Peter Yoo

Camera Non-Movement: a Development of Camera Movement in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Filmography

Of the pre-eminent American filmmakers who emerged in the 1990’s, Paul

Thomas Anderson remains a widely recognized contemporary auteur. Labeled as part of a larger “smart” or “quirky” cinema that first appeared in the late 80’s, much of his distinct style is dependent on his manipulation of the camera, frame, and movement. While his free-flowing steadicam movements seem effortless and instinctual, his static shots, which have become more prevalent in his later work, hint at a deliberate “self-consciousness” in which PTA seems profoundly interested. (Notes on Quirky) This paper will use methods of formal analysis, choosing one or two prominent shots of his films from Hard Eight to

There Will Be Blood, to not only discuss the thematic concerns of his camera movement, but also its role in manifesting the development of Paul Thomas Anderson’s authorship.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s first two films seem to represent the first stage of his career as a filmmaker, especially with regard to his use of camera movement. Hard Eight takes on the story of Sydney (Phillip Baker Hall) and the two characters he assumes as surrogate children, John (John C. Reilly) and Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow). Boogie

Nights is a narrative about the construction of a surrogate family within an exciting but tumultuous Porn industry of the 1970’s and 1980’s. In Hard Eight, his first work, PTA would prove to introduce a dynamic, thoughtful, and even frenetic cinematographic style.

Set in the seedy casinos of Reno, the story follows the protagonist Sydney in his journey to redeem himself through the selfless caretake of a seemingly random stranger, John. In an early scene in the film, PTA utilizes a 1 minute 17 second long steadicam shot,

following Sydney from one end of the casino to eventually, his seat at the head of the craps table. On this shot, Anderson has remarked,

One of my favorite things is to watch actors walk, or actors who walk well, walk. And Phillip Baker Hall walks like a motherfucker, god he’s good. And you know, this is just a shot of a guy walking, but it’s a guy in his setting, and it’s a guy in his world. And I think it’s kind of a cool thing to just take a breath in a relaxing moment to watch someone sort of walk through their world. (Filmschoolthrucommentaries)

This is perhaps the best interpretation of the actual shot. As the camera follows the protagonist, his dynamism and effortless movement seem in contrast with the hoards of lifeless gamblers wasting away at their machines. In his analysis of camera movement within PTA’s films, film historian Kevin B. Lee notes about this particular shot, “It then opens to a wider view of the floor, a panorama of light and sound, both realistic and expressive. No other shots are as flashy as this one in Hard Eight… But Anderson allows this one shot to give a glimpse into Sydney’s subjective experience- the thrill of walking the casino floor.” (Steadicam Progress) As PTA articulates, and with the interpretation of

Lee, it seems likely that one of the primary concerns with this particular shot is to demonstrate the ambiance of the casinos. The shot beams with neon lights splattered throughout the frame, and the diegetic sounds accumulate to an animated, almost video- game-like, soundtrack. Through this shot, we see a man in his element: an individual consumed by the colorful and lively, but ultimately life-sucking world of casinos.

A similar kind of expressive nature can be seen in the foremost steadicam shot of his next film, Boogie Nights. Released in 1997, Boogie Nights captures the lives of Dirk

Diggler, Rollergirl, Amber Waves, and Jack Horner, all participants of the Valley Porn industry. In the first shot of the film, a celebrated two- minute fifty- two second segment,

PTA illustrates the world the audience is about to enter. At first glance, it is tempting to

compare this shot with the steadicam shots of Martin Scorsese, a PTA influence, and particularly the Copacabana shot in Scorsese’s film, Goodfellas. However, while Scorsese supplements his shot with voiceover and factual observations, Anderson allows the action to play out with minimal dialogue. Lee writes, “It tells us that we’re in Reseda, in the heart of Southern California’s porn country. But the floating sensation of this shot works less like a physical establishment of place and more like an out of body experience.”

(Steadicam Progress) Similar to the shot in Hard Eight, the steadicam shot of the Hot

Traxx Club in Boogie Nights works primarily to express the feeling and environment of a party in 1977 San Fernando Valley. As the camera follows Amber and Jack into the club, the viewer is overwhelmed with a plethora of blue, red, and green lights. The liveliness of the ambiance is reflected in the dancing of groups of partygoers through which the camera navigates. As Lee states, Anderson plunges the viewer “directly into a state of sensory overload.” (Steadicam Progress) The camera follows several individuals, and by the end of the scene, the audience has been introduced to 8 total characters. The camera movement in this shot functions much like a club-goer would, meeting too many people to remember by name, in a setting brought to life by flashing lights, groovy music, and a larger sense of ecstasy. By the end of the scene, it seems that the shot has succeeded in its expressive intent, conveying the atmosphere and characters that could feasibly be found at a 1970’s porn industry party.

PTA’s third film, Magnolia, seems to represent a thematic and practical development of the director’s use of camera movement. In PTA’s first film in which he was afforded final cut, he seems to express the anxiety of his newfound freedom as well as the nervousness of the scene’s characters through the use of his camera. The most

prominent steadicam shot in this film remains the segment that navigates its way through a television studio, one similar to that which PTA had previously worked at. In this two- minute five- second long shot, the camera begins by following game show contestant

Stanley Spector and his overbearing father Rick Specter. Stanley is naturally anxious, as the pressure of his father bears on his psyche. This anxiety, one shared by PTA, is largely manifested through the camera’s speedy movement through the halls of the studio. The camera moves at a pace unseen in either Hard Eight or Boogie Nights. As Stanley walks, we meet several different characters, many of whom bear little significance in the greater film. Stanley asks a producer, “Where’s Richard and Julia?” hinting at the anxiety Stanley feels for the prospect of playing the game show alone. Furthermore, the producer that

Stanley asks seems nervous herself, fiddling with her clipboard and unable to provide the child any definitive answer. As the characters are visibly concerned on screen, PTA compounds the scene’s unease with the controlled, but fast, manipulation of the camera.

Moving from Stan, to his father, to an assistant, back to Stanley and the producer, PTA creates a sense of unsettling speed and chaos, almost as if the characters are in a race with one another. As a result, unlike the steadicam shots of his first two films, which serve primarily to illustrate the worlds which PTA’s characters inhabit, the formal qualities of this particular shot in Magnolia function as microcosmic references to the emotional states of both the scene’s characters as well as Anderson himself.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s fourth and fifth films, Punch-Drunk-Love and There

Will Be Blood, respectively, signal a distinct change in the director’s treatment of camera movement, particularly with regards to pace and framing. Punch Drunk Love, Anderson’s

2002 release, revolves around the story of Adam Sandler’s character Barry Egan, a

childlike adult who undergoes transformative shifts in his personal life, primarily through the budding relationship between him and Emily Watson’s character, Lena Leonard. To begin, it is important to note Punch Drunk Love as PTA’s first non-ensemble film; this film is centered wholly around Barry. The movie’s most recognizable steadicam shot occurs towards the beginning of the film, as he enters one of his sisters’ houses, the setting for an eventual evening party. Perhaps most noticeable, especially in the larger context of PTA’s filmography up until that point, is the slow pace of the camera. It moves at a fraction of the speed seen in the scenes of his prior films, in what Lee calls an

“ominous forward push.” (Steadicam Progress) As the camera slowly creeps behind

Barry, the audience witnesses each of his sisters approach Barry with an insult or negative memory of Barry’s childhood. In contrast with the centered steadicam shots of his first three films, this shot frames Barry to the left, so that the audience not only follows the protagonist, but also witnesses every sister to his right. As a result, there exists a kind of periphery acknowledgement in this shot that fails to appear in the shots of

Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia which follow one specific character at a time.

In framing this shot in this particular way, Anderson creates not only a tension of moving forward through space, but also a friction that functions from side to side and from on screen to off screen, from where some of his relatives hurl insults. In this stage of the development of his camera movement, PTA not only uses it to express environment, but also to establish a sense of character in Barry. As the frame tension of this shot suggests, the relationship between Barry and his sisters is fragile and delicate. Egan is bound to break out later in the film, and this particular shot serves to foreshadow Egan’s explosion,

by using camera movement to hint at Barry’s past as well as his current relationships with his sisters.

There Will Be Blood, widely considered Paul Thomas Anderson’s magnum opus, marks specifically the director’s maturation in framing and camera movement. This is perhaps best exemplified by a shot in Daniel Plainview’s office at the beginning of the film. Lasting more than two and a half minutes, this shot begins as a close up on Paul

Sunday, a nervous townsperson who is about to sell his dignity and plot of land to

Plainview for cash. As Lee notes, it is one the film’s longest shots, yet it only moves several feet. Following Sunday into Plainview’s office, the camera settles on a double shot of Plainview and Sunday. Inching closer, the camera picks up Plainview’s friend

Fletcher in a wide three shot, and ends on a close up of Sunday. As the camera moves at a snail-like pace, the viewer is able to analyze every aspect of the space that the characters inhabit. Furthermore, Anderson implements a deep focus not found in his earlier films, that allows the viewer to watch not only the character that is speaking, but all members of the dialogue. Tim Smith, a psychological researcher at the University of Illinois, supports such a point in his experiment with There Will Be Blood. Smith writes regarding his process,

In order to see these biases in action during TWBB we need to record viewer eye movements. In a small pilot study, I recorded the eye movements of 11 adults using an Eyelink 1000 (SR Research) eyetracker. This eyetracker uses an infrared camera to accurately track the viewer’s pupil every millisecond. The movements of the pupil are then analysed to identify fixations, when the eyes are relatively still and visual processing happens; saccadic eye movements (saccades), when the eyes quickly move between locations and visual processing shuts down; smooth pursuit movements, when we process a moving object; and blinks. (Watching you watch THERE WILL BE BLOOD)

As Smith’s research with the Dynamic Images and Eye Movement Project shows, the audience’s attention is sprayed throughout the scene, as Anderson reinforces the fact that there is much to see with a slow, methodic camera push. In doing so, Anderson builds up a slow tension that is simply waiting to explode, a tension that exists not only in camera movement but also within the character of Paul Sunday, who is in the process of selling his soul to Plainview for financial gain. Film historian David Bordwell writes, “Yet simplicity shouldn’t imply simplification. Anderson’s willingness to give the shot several points of interest, some more stressed than others, creates an understated tension. The shot’s gravity stems from its conciseness, a quality that Anderson admires in 1940s studio films like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” (Hands and Faces) This shot is bookended by an equally important shot only minutes later, which stages Plainview, Sunday,

Fletcher, and Plainview’s son in front of a map. While the shot begins with a slow forward push, much like its earlier counterpart, it eventually halts. It becomes a static shot, in a situation in which a younger Anderson might employ dynamic camera movement to exemplify nervousness, as in the case of Magnolia. However, at this point in his career, Anderson remains seemingly more interested in determining control of the audience’s eyes than flying through his set with a mobile camera. In this scene, in which

Sunday maps out the exact locations of his underground oil, the decision to hold a static camera proves to be thematically and practically successful. Without any distraction of camera movement, the audience bounces its visual attention from one character to the other through subtle changes in faces, posture, and staging. The drama of the scene is built through facial expression, rather than movement, and Anderson has arguably achieved a greater sense of drama than in his earlier films, by keeping the camera still. In

this scene and the larger film, dramatic tension is built noticeably more subtly as

Bordwell claims, “Daniel seems more threatening when we don’t see his reaction, and

Anderson’s camera forces us to scrutinize Paul’s expressions and body language for signs that this is a scam. It takes confidence to make a raise hand the climax of a scene, but the gesture gains its force by being the most aggressive moment in an arc of quietly accumulating tension.” (Hands and Faces) Moving beyond speculation and interpretation,

Tim Smith reiterates such a claim in his research, which proves that the audience members’ eyes move with the subtle looks and expressions of the characters. As Smith says regarding one of these movements, “The majority of viewers are looking at Paul as he speaks and they miss the gesture. For these viewers, the significance of the statement may be lost…” (Watching you watch There Will Be Blood) It seems then, that Anderson has achieved a more complex, nuanced, and sly dramatic tension by opting to keep the camera stagnant.

Through formal analysis of his filmography, it is possible to recognize Paul

Thomas Anderson’s dynamic, nuanced, and thematic movement of the camera in each of his works. In addition, it is possible, and in this case necessary, to not only explore each film as a separate entity, but also as contributions to his larger status as a contemporary auteur. In short, much of his early work can be characterized by an exuberant tendency of the camera; as Sydney, Jack, and Stanley maneuver through their respectively grand spaces, Anderson seeks to illustrate these worlds through the movement of his camera.

However, his later work, beginning with Punch Drunk Love, seems largely more interested in camera movement as expressions of character, whether it is the tension

Barry feels with his sisters or the guilt that Paul Sunday feels as he sells his land to a

demonic oil man. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of his development as an auteur,

PTA’s cinematographic style continues to place Anderson above many of his contemporaries. Here’s to hoping Inherent Vice continues this tradition.

Bibliography

Anderson, Paul Thomas, and Phillip Baker Hall. "Film School Through Commentaries: Paul Thomas Anderson." Interview. Audio blog post. Filmschoolthrucommentaries. N.p., 8 May 2013.

Bordwell, David. "Observations on Film Art : Hands (and faces) across the table." Observations on Film Art. N.p. 10 Nov. 2013.

Bordwell, David. "Observations on Film Art : Watching You Watch THERE WILL BE BLOOD." Observations on Film Art. N.p. 06 Nov. 2013.

MacDowell, James. "Notes on Quirky." Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism (2010): 1- 16.

Steadicam Progress. By Kevin B. Lee. Sight and Sound. Vimeo, n.d. Web.

"The DIEM Project." The DIEM Project: Dynamic Images and Eye Movements. University of Edinburgh, n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.