“The biggest holy fucking shit moments”: the two movies that changed Paul Thomas Anderson
Upon the release of his debut feature film, Hard Eight, Paul Thomas Anderson was recognised as one of the most promising directors of the decade. He practically squeezed every dollar out of his relatively low budget, creating a movie that was praised for its developed and complex characters. However, the project that followed, Boogie Nights, would demonstrate Anderson’s ability to create iconic characters even more, catapulting him to widespread acclaim.
Anderson’s film about the Golden Age of Porn, set in the San Fernando Valley, earned several Oscar nominations, pulling the director out of obscurity and into the spotlight. It’s a hilarious odyssey which charts the transformation of Mark Wahlberg’s Eddie Adams into the adult film star Dirk Diggler. The film is an epic journey through California, featuring a collection of strange and loveable characters, such as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Scotty J and Heather Graham’s Rollergirl.
The success of Boogie Nights allowed Anderson the freedom to do whatever he liked next, resulting in Magnolia: epic in scope and just as well received as his previous work. Since then, Anderson has tried his hand at romantic comedies with titles like Punch Drunk Love and Licorice Pizza, as well as heavier pieces of period drama like There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread.
Anderson’s ability to move between genres, equally excelling no matter the weight of the themes presented, is highly impressive. He can do brutal scenes of violence, and he can capture the hazy streets of 1970s California. It’s no surprise, then, that he loves Robert Altman, a director who was equally capable of creating comedic movies as well as more serious, psychological works, demonstrating admirable cinematic range.
Like Altman, Anderson is keen on the ensemble film, gathering large casts whose characters intersect with each other. This kind of film isn’t easy to pull off; you have to ensure that the characters are developed properly, given adequate screen time, and that they are of significant importance to the script. Both Altman and Anderson have the ensemble film mastered. For example, Altman used large casts for Nashville, Prêt-à-Porter, Gosford Park and A Wedding, to name a few, while Anderson has done the same for Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Inherent Vice and Licorice Pizza.
When appearing on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Anderson revealed how important seeing two Altman movies was when he was younger. He said: “The Long Goodbye and Nashville, seeing them for the first time was one of the biggest ‘holy fucking shit’ moments in my life. ‘What the fuck?’” The latter was released in 1975 and charts the week leading up to a massive concert, with Altman using a staggering 24 main characters. Watching such an impressive task play out so well was a huge influence on Anderson.
The Long Goodbye, released two years prior, is smaller in scope but has received just as much praise. In the film, we see a man, played by Elliot Gould, who gets himself involved in a web of murder, lies, suicide and love. Like The Long Goodbye, Anderson’s film Inherent Vice also revolves around the death/disappearance of a character’s wife/girlfriend, which led him to actively avoid the film while making it. “I remember thinking, ‘I gotta try to forget that this film exists,’” he told Maron.