th at the NEO-NOIR: A selection of 61 35mm films inspired by film noir. The address is Film Forum, 209 W. Houston St., Manhattan, New York. Call (212) 727-8110 or check out their website for more information.According to a tidbit in NY Magazine, Paul will return to write/direct some additional material for Saturday Night Live on March 11th (Thanks Michael Schneider). Magnolia has received four nominations in the Sixth Annual Chlotrudis Awards (Best Picture, Director, Cinematography (Elswit) & Supporting Actor (Hoffman). Chlotrudis Awards is a non-profit organization that honors, supports and educates about independent and non-mainstream film. This Awards Ceremony will be held on April 8 at the Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, MA. Find more information and vote for this year's Chlotrudis Awards on their website.Finally, I have added some new content to the Magnolia Page & uploaded Version 1.0 of the Boogie Nights Page of the Multimedia Section. In addition, I have updated the Magnolia Awards Page, Magnolia Box Office Page & new articles and interviews to check out. I'll be back on Flashback Friday!
Interview: PTA Talks to His Email Group
PTA Talks to His Email Group, Written By Jared Irmas
March 2000
PTA recently answered some questions for Jared Irmas, the manager of the PTA email/mailing list. Here is the Q & A.
In Sydney, Jimmy tells Sydney that he knows about Sydney's friends: Floyd Gondoli, Jimmy Gator, and Mumbles O'Malley. Phillip Baker Hall has since played Floyd Gondoli & Jimmy Gator. Any chance of seeing him play Mumbles O'Malley in your next film?
Could be. Could be.
Is there any connection to the Sydney in Sydney and the Sydney Phillip Baker Hall played in Midnight Run?
Pure Sub-conscious.
Could you tell us a little more what it was like to meet Kubrick. We know about the small crew story but did you two talk anymore? Had he seen Boogie Nights?
Yes, He'd seen Boogie Nights and he liked it very much. He liked the fact that I was a writer director and commented that more filmmakers should write and direct. He said he liked Woody Allen and David Mamet and mentioned House of Games and Husbands and Wives --interesting how similar they are to Eyes Wide Shut.
While on the subject of Kubrick, how intentional was the shot in Magnolia when the 2001 theme starts to play, it was identical to one of the last shots in 2001 when Dave Bowman is on his death/rebirth bed?
It was accidentally intentional after the fact.
In your commentary for Michael Penn's Try, you say the man in the purple suit closing the studio door with 9 on it is a tribute to Burt Reynolds. How?
There's an interview with Burt from Good Morning America. It's very hard to describe -- it's insane. He wears a purple suit and he speaks about "9" It's hard to describe.
On the new Boogie Nights DVD, we know we'll get a chance to see some more scenes, but will you also include the incredibly hysterical and enjoyable commentary you and the actors did for Criterion Collection? Will the original DVD commentary also be on the new DVD? Any more info you can give us on the new DVD?
The Criterion commentary plus new people will be there.
In Cigarettes and Coffee, you deal with themes brought up in Sydney (family ties and relationships) and Magnolia (coincidence and chance). How long has Magnolia been in your system?
I suppose Magnolia has been in my system for 29 years.
Have you been given permission by Jonathan Demme to tell us any more about your joint effort?
No.
How are you planning to use Adam Sandler?
I plan on using Adam Sandler in all his wonderful Adam Sandler glory. He makes me laugh. I think he's a genius. Please get the Best of Adam Sandler on SNL DVD.
The sound mix is very layered in Magnolia, especially in the prologue (machine guns, old records, jump rope chants). What were some of the decisions that led up to the unique sound and sound effects.
The ideas for the track were inspired by The Beatles Number Nine as well as the minds and libraries of noises from Mr. Jon Brion and Fiona Apple.
In the poster for Hard Eight, there are two dices, each with four on them. That makes 8 dots. 2 of the dots are shaded in. (8:2). Is this a matter of chance or do these strange things happen all the time?
These strange things happen all the time -- I had nothing to do with the first hard eight poster and only a bit with the second -- I don't mind the second poster that's on the DVD.
What advice can you give to a young filmmaker/movie buff like myself?
Write. Write. Write. Even when it sucks. Write. Write. Write. Set aside special alone time and write. write. write.
March 2000
PTA recently answered some questions for Jared Irmas, the manager of the PTA email/mailing list. Here is the Q & A.
In Sydney, Jimmy tells Sydney that he knows about Sydney's friends: Floyd Gondoli, Jimmy Gator, and Mumbles O'Malley. Phillip Baker Hall has since played Floyd Gondoli & Jimmy Gator. Any chance of seeing him play Mumbles O'Malley in your next film?
Could be. Could be.
Is there any connection to the Sydney in Sydney and the Sydney Phillip Baker Hall played in Midnight Run?
Pure Sub-conscious.
Could you tell us a little more what it was like to meet Kubrick. We know about the small crew story but did you two talk anymore? Had he seen Boogie Nights?
Yes, He'd seen Boogie Nights and he liked it very much. He liked the fact that I was a writer director and commented that more filmmakers should write and direct. He said he liked Woody Allen and David Mamet and mentioned House of Games and Husbands and Wives --interesting how similar they are to Eyes Wide Shut.
While on the subject of Kubrick, how intentional was the shot in Magnolia when the 2001 theme starts to play, it was identical to one of the last shots in 2001 when Dave Bowman is on his death/rebirth bed?
It was accidentally intentional after the fact.
In your commentary for Michael Penn's Try, you say the man in the purple suit closing the studio door with 9 on it is a tribute to Burt Reynolds. How?
There's an interview with Burt from Good Morning America. It's very hard to describe -- it's insane. He wears a purple suit and he speaks about "9" It's hard to describe.
On the new Boogie Nights DVD, we know we'll get a chance to see some more scenes, but will you also include the incredibly hysterical and enjoyable commentary you and the actors did for Criterion Collection? Will the original DVD commentary also be on the new DVD? Any more info you can give us on the new DVD?
The Criterion commentary plus new people will be there.
In Cigarettes and Coffee, you deal with themes brought up in Sydney (family ties and relationships) and Magnolia (coincidence and chance). How long has Magnolia been in your system?
I suppose Magnolia has been in my system for 29 years.
Have you been given permission by Jonathan Demme to tell us any more about your joint effort?
No.
How are you planning to use Adam Sandler?
I plan on using Adam Sandler in all his wonderful Adam Sandler glory. He makes me laugh. I think he's a genius. Please get the Best of Adam Sandler on SNL DVD.
The sound mix is very layered in Magnolia, especially in the prologue (machine guns, old records, jump rope chants). What were some of the decisions that led up to the unique sound and sound effects.
The ideas for the track were inspired by The Beatles Number Nine as well as the minds and libraries of noises from Mr. Jon Brion and Fiona Apple.
In the poster for Hard Eight, there are two dices, each with four on them. That makes 8 dots. 2 of the dots are shaded in. (8:2). Is this a matter of chance or do these strange things happen all the time?
These strange things happen all the time -- I had nothing to do with the first hard eight poster and only a bit with the second -- I don't mind the second poster that's on the DVD.
What advice can you give to a young filmmaker/movie buff like myself?
Write. Write. Write. Even when it sucks. Write. Write. Write. Set aside special alone time and write. write. write.