Revisiting 1999: The Top Ten Films of the Year, #3 --- Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson)

Here's what I've covered so far...
 

The Top 10 Films of 1999:

Intro: Introduction: The Best Films of 1999

10 - The Limey (Steven Soderbergh)

9 - Affliction (Paul Schrader)

8- American Movie (Chris Smith)
7- Rosetta (The Dardenne Brothers)

6- Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze)

5- The Insider (Michael Mann)
4- Three Kings (David O. Russell)


Paul Thomas Anderson's overblown, operatic, and Über melodramatic morality play was one of the most audacious releases of the 90's. It took balls for Anderson to put so much out there unapologetically and for him to make a film that relies entirely on an ensemble cast to understand what he's trying to say and how he's trying to say it. Like Anderson's two biggest masters, Scorsese and Altman, his film is dripping with religious allegory and tragic downfalls; however, unlike the downward spiral of Dirk Diggler in the extremely Scorsese-influenced Boogie Nights there seems to be genuine hope here for the majority of the characters. Like an Altman picture, Anderson zips his camera from scene to scene filling with it interesting dialogue and even more interesting characters, always with music in the background to keep with the operatic theme. The constant use of music not only alleviates some of the unease of sitting through a talky three-hour film, but it gives the film the same kind of energy one would find in early Scorsese. There's a sense that we don't know where Magnolia is heading, and when it finally reaches it's very literal biblical ending you're either smiling as you go along, or you're rolling your eyes in disbelief.

The cast is universally great. My favorites are the star-turning performance by John C. Reilly as a bumbling, but sincere, L.A. cop. There's a moment when he loses his gun and fears he'll be even more of a laughingstock among his peers, and for something that probably feels so insignificant to us Reilly does a phenomenal job of making us feel the cop's fears, turning it into a poignant scene. I also loved William H. Macy here as quiz kid Donny. He plays that kind "celebrity" we would find on all those VH1 specials. There's a great scene where he's in a bar trying to work up the nerve to hit on the bartender, only to be derailed by a richer, smoother man played by Altman regular Henry Gibson (in a nice bit of casting by Anderson). The speech Donny gives is both funny and powerful as we see a man who has never had control of his life, always doing what others want him to do and so desperately trying to please those people.

There are more characters of note, of course: Melora Waters as an abused drug addict who falls in love with Reilly's cop after he pays her a visit for being too loud in her apartment (this is one of Reilly's best scenes as he does so man y nuanced things for laughs that they slip right by the passive viewer); there's Tom Cruise's T.J. Mackey, of course, one of the only reason a lot of people saw this film to begin with (although to Cruise's credit he and Anderson didn't want his picture on the poster for fear that people would walk in thinking it was a "typical" Tom Cruise movie). He plays a foul-mouthed pervert who happens to make money off of his chauvinism with a stag-seminar entitled: "Search and Destroy". Cruise's seminars are some of the best parts of the film and some of the best acting Cruise has done.

I mentioned that the film is overblown and operatic, playing for big time emotions that leave a lot of people laughing because said emotions are so unbridled and unabashed. Take for example the scene where Julianne Moore is looking to get more drugs for her dying husband Earl (played by Jason Robards Jr.). The pharmacist thinks she's just some spoiled rich woman looking to party, and even though Moore is a user, there's an amazing scene where she looses it and in a flurry of expletives tells off the pharmacist. It's a polarizing scene as those who don't buy into what Anderson is doing here often think the scene is overblown and unintentionally funny. There's also the bedside redemption scene between Mackey and Earl. Cruise's acting here is, again, quite over the top, but what about Anderson's film hasn't been over the top? It's the right note for what Anderson was going for.

The film is an aesthetic treat, too, as Aimee Mann's beautiful music guides use through the city and the interactions of these people's lives. Anderson's film is one of the first "hyperlink" films (a phrase I first heard from Ebert)…films like Crash, Babel, and other films of their ilk. The editing by Dylan Tichenor is appropriately manic, the cinematography by the great Robert Elswit’s fluid and graceful camera (like any Anderson film there’s some wonderful tracking shots and push-ins mixed with kinetic flash pans and other camera trickery)films L.A. in an unassuming way so that when the more blatant visual correlatives occur they’re more noticeable, and the aforementioned music by Mann is one of the best things about the film…not to mention one of the keys to better understanding the characters and what Anderson is trying to say with this film (one of the most famous, and best, scenes is where Mann's "Wise Up" plays and all of the characters in their respective places sing along).

What makes Magnolia so brilliant though is the fact that Anderson sets up the theme of coincidence in the beginning in a brilliant little bit of storytelling and editing narrated by Ricky Jay. It's just one of many aesthetic choices that jar the viewer, and Anderson isn't afraid to throw everything he can think of into this film. That kind of attitude is what made 1999 such a memorable year for film. Along with Spike Jonze and David Russell, Anderson was an emerging and exciting filmmaker because we never knew what the next frame of his film had in store for us. There's was something liberating and anarchic in the air that year that even the old masters like Scorsese and Mann got into the act and made challenging films within the archetype of the Hollywood picture. Magnolia is one of those films that should I happen upon it on cable I can't turn away. Like the Coen's Fargo, there's something hypnotic about the film. It's a film that elevates me to a special place; a film that fills me with laughter and contemplation; a film that never feels its 188 minute running time; and most importantly a film that keeps me coming back to it because of its bravado and underlying themes that play out like modern version of the Hebrew Bible. The final shot of Melora Waters (with Mann's aptly titles song "Save Me" playing over the faint dialogue of Reily's cop) smiling is one of my favorite closing shots of all time; every time I watch that ending I smile with her, thankful for the exhausting, but exhilarating (and fulfilling), experience Anderson has given me.

 

  

 

I know there are countless more themes and metaphors in the film that I’m not covering here (I love all the literal Exodus 8:2 signs Anderson throws in..and in the screencaps above you enlarge them and look on the left side of the frame you'll notice a few examples of what I'm talking about), but I’m hoping those will be discussed more fully in the comments since a lot of writers better than me have already covered those themes. What strikes me most about Magnolia is how energetic it is, even in what the seemingly mundane details the film flows with exuberance that infectious. You don’t realize until the film is over that you’re worn out, not by boredom but by relentless energy of the film. It’s really something to behold.

Clearly Anderson is a fearless director. It takes guts to put a film so "out there" unabashedly and not be afraid of people perhaps thinking the film is pretentious and over-the-top melodrama. Time has been kind to Magnolia, though, and I think the recent love for another gutsy, overblown film that goes "out there" by Anderson, There Will Be Blood, has perhaps forced people to look at Magnolia with fresh eyes. I don't know if I'll ever think of There Will Be Blood the same way I think of Magnolia, but one thing they share in common and one thing that I admire the hell out of both films is Anderson's reluctance to pull back on the reins. So rare is it these days in the saturated and neutered Hollywood system to get a filmmaker who is willing to make films that feel more at home during the new wave of American cinema in the 70's. Anderson no longer has to think of himself as someone who aspires to be like Altman and Scorsese by fashioning his films after their style…he's now clearly on par with those two masters. Paul Thomas Anderson just may be the most talented and interesting American filmmaker to be unleashed on Hollywood since Martin Scorsese.

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