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Paul Thomas Anderson's best films, from his 1997 porn elegy Boogie Nights to last year's psychedelic adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice, rank among the most important major releases of the past 20 years. Even relative misfires like the chaos of Magnolia and the Adam Sandler-ness of Punch-Drunk Love maintain passionate defenders. His seven features intermingle with 14 influences ranging from the obvious (Altman's SoCal mosaic Short Cuts) to truly deep cuts (Robert Downey Sr.'s Putney Swope) for NW Film Center's six-week Anderson retrospective.
Even though he's confessed outright to borrowing the "money shot" of I Am Cuba for Boogie Nights' pool party, Anderson's movies always feel intensely individual. The closest his works come to a unifying thread is their richly textured protagonists, instantly recognizable yet utterly new. His six-ish gems follow a succession of off-kilter aspirants burdened by familial baggage and always chasing tomorrow's dream.
Here are our suggestions for the best character pairings in the lineup. Some seem cut from the same cloth. Some are disparate souls consumed by similar passions. Some just feel like the sorta guys who'd share a bottle. Anderson's most compelling characters are men who soldier onward through manly bluster and regret. There will be brooding.
Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) in Punch-Drunk Love (2002) and Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) in Strangers on a Train: Technically, they're polar opposites. Barry, emotionally crippled by his seven sisters' overbearing intervention, has collapsed inside himself as a quaking bruise of rage. Robert Walker's dandy, Bruno, on the other hand, seems overly feminine to compensate for the damage wrought by his hated father. Well before Barry unleashes his psychotic bouts of violence or Bruno begins his murder spree, both their performances suggest the Hulk and the Joker are more frightening without makeup.
Larry Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) in Inherent Vice and Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) in The Big Sleep: How to adapt a beloved novel faithfully with gorgeous surroundings, clever asides and a hero committed to his pose of withdrawn cool? Paul Thomas Anderson may care less for love than any major director since Kubrick, but effortlessly capturing both egotists' shock at discovering another person's allure, he knows old movie romance.
Eddie "Dirk Diggler" Adams (Mark Wahlberg) in Boogie Nights and Melvin Dummar (Paul Le Mat) in Melvin and Howard: While The Master directly apes Melvin and Howard's opening scene of Howard Hughes speeding on a motorcycle through Nevada salt flats, Anderson's signature character best resembles Hughes' road-trip companion, Melvin. Based on an actual '70s demi-icon, Melvin presaged Dirk Diggler's wide-eyed swagger, wretched songcraft and knack for impressing rich old men in the passenger seat.
Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) in There Will Be Blood and Jett Rink (James Dean) in Giant: A badly dated prestige that forced James Dean to act middle-aged, Giant lent more than just its Marfa, Texas, setting to There Will Be Blood. Both films revolve around roustabouts whose reckless charm corrodes as their inner toxicity seeps through their outward successes. A specific personality type is required to extract flammable gunk profitably through invasive drilling, but good oil men make lousy cocktail party guests.
Frank T.J. Mackey (Tom Cruise) in Magnolia and Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) in Goodfellas: Both Mackey and Hill orphaned themselves at early ages out of disgust at their fathersâ weaknesses and then constructed highly stylized personae with destructive urges (head-smashing and mind-fucking, respectively) and totemic catchphrases (âkeep your mouth shutâ and ârespect the cockâ). If Ray Liotta seemed more heroic, thatâs because the movie catered to his point of view (and because Tom Cruise is so deeply strange), but both were crushed by the same desperate fears.
SEE IT: âThe Art of Reinvention: Paul Thomas Anderson & His Influencesâ is at the NW Film Center on July 24-Sept. 6. $9. See nwfilm.org for a complete schedule.
WWeek 2015