What makes a Paul Thomas Anderson movie a Paul Thomas Anderson movie? Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, Magnolia--his filmography contains some of the most well regarded films of all time. This feature length documentary explores 8 of the 9 films in his filmography, both individually and in the context of his entire body of work to see how he has evolved as an artist and to better understand the techniques and stylistic trademarks of an American auteur. It took a tremendous amount of work and research. Enjoy.
The MCU's Consequence Problem: • Marvel's Consequence P...
Sources (in order of appearance):
Norm Macdonald Has a Show: S1E7
PTA Production Assistant 1992: • Paul Thomas Anderson P...
GDT and Coen Brothers: • The First Hundred Feet...
PTA on Sydney/Hard Eight: • pta on sydney/hard eight
PTA on Boogie Nights: • Paul Thomas Anderson i...
Goodfellas at 25: www.esquire.com/uk/culture/fi...
Steve James on Nashville: • Under the Influence: S...
Roger Ebert on Magnolia: • Magnolia - Roger Ebert
Marc Maron PTA Interview: • WTF with Marc Maron - ...
Behind the Scenes Magnolia: • That Moment - The Maki...
Adam Nayman on Adam Sandler: • Adam Sandler Deserves ...
Robert Elswit on PTA: • Robert Elswit on There...
Pudding Airline Miles: • "The Pudding Guy" Davi...
Quentin Tarantino on TWBB: • Quentin Tarantino on T...
PTA with Henry Rollins: • pta on the henry rolli...
DDL and PTA interview TWBB: • There Will Be Blood - ...
PTA The Master interview: • Academy Conversations:...
Mark Normand joke: • Mark Normand acts like...
PTA on Film School: • pta on film school
PTA, Haim, Hoffman on Licorice Pizza: • Licorice Pizza - Paul ...
Timestamps:
0:00 PREFACE
1:37 THE DEBUT
14:32 THE PROCLAMATION
30:08 GRIEF AND MEANING
44:35 LOVE
54:05 THE CROSSROADS
1:06:15 THE MASTER
1:11:54 CRAFT AND CIRCUMSTANCE
1:25:04 RECAPTURED YOUTH
1:39:17 END
1:40:05 CREDITS
I couldn't cover everything, obviously, but this is as definitive a retrospective I could make given the limitations of KZhead and the desire to have a normal full length documentary runtime as opposed to a 15 hour behemoth. I hope you guys enjoy and learn something from it, even if you're a huge PTA fan. I gathered all the interview footage available...there's a lot of gold in here including a great clip from Norm (RIP) and M Night. All sources are in the description. Enjoy. XO.
Great work, man
okay I love PTA and you hit all the right notes. Now talk about Quentin Depieux and Rubber. I mean Incredible Violence is worth a mention, but Rubber is definitely a statement on film and the medium beginning with the outright audacity to say the introduction to Magnolia is BS hahahaha. and the directors experimental deconstructionist meta filmmaking is interesting anyway he's doing something with it.
Kudos. Really well done. Apt in analysis and insights.
This is excellent. Everyone knows it.
@@NormanFinkelstein9863 very kind of you to say thank you
A doc about PTA that starts with Norm Macdonald? Hell yeah!! 🤙
Does it start there?? I thought we went right into Hard Eight. Will start at the beginning, again🥳
Watching Magnolia for the first time was truly a revelation for me.
Great film!!!
I just think it’s amazing that he could bag Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samuel L Jackson and Gywneth Paltrow in his FIRST feature, before the age of 27.
YES!! Just goes to show that what actors really want are great roles, once they can easily pay the bills!!
Don’t forget John C. Reilly who might be the best actor of the bunch… certainly the most under appreciated. Double don’t forget that none these actors were who they would become at the time. They were all working in independent films and none of them except Sam had yet featured in a hit film, but Sam has always done any script that he likes and you can see why he might like it.
And he had to buy that film back from the distributor to re- cut it.
"There Will Be Blood'!Getting Daniel Day Lewis.for 1/&'Inherint Vice.w/-'Joaquim Phoenix..Boogie Nights..Wish this mutha Would Let The Story Unfold.incessant Blathering..just kills it..insulting.like this or any of these Trollers..Are 100%.Accurate..!like a fine wine let it breath...you could learn this but too l8..fkin no allz Its terrible as it breaks up evrything..diplaces..just fk off.learn from the Others in the rest of the world.."Too Stupid to Admit it"..your legacy son."oh its 'P.T"..mi gawd..you lot are fking any hope..right up..idiot
He was 23 btw
The coolest part of this is that it’s the legend Norm Macdonald getting an insightful answer out of Shaymalan to start it off. That sets the tone and immediately I’m in. Rest up Norm my boy 🙏
exactly what i was going for...it was a great interview, one of the best on that show, which i really enjoyed overall
@@EricRossReel Hell yea! Nicely done!
As a huge PTA fan, this video is definitely the best summation of his work. Very well done!!
you dropped this 👑
Really enjoyed you letting the some of the greats talk about there will be blood because there’s not much you can say that hasn’t already been said. The film really is one of a kind.
That Normand bit caught me off guard and was perfectly timed. Thank you for this! You did a great job
For all his seriousness, the thing that warms me to Anderson the most is his humour. He's one funny guy, as was his old man. One of the funniest clips of Anderson is him speaking to Chris Nolan at a Q and A for Phantom Thread. Nolan, it turns out, is a huge fan and he had his family sit and watch Phantom Thread with him at home. The delight on Anderson's face when Nolan tells him his family have taken to calling him 'Mr Woodcock' when he gets dictorial at home! 'Son, will you please clean your room before I lose my patience?!'. 'Yes Mr Woodcock, right away Mr Woodcock!'. That's pretty funny!
loved that moment
Aanderson is a hoot in all honesty. He's great on the Marc Moran podcast (the story of his dad and Tim Conway dressing up as Mummies one haloween is a classic!) , but my favorite is his conversation with British comic Adam Buxton. Adam has Anderson in stitches at times. Anderson is one of the least pretentious artists that has ever lived! @@EricRossReel
An hour and forty one minutes just went by swiftly… truly enjoyed and loved it.
Great video of one of the most inspiring filmmakers today !!! I love seeing the variety in his work and how he continues to evolve
Brilliantly researched, written, directed, and presented. Well done!
Why isnt inherent vice mentioned? It's actually my favorite film
This was wonderful. I appreciate all the hard work you put into making this happen.
There Will be Blood is the greatest movie of all time, for me. Smart to just let the players do the talking, here. That PTA followed it up with The Master, which is almost as great (or maybe as great?), is incredible.
Appreciate you noticing that... The Master is tricky--a few commenters have criticized that section because they felt like I didn't say enough or enough interesting things. The two problems I had with it are: 1. every time I watch it I think about it completely differently so it's hard to commit . 2. i was trying to vary up the information and not just doing influences, shot choice, aesthetic etc. every time. got more into what things mean later id like to revisit it later when i feel like i've settled on it. watching it for the project was probably the fifth time i'd seen it and im still undecided
@@EricRossReel I hear you on The Master. I remember the first time I saw it, I didn't know how to feel. My expectations were so high from There will be Blood, which is such a hard hitting, pretty well defined (themes/emotions, narrative cause and effect) that I felt a bit let down. But the more I watched it, the more I appreciated it. Now, I love it, though it is definitely a difficult movie to talk about. I still don't fully understand their relationship in it, or even the true emotion behind the song he sings him at the end. But the performances, the directing, the aesthetics - are all perfect, and definitely easier (and less interesting) to talk about for The Master. Honestly, you did as good a job discussing the film as anyone has that I've seen.
@@lukewilliam3601 I've probably watched The Master about the same number of times. For me, it's peak PTA and peak PSH. Thinking about it now, it's both the obvious father/son story and one of PTA's great romances, albeit a tragic one. PTA's best romance is probably Phantom Thread and plot devices of it, are hiding in plain sight in The Master: the struggle between the main characters for control and the "less powerful" character poisoning the other, balancing that power struggle. Also, a string of violence and anger pulled taut just below the surface of love and courtship. (That's in Punch Drunk Love too). Marc Maron is right, they should just kiss already. My interpretation is they are straight, so they can't/won't. And maybe more importantly, Dodd can't walk away from his power, or his marriage which Freddy will surely undo. To have Quill, Dodd has to control him, but Freddy can't be controlled, (and Freddy wouldn't be Freddy if anyone did control him). So Lancaster has to "quit Freddy" as it were. Anyway, is there anything better than these outtakes of Phil and Joaquin smoking together: kzhead.info/sun/it1tpc2DaqOefWg/bejne.htmlsi=yDt9KETMNml55UtE
This is a tremendous analysis of the work of my favorite filmmaker. One of the best film essays I've seen in a long time. I'd be fascinated by to see your read on the films of Charlie Kaufman. This is wildly underrated channel. I'll be directing people to this doc for a long time to come. Excellent, excellent work, man.
appreciate it very much. i'd have to really do a deep dive. most essays, like this one, are the product of me considering the topic for years.
@@EricRossReel It shows.
I subbed I’ll be waiting for the next one take ur time
Hard eight is one of the most underrated films ever!
I just discovered your channel and this incredibly insightful deep dive into PTA's films. Thank you so much for articulating the artistic vision of a master. I would also love to see the director's cut of Magnolia at this point of his life.
appreciate the comment that means a lot...I would also like to see that
20:26 that is some INSANE attention to detail I never would’ve noticed 😂
3 minutes in and I know I'll appreciate this video. I love PTA's versatility, and I think all of his movies are great, yet There will be blood stands out to me, as a great work of art.
This was really great! Thank you for putting it together
Absolutely brilliant piece of work here. Well done. Loved that you said absolutely nothing about TWBB. What else is there to say about that which hasn’t been said already. Could watch this over and over. Wow.
Eric i just want to say you did an amazing job with the narrative and editing. Like most people commenting here, I'm a fan of anything PTA makes. To be honest I totally forgot about "Inherent Vice" and did not miss it at all from your program. I've seen it once and found it to be forgettable. I'll now have to watch the other videos you have made. Looking forward to seeing more videos from you. And yes I do understand how much work it is to make these film commentaries.
This was an excellent watch, Boogie nights was my first PTA, which I loved, I then went to Hard Eight and loved the melancholy tone, he’s a genius in my humble opinion.
You're a saint for making this. Thank you. I hope Paul sees it.
i love the "please don't put a bullet in me" monologue from Hard Eight.
"Kiss me, my girl, before I'm sick" is one of my favourite lines ever. Also the musical transition from The Master to Craft and Circumstance was fantastic.
I kinda wish it was the last line to be honest. It would be up there with the best Anderson closing lines, my personal favorite being Freddy telling the English girl to 'stick it back in, it fell out' at the end of The Master.
I wish it had been the last line to be honest. It would be up there with 'I'm finished' and 'Now stick it back in, it fell out' as one of the great closing lines in cinema!
whoever did the closed captioning here is superb. you can tell it was an actual human.
I did it myself--it was a pain in the ass adjusting everything but I wanted to make sure it was right. That means so much to hear it paid off ty
Thank you for all the work you put in. I can’t imagine how much must have gone into this.
@@songsforstudents 😊
Now do one on just Inherent Vice
please
Fantastic video fella! Bravo and can't wait to see more!😀😀
Well I thoroughly enjoyed watching this video essay. Thanks for putting in the work, this is very well made.
Appreciate it, glad you enjoyed
Well done. I hope you do more career breakdowns like this. I love the pacing and attention to detail. Inspiring stuff!
Maybe. I had a window of time that I could work on it with no distractions for 2 months or so. And I already had an intimate knowledge of his filmography and a rough idea of where I wanted to go with it. There's a few filmmakers I would consider talking about but he's my guy and that was a nice set of circumstances. Appreciate it...will continue to make essays as they naturally present themselves to me
@@EricRossReel Either way you’ve got a subscriber here. Can’t wait to see what you do next!
I was a Californian in Florida in 1997. I went to see Boogie Nights. Aside from how mind-blowing it was, it made me so homesick. Backyard pool parties... surrounded by sundrenched oleander.... sweet, true, and vapid conversations over margaritas. No director comes close to evoking California's vibe.
Great job on this! Keep up the good work. Thanks for making this
EXCELLENT video man. Keep up the good work!
I think the BTS doc of Magnolia (That Moment) is a quality watch. Not just watching PTA display his writing/directing process during that time but a great view on how he interacts with Actors n why they seem to gravitate towards him out the gate.
Yeah it is...its also where you can see that the young PTA could have really used the older and wiser PTA's advice from that Maron clip "just chill out"
If you can't be flash when you are young, when can you be?! It's the lack of 'chill that makes Magnolia so special for me. It may be Anderson showing off, but it all ends up on the screen. I have even heard Anderson say he feels Magnolia is the best thig he has made! @@EricRossReel
this video and your channel is criminally underrated!! keep up man!!!!
appreciate it!
Love PTA style of film. I live in the San Fernando Valley so its cool to see so many local places in his films
What an incredible insight into his work! Some didn't like Inherent Vice. For me Punch Drunk Love was the PTA film I barely got through. It was amazing seeing Boogie Nights in the theater in early 1998. Magnolia was the only film I've been to where I talked with strangers for 20 minutes in the lobby afterwards about what the movie meant. I've seen many films and PTA is one of my favorite filmmakers. Thank you!
Appreciate it
Personally I didn't care too much for Inherent Vice. I love The Master, it's one of my favorite films but my problem with Inherent vice is that it didn't really make any sense to me at all, I just watch it the whole time confused as to what was even going on
thats the great thing about it. You can watch 50 times and still be entertained by it because it is deliberately trying to confuse you and hide the truth from you by feeding you just tiny bits of information.
Inherent Vice and The Master are my least favourite PTA films. Maybe one day i will find a different appreciation for them.
That is kind of the point. Bare in mind we are viewing the story from the perspective of a grief stricken hippie, a man who is high off something or other throughout the movie! Some stuff is happening, some is in Doc's head. @@StonedCabbage
I thoroughly enjoyed this career analysis & overview. Well done.
30 minutes in and im surprised you dont have more subscribers and that this vid doesnt habe hundreds of thousands of views. Great video, man. Keep it up.
Fantastic work, Eric. Thank you for posting this.
cheers
was not expecting that Mark Normand audio lmao. great video sir, you have a keen eye.
check out mark normand's Kramer bit........it's hilarious
wow...thank you so much for this. I just realised I have to see some of his movies again real soon and complete watching his whole ouevre. I kinda forgot what an insanely good writer/director he is. And I have to confess I did not know abot Hard Eight at all.
How does this channel not get more attention? Great video!
How cool that both P.T.A. and Tarantino are both on their 10th film. What a time to be alive.
Such a lovely film man, I cruised right through it... Thanks so much for putting these together
❤
I love that long shot of Wahlberg during the Alfred Molina scene in Boogie Nights. I remember marveling at what an interesting and bold choice it was ..upending the expectation in that the climax of toe curling tension was a moment of near stillness.. watching mainstream movies you can forget that that kind of departure from the norm is possible.. PTA is the GOAT
Excellent video, thank you for putting all the hard work into it. I'm greedy and wish there was an extra half an hour to also discuss inherent vice 😅❤
Thank you for your tremendous work, I adore PTA
incredible watch. thank you
My favorite PTA movies are Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood, The soundtrack in There Will Be Blood is so fucking haunting, it’s a musical master-class
Great video and amazing to realise that you're the same creator who made the Obey Smite video back in the day, probably the best esports doc I've ever seen, keep making great stuff
lmao that's a throwback.. cheers . very kind thank you
That first movie was amazingly good.. what’s funny is how I actually put that film on in the family living room.. just a few months before my dad got hired to be the location manager for Punch Drunk Love! I was this close to driving around in the car on those location scouts .. but I couldn’t get out of school.. still one of the biggest and most lamentable missed opportunities of my entire life lol Although.. I got to be an extra.. in the airport scene :)
This is fantastic. Well done
GREAT ESSAYS! UNBELIEVABLY INTERESTING! KEEP DOIN DUDE!!!!
This was seriously spectacular
This is an excellent film essay about PT Anderson, but I'm compelled to point out that the industry transition in Boogie Nights was from film to VHS, not digital. Loved this video.
Good catch thank you for clarifying
Great video man, well done.
@SpiffBenevolent Great retrospective. It had the same effect on me as Matt Zoller Seitz’ overview of Wes Anderson in that I now want to immediately re-watch all of his films.
I shouldn’t have started this at 3:30AM. Great doc
lol get some sleep
A friend sent me this at 3:30 am. PTA is my favorite
I really love Phantom Thread and think Vicky Krieps is incredible in it.
And it is fair to say Paul Thomas Anderson did not get to where he is as a writer/director because of his famous late father Ernie Anderson, the promo announcer for ABC since the 1960s. The elder Anderson was not a director and there was no sign of nepotism. He carved his own career path. 6:45 the final theatrical appearance of the man himself right in front of John C. Reilly in line.
amazing work, congratulations
Excellent. Thoroughly enjoyed
Dodd sees Freddie as a specimen for study and later a beloved pet. Freddie represents all of the primal behavior of humans unencumbered by the self-awareness most people have to resist their urges and is therefore the most raw representation of what Dodd would like to cure in the human psyche.
Great review!
Thank you! This is really great!
Well done, this was great.
You are really good at this. Please keep going.
I also found Phantom Thread to be a romantic comedy. I laughed at so much subtle comedy while the rest of the theater didn't seem to get it. The beauty of poisoning him and the burlesque of the protagonist balancing the heavy woman customer up the stairs seemed very compatible .
The Sidney character from "Hard Eight" is an imagined expansion inspired by the the supporting character of the same name that Philip Baker Hall played in writer George Gallo and director Martin Breast's "Midnight Run". Also as another fun aside, DDL's Daniel Plainview performance is totally evoking director John Houston's voice and mannerisms. Only Norm MacDonald ever bothered publically noticing that blatant fact for some reason.
I remember watching there will be blood and thinking to myself he sounds just like the evil Noah cross from Chinatown 😮 especially the way he uses his jaw movement. Anyway I think Mr. Anderson is a bloody genius filmmaker 👏❣️
Roger Ebert mentioned it in his original review of There Will Be Blood
@@henn863 I'm surprised Ebert ever said anything of any interest ever.
this great!!! well done
Good work! Thank you. 😀
Great work, thank you! I just regret the absence of 'Inherent Vice'.
The drug deal gone wrong scene in boogie nights is one of the best ever.
Alfred Molina dude! What a great performance!
@@davidlean1060 yes! All topped off with the Asian dude throwing firecrackers randomly just ruining Dirk and the boy's nerves.
Tom Cruise in Magnolia, in 1999, isn’t a surprise. You got to remember that Tom Cruise in ‘99 isn’t the action guy he’s known as now yet...despite having done Top Gun back in ‘86. In the ‘90s he’s mostly still known for dramas. He’s the guy from Rain Man, Risky Business, The Firm, A Few Good Men, Interview with the Vampire, and the recent Jerry Maguire. You had HBO in the ‘90s and your probably watching Born on the Fourth of July alongside Boogie Nights. Like, sure, he’d done Mission: Impossible a few years beforehand; but even that Brian De Palma movie isn’t what Mission: Impossible will become. Also, behind Tarantino, coming off Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the hottest directors in Hollywood at the time. And Cruise is practically collecting hot directors at this moment...he’s in a Stanley Kubrick movie right before (technically the same year) Magnolia comes out. Cruise doesn’t really fall back into being action movie star Tom Cruise until the 2010s.
that's fair about action roles not truly defining him at this period, it's still against type though. look at what those roles are and how he's presented ...PTA himself at the time talks about intentionally undercutting his defined on screen persona , which ultimately makes it a surprise role in an ensemble cast: kzhead.info/sun/jMakg9SHjYKCeKM/bejne.htmlsi=YiSK5C07RUGlVOn7&t=42
Wow insane amount of detail covered in this doc, but really, was PTA over thinking every shot or was he more fluid making decisions on the fly. Was he working with his feel and the choices came out in in the editing room. I agree with the flowing camera movements, very well thought out, but there is room for movement here, he is fluid and that is were magic happens. This doc can fear you into thinking he is an intellectual perfectionist. Loved Liquorice Pizza, you cant see films like that anymore!
Very well done, but would have been much better if you hadn't simply left out Inherent Vice. It's one of his best films, at a minimum clearly a better and more mature film than Hard Eight, Boogie Nights and even Magnolia. Despite the fact that it's based on a Pynchon novel, its very, very PTA. Hope you will consider producing an updated version and adding that, it would make this already important document essential.
Great video, I think The Master is my favourite work, would have liked more depth with that film!
might revisit at some point, i find it hard to wrap my hands around it without hitting the obvious that everyone else has already said about it ..between that and walking away with a very different view on every rewatch and it being in the backhalf i left it shorter than i'd have liked to. victim of circumstance
There are certain verbal motifs that repeat over and over in Magnolia also. "Know" and "do" from One Is The Loneliest Number. Not to mention the Beatles "Hello"-- "go go go" and "hello hello hello". The music bubbles up in the dialogue and themes, although I don't think "Hello" is even in the movie. I always thought that was super cool and no one ever mentions it. ("Telling" comes up again and again, a word that is repeated multiple times in The Logical Song. There are others I can't remember.) "These strange things happen all the time."
If I can say something about him is that I can be mathematically sure that a film by him is at least a good film, something I can enjoy not only with my "guts" but also with my mind, and something I will remember at least ten yars from now.
Great video! You should have more subscribers
This is at LEAST on par with the work of Rob Ager, and that’s as high a compliment as I can give in this analysis sphere. Just outstanding. “Magnolia” is a great acid test I use before I’ll engage seriously in flick talk w anyone. [“Mc-COB & Ms. Miller”? “Jason Roberts”? 🤓✌️] P.S. Paul & I used to use the same video store & coffee shop. Very chatty, cool cat (back then). He’s my Valley Boy kindred spirit. 🤩🤟
Why was I.V. left out. So much to say. ESPECIALLY considering he Vineland rumors.
Good video but I'm curious why you left out Inherent Vice in your essay. Did you forget about it. Are you going to cover the many great music videos he directed as well
great video
thanks!
I loved your documentary. The quality and pacing were phenomenal. I do have a question though: Do you know why Craft and Circumstance is not available to purchase, rent, or stream? I've seen all of Paul Thomas Anderson's films, love them all. Again, great job, perfect editing and lovely pace!
Appreciate it...the film you're looking for is Phantom Thread, craft and circumstance is just what i titled that section. You are in for a treat with that one!
Thank you so much. Wow, did I mess that one up. Thanks for the feedback. Appreciated! @@EricRossReel
I love the writing in his films. Like how Dirk Diggler describes his polyester disco shirt. Lol 😂
"Imported Italian Nylon" is a great pickup line... on someone who gets it.
PTA will be remembered as one of the greatest filmmakers in history.
BOOGIE NIGHTS is one of my alltime favourite movies !!! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Great work dude! Awesome documentary. One funny point is how f-bombs are beeped out but two different c-bombs are left in lol.
oops lol , i think at the time there was some uproar about youtube cracking down on cursing or something , i remember being conscious of it
What is the name of the music playing at 13m 40s please? It's a jazzy drum track, so good 👌 Thank you!
A good friend of mine does most of the music I use on the channel. That sample he used specifically is from a game called Red Strings Club...great game. Check out my friend's other stuff if you want: kzhead.info/sun/dpiRZsWAkIuMeo0/bejne.html
“(Phantom Thread) is the only pta film to not take place in California.” As far as I know, the entirety of Hard Eight is set in Nevada.
Congrats!!!!! You are the first person to mention this..that's one of three: "Also as a side note, there's three things in the essay that I completely made up and or lied about and I've been waiting for someone to mention even one of them lmao. I had intended to give someone a prize for finding them but no one has noticed at all. Oops"
@@EricRossReel Haha not sure if that was sarcasm since I admittedly didn't read all of the comments but doesn't read like it. Would be a clever way to get someone to watch the entire video over to find all three. Might bite and do just that :)
@@paunchcoorlightly4000 I'm being serious-- there were three things I put in wondering if someone would catch. The other two are more just made up facts or anecdotes. Go to my channel, click about then shoot me an email at that address
@@EricRossReel Is one of the three lies your pronunciation of Jason Robards' name?
you just gained yourself a subscriber
great video but where is Inherent Vice?
Hard Eight is hugely underrated and my favorite PTA film after TWBB.
It's a wonderful movie..Philip Baker Hall gets to shine
Really great video. Didn’t he make Inherent Vice as well?
yes
his genius escapes me......