Twenty bucks. I’ve put it off for a while, but it’s time to just
cough it up and get Magnolia on DVD already. My VHS copy is,
officially, dead; vague and wheezy, it’s been watched into oblivion.
When I first saw Magnolia at age 19, the experience was nothing
short of revelatory; watching it yet again last weekend, I realized how
massively writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s film has impacted me
ever since.
Screening all of Anderson’s feature-length films in order was
something I’d never done, but in anticipation of his latest, There
Will Be Blood, I started with Hard Eight (1996), then hit
Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), and Punch-Drunk
Love (2002). The underappreciated Hard Eight is a hell of a
start: Tight and sharp, it’s half low-fi character study and half
modern noir, and it introduced us to one of Anderson’s chief
talents—getting incredible performances out of anyone he casts.
Boogie Nights is weird, though—while it’s Anderson’s worst
feature, it’d be the highlight of almost any other director’s career.
Exhilarating and terrifying, it’s a sprawling, stylized portrait of
America’s ’70s and ’80s, told through intersecting lenses of
pornography and failure. Here Anderson’s pushing himself, and it’s
stunning, but the depth and grace he’d later demonstrate in
Magnolia leaves Boogie Nights in the dust. Bold and
devastating, Magnolia accomplishes nothing less than using an
ensemble of has-beens to sum up the entirety of modern existence.
(Plus, there’s that plague of frogs.) And then there’s Punch-Drunk
Love, which harkens back to Hard Eight‘s streamlined
narrative: Intense, beautiful, and creepy, Punch-Drunk‘s also an
unapologetic and hilarious romantic comedy.
The extent to which Anderson’s films—all of them gorgeous,
unique, and harrowing—have changed American cinema is huge. But
I’m selfish: I’m more concerned with how they’ve changed me, and my
thoughts about film, music, and life. Ever since I first saw
Magnolia, I’ve come to anticipate two things: The next Paul
Thomas Anderson picture, and the possibility, however remote, of frogs
suddenly falling from the sky. One of those things is now here.
