ANYTHING GOES: The Erratic Cinema of Paul Thomas Anderson by Matthew Rodrigues, B.A. (Hons.) 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Canada Abstract The body of work of American filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson is inflected by an abundance of ambiguous and/or unusual narrative and aesthetic gambits. Three of his most strikingly peculiar features are explored throughout this argument: Magnolia (1999),Punch-Drunk Love (2002) and There Will Be Blood (2007). Each chapter is dedicated to a film and its demonstration of Anderson’s proclivity for incongruity, unpredictability and vagueness. These observations are mobilized here as a compelling indication of cinema’s fluidity and complexity. This, it is argued, is what these films valuably bring into relief. In their eccentric and ambiguous qualities, they also speak to the necessity of a suitably fluid conception of cinema. Figuring as a source of friction between cinema’s ‘unruliness’ and its more coherent representation in other discursive accounts, they illuminate the considerable indeterminacy and complexity that inheres in the medium - as a form of artistic expression and as a spectatorial experience. Acknowledgements First and foremost, I must thank my family for their tremendous and invaluable support. I am grateful for the encouragement and kindness of my two sisters. To my mother, I offer my deepest thanks for her love and support, which has made it possible for me to be where I am today. I would like to thank my supervisor, Marc Furstenau, for being a continued source of insight. His perceptive guidance was essential to the strengthening of this thesis. My hope is that this project bears the influence of his instruction and his infectious fascination for our object of study. I am also indebted to Carleton’s respective Film Studies and English faculties. I am particularly appreciative of the instruction and encouragement of Aboubakar Sanogo, Zuzana Pick, Joseph Lipsett, Saalem Humayun, and Franny Nudelman. Thanks, also, to Jason Sperb (Indiana University) for kindly directing me toward relevant sources during the early stages of this project. Finally, I would also like to thank Meghan Fulford for her remarkable kindness, patience and reassurance. This process would have been considerably more daunting and arduous without her friendship and consideration, which I can always rely on to buoy my spirits and confidence. Table of Contents Title Page...............................................................................................................................................i Abstract.................................................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgements............................................................................................................................iii Table of Contents................................................................................................................................ iv . Introduction:“An Homage to Contingency”: Anderson and the Unruliness of Cinema ...............1 Chapter 1:“Accidents Waiting to Happen”: The Incongruent Flourishes and Unmotivated ‘Excess’ ofMagnolia .........................................................................................................................23 Chapter 2:“I Don’t Know”: The Iridescent Vagueness of Punch-Drunk Love.............................. 47 Chapter 3:“The Phantom of the Oil Derrick”: Daniel Plainview and the Mysteries of Selfhood .............................................................................................................................................................. 75 Conclusion:Anderson’s “Hopelessly Inquisitive”Filmmaking .................................................... 100 Bibliography....................................................................................................................................107 1 INTRODUCTION: “An Homage to Contingency”: Anderson and the Unruliness of Cinema Sometime during the production of his fifth feature, Paul Thomas Anderson started a fire. At his behest, the looming oil derrick that production designer Jack Fisk prepared for There Will Be Blood (2007) was set ablaze (Pizzello 2). A team equipped with an arsenal of “petroleum products, diesel fuel and gasoline [...] [along with] electronic coils, propane poppers, pyrotechnics and [...] road flares” set siege to Fisk’s creation (6). It became an imposing, conflagrant monstrosity, burning wildly against the landscape of Marfa, Texas. “The fire was real,” recalls Anderson’s long-time cinematographer Robert Elswit, “it involved the effects team igniting a mixture of diesel fuel and gasoline that was controlled with a huge pump” (3). Although the ignition may have been ‘controlled,’ the resulting flames proved to be far less amenable to discipline. As the fire rapidly consumed the wooden structure, Anderson and his crew soon realized that their existing plans would have to be revised. “[The] original plan,” Stephen Pizzello notes, “was to shoot the bum over two days; the special-effects crew, led by Steve Cremin, would start the fire, extinguish it and then restage the bum [and the derrick’s collapse] on the following night” (3). This was no longer possible, though, as the derrick had become decidedly more combustible over the course of the production. The problem, Elswit explains, was that “it had been sitting in the hot sun for months, so it was dry as tinder [...] they couldn’t completely extinguish the top” (3). These complications precipitated a much shorter and frenzied shoot. With the derrick’s collapse now imminent, Anderson had to amass ample coverage of the flaming structure while also leaving enough time to arrange its collapse 2 well before it naturally gave way.1 “The crew kept filming,” Cremin remembers, “Paul let the actors try different things; he’s a bit of a renegade, and he wanted to play it out to the bitter end [...] he kept looking back at me to make sure it was okay to keep going. Finally, I said, ‘It’s time. If we don’t drop it, it’s going to drop on its own’” (6). Yet Anderson was indeed intent on pursuing ‘the bitter end,’ perhaps compelled by a curiosity about what the enveloping chaos might yield.2 “He wanted to try one more scene,” Cremin remembers, “I was sure we were going to lose the derrick” (6). This is something of an emblematic moment for Anderson. Standing amidst a chaotic event borne of his own orchestration, he concerns himself less with constraints (here, the derrick’s impending collapse) than the fertile uncertainty of his circumstances. Indeed, as he periodically turns to Cremin, it would seem that Anderson cannot help but wonder if the limits can be further challenged and tested, and if yet unforeseen possibilities and discoveries might still await him. The fascination and vitality of Anderson’s filmmaking lies in such moments of risk and disobedience, in continued engagements with the possible and unforeseen. As will become clear over the following chapters, which focus on a selection of his films, Anderson’s work seems purposely designed to subvert, confound, and inspire. Toward this end, he draws from an eclectic repertoire of incongruent gambits, unusual aesthetic flourishes and peculiar narrative strategies. These artistic risks underwrite the distinct experiences offered by his films, which are characterized