Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA for short) is one of my favorite directors of the Mesozoic generation. Although the now 40-year-old PTA has only made seven films, his films are not only in The film technique has a unique personality and innovation, and it is also unique in the narrative. All PTA's works are written and directed by themselves, and the protagonists in his films are also very different, but all of them make Impressive. The characters under his lens are mostly marginalized characters. They can survive within the social framework, but their own marginalized characteristics make them unable to truly integrate into the mainstream society. PTA aims to deeply excavate the mysterious core of human emotions, and explore the trauma memory and emotional liberation of individuals. <1>
The PTA grew up in the 1970s where the sex culture industry was most prosperous: San Fernando, California. The whole city is a big movie theater. PTA's father Ernie Anderson is an actor and host, so PTA has been exposed to a large number of films and the production process of the film industry from a young age, and this growing experience has also become its Inspiration for his debut film "Las Vegas" and the subsequent hit "Boogie Nights". His 27-year-old "Boogie Nights" has received praise from many film critics and is regarded as one of the most outstanding works to describe the erotic film industry. Two years later, the PTA brought The Orchid, a three Oscar nominee, and more than 150 critics considered The Orchid as one of the ten best films of 1999, an extremely mature ensemble. The film work has brought the PTA to the altar of the "next Kubrick". After that, PTA produced a very distinctive love novel "Issues of Love", and eight Oscar nominations and won PTA's Oscar Director Award for "General", "General" is also directed by Paul Paul. ·The first work of the trio of Thomas Anderson, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, and music Johnny Greenwood, and the "Phantom Thread" to be analyzed in this article is the trio of gold The second and probably the last collaborative work of the group. After "The Warriors", PTA has shot "The Master" and "Nature's Evil", two masterpieces that focus on showing the psychology of characters. The highly controversial "Master" builds a broad psychological and religious discussion space by showing the dual protagonist of the cult leader and the post-war traumatic veteran. "Sexual Evil" is a grotesque, deconstructed, psychedelic "cannabis movie". But one of my favorite works by PTA is his new work released last year, a love story with a small layout but room for in-depth discussion - "Phantom Thread".
Woodcock's "Blood", Reynolds' Love Complex
Woodcock is the family of the male protagonist Reynolds and his sister Ceryl in "The Phantom Thread". Interestingly, the name is written Woodcock, which can be disassembled as Wood-white and Cock-penis. As mentioned in the introduction above, PTA grew up in the Love Industry Studio. His father is a late-night radio show host who loves to collect white video discs. Influenced by his father, he has been watching TV shows since he was a boy. Quantitative films, and influenced the topic selection and narrative structure of their later creations. Research results from the field of psychoanalysis tell us that childhood memories will be assembled into the unconsciousness of the artist's later creations, and PTA's films are full of emotional codes that originated in childhood. However, eroticism is only the apparent discourse of the PTA film. The whole film of "Phantom Thread" can be said to have been "de-sexualized" by PTA, even the content of the screen that traditionally seems to be sexually suggestive, He also became "innocent" under his lens. I think this kind of treatment is for the sake of purification. The PTA hopes to focus more on power, control and symbiosis in the intimate relationship he wants to talk about; the second is to reflect the "extreme" of the hero Reynolds in this film. , Woodcock's "Black", described by Freud in "Personality and Anal Sexuality", "These types of people clearly have the following three common combinations of personality traits. They are particularly rigid, mean, and stubborn. Each of these words contains a set of interrelated personality traits. 'Stereotype' includes notions of body cleanliness and a sense of responsibility to perform duties and maintain integrity."
The contemporary Lacanian psychoanalyst Bruce Fink once wrote: "The heart is always opaque, abyss, like a mass of chaos condensed with the raw material of life, but when this mass is rationalized When complete repression comes close to 'disappearing' (where the 'exotic organ' no longer feels in the body), man also degenerates into a lifeless act." <5>
The few scenes in which Reynolds appeared on the scene explained this meticulous top sewer, and the first gorgeous but depressing breakfast scene between him and his sister, Mel, and his friend, also explained that Reynolds was immersed in In his art world, he is a perfectionist, whether it is for himself, intimacy or career. Throughout the whole film, combined with Silow's hierarchy of needs theory, before Reynolds met Alma, his upper-level needs were realized from "respect needs", "self-actualization needs", and "super-self-actualization". , but the realization of underlying requirements such as "security requirements" and "social requirements" is weak. He's like an upside-down pyramid that stands perfectly, and when someone touches it lightly, the tower collapses. The reason why Reynolds has not "collapsed" is not that he is strong enough, but that he lives under the perfect protection of his sister, Mel.
In the two people's first restaurant scene, Mel walks around and chats about Reynolds' friend who has gained weight and is no longer suitable to be a model, and proposes to give her a skirt as a farewell gift. Mel whispered to the calm Reynolds, like a patient parent "tells" his son. The PTA also explained the relationship between the two people in the language of the camera lens. The single shot of Chelsea does not have Reynolds, but the single shot of Reynolds takes up one-third of the frame. When the movement of the water brought her out of the picture, Reynolds said at this point "I have a feeling of unease...like I can't hold anything, like a fluttering butterfly, and my recent memories of my mother are very strong, I dreamed of her coming to me in my dreams, smelling her breath, as if she was right there with us, reaching out to us." This was the first time Reynolds showed weakness, and the first time he showed his love ⺟ complex.
On his way back to his hometown to commemorate his relatives, it was also the time when Reynolds was relaxed, or exposed his fragility and returned to his humanity. However, on the first date, Reynolds proudly revealed his secret "I have a strand of my mother's hair in my breast pocket to stay close to her forever... She's always by my side." He then took Elma home, where he first showed her a dress he sewed for her when she was 16, and pictures of her. Afterwards, two people had a conversation around the fireplace, and Reynolds was asked why he didn’t get married. He confessed that as a seamstress, he should not have been born into marriage. Marriage would make him think about deception, and he had done it. Preparation for a lifetime of loneliness.
Lacan calls the suppression of those primordial vital forces by the intellect as the "dysfunction" of the subject. Reason always seeks to suppress the abyss of its own power to the minimum and try its best to gain full mastery of the body (i.e. to achieve a unified "self") <5> As Reynolds did not marry the reason: Realization of "super-ego" and distrust of intimacy. Later, in Elma's words, "I feel like you're just being very strong," Reynolds' eyes wandered, and he smiled and replied, "No, I'm just very strong." Then he said frankly, telling him Excessive expectations and assumptions can hurt and disappoint, both the vulnerability and self-closure caused by Reynolds' insecurities, and the famous post-structuralist proposition that the other is impenetrable. And the direction of the story also shows that not only is the other impenetrable, but the self itself is always impenetrable and opaque to the subject (no matter how suppressed, there will always be remnants outside the intellect). <3>
After a hearty fireside chat, Reynolds told Elma to go somewhere, which is traditionally supposed to be a sex moment after a romantic date, but Reynolds took Elma to the studio to tailor the style. His hand swam around Elma's body and said the exact number to the sister next to him. He crossed Elma's chest and said calmly, "Your chest is really flat." Looking at the scene as if it were a figure, this "body measurement ritual" was like sex to Reynolds, and it required the presence of his sister to complete it. Reynolds and Elma had their first date after returning to the city with the "accompaniment" of her sister. After the date, Reynolds took Elma home, let her live in the room next to him, and told her to rest well. "Normal" Elma was disappointed when the door was closed.
But also as Gizek said, "At some fragile and unexpected moments, those abyssal forces will suddenly break through the restraint and restraint of reason, directing the body to do "crazy" things that reason cannot explain or approve. .” At the next dinner with the client, Mel, Reynolds, and Elma, Elma asked, “Are you full...you look thirsty.” He drove off the ground, but slowly dragged Elma upstairs like a little friend and entered his room. Although the housekeeper cuts to Reynolds, who gets up early to work, before closing the camera, this is the only scene in the film that has a subtle element of sexual expression and implies that the male protagonist has sex. What broke through Reynolds' rational restraint and restraint was the question of Elma's "needs for survival" at the bottom. Later, Alma tried to enter Reynolds' room, but was rejected by him in the name of her job. This room was Reynolds' closed bedroom, a sanctuary that allowed him to be isolated from the outside world.
Freud believed that "everything has a causal relationship, and we can analyze people's mental activities to find out the ultimate factors that play a decisive role behind those activities." Through the "drama" under the iceberg, The role of the parents of the Woodcock family is absent, and Reynolds also mentioned that the parents remarried. The classic love story is either permeated in the act of killing the father, or germinates in the complete absence of the father. in chaos. The former is a revolutionary love, as in Romeo and Juliet. The latter is entangled in the shadow of the parent, who symbolizes the lost Garden of Eden (yet, like the inevitability of birth and the inevitability of separation from the body, Eden is doomed to be lost), the character or beginning of the story Adventures in Paradise Lost - wandering and exile-style love; or re-creating a "sick new paradise" with incest allusions - control and sadomasochism. <4>
Power and Control in Intimacy and Love and Reynolds Saved
In the opening shot, Alma was asked, "Reynolds gave me what I dreamed of, and I gave back what he wanted most." At this time, the camera was pulled back, and the background was slightly suspenseful. Music, the reporter asked, "What is that?" Elma smiled and said, "My everything." At this time, the main soundtrack played, and the piano sounded like flowing water. The opening scene has established the "real" narrative of the entire film: seemingly selfish mutual use, but in fact it is a whole-hearted mutual giving. This is also the tone of PTA movies for a long time: discussing the psychological trauma intertwined with eroticism, which seems lonely, confusing, and dark, but actually contains warm, bright and sincere emotions.
In the first half of the film, Reynolds kept his aloofness and composure to keep at ease with Elma, and he led Elma's actions. He was the passive ruler in this relationship. He did not take the initiative to do anything. However, she has the power to decide what Elma does for love, but Elma is not Mel, and she sees Reynolds' vulnerability more and more in her active approach again and again.
The turning point of the story happened after two people quarreled, Reynolds was exhausted after the exhibition, Elma, half face in the shadow and half face in the light, stroked Reynolds' head and said, "Let me drive for you. ". At this time, Reynolds' psychological vulnerability was superimposed with his physical vulnerability, which made him completely exposed to Elma. For the first time, Elma entered Reynolds' room on his own initiative, or broke his heart. Defense, at which point her voiceover says, "He was like a spoiled child back then." This is when Reynolds' Achilles' heel is exposed.
Why should reason always prevent action from failing and repeating forever? That's because, if there is a moment when the drive of "blind obsession" completely breaks through the obstruction of reason, then that moment is exactly the moment when the real pleasure of extreme overflow annihilates daily life, The moment that led to its complete collapse—everything in everyday life suddenly and completely lost its meaning to the senses and collapsed completely. That is why, Lacan would say, all drives are fundamentally "death drives," because all drives are overflowing, obsessive, repetitive, and in the extreme sense destructive of. <5> When this kind of fragility of Reynolds's "impossible to get rid of imperfection" body emerges, it is the moment when his entire body collapses and collapses.
After Reynolds fell ill from eating poisonous mushrooms, he hallucinated to see his own relatives, he shed tears, it was a release moment for a "colorful man", Elma entered the house, she and her relatives Coexisted in Reynolds' eyes for a while, and when Elma entered, the parents disappeared. This is the moment when Elma takes the parent image out of Reynolds' mind, and Reynolds proposes to her the next day. After that, Reynolds' only proud and solid spiritual world began to collapse. He resisted his dissatisfaction with Elma's appearance, and he became jealous of the opposite sex around Elma. The worry of going to the prom, the whole-hearted love and the accompanying desire for exclusivity was new and confusing to Reynolds.
As noted above, Alma chooses an "abnormal way of showing love": expelling his relatives, exposing his vulnerability, reshaping his desires. But this abnormality is good for Reynolds, and just as a parent is ruthless to let a child become independent when he becomes an adult, Elma's behavior stems from her love for Reynolds rather than other impurity. Compared with the passive sister, the active Elma can completely let Reynolds follow the illness and rejuvenate.
From the point of view of reason, this love is deformed and dangerous. From the point of view of the client and the client, however, this is the only option, in other words, as Lacan intended, the movement towards death is a truly vital act. Reynolds had relied on the symbiotic relationship between the dead and his sister, which made him never able to keep his true life, and when he returned to work after the prom, he complained to Moore that Irma had made him uncreative, and he He thought it was because his love made him vulnerable, but in fact it was because he couldn't keep up with the changes of the times, and the decline of his creativity was fatal to him. At this moment, Elma decided to take another dose, and it was when Reynolds was poisoned. This was a showdown with known opponent's cards. Reynolds shouted "Beauty mistake me and make me dead", and then he The heart willingly swallowed the poisonous meal. At that time, he also understood that only Elma could give him "living power". Combined with the name of the official explanation, poisonous mushrooms are the antidote. Elma brings chaos to Reynolds, but order is the dead end for this paranoid workaholic who needs to create. The most important thesis of psychoanalysis pioneered by Freud is that man's life is never just living, that by possessing a strange drive, man is able to "enjoy" life in the overflow of the normal workings of things. live. Thus, truly pure psychoanalysis can never be an institutionalized operation, but it is life itself, or more precisely, living most violently toward death. <5>
If the first poisoning convinced Reynolds that he was in love with Irma, the second poisoning was that Reynolds was convinced that he could no longer leave Irma, and leaving Irma would make his entire hierarchy of needs comprehensive. the collapse. Remembering Reynolds' first date with Alma, he confessed that he had a distrust of marriage, but in the end, it was one of the parties who made the marriage a non-marriageist get married, and the marriage survived. Deception and knowing that the other party is willing to be deceived.
This is a real free choice made by Reynolds. Alma frankly poisoned him. He has already thought through all the disadvantages and even the terrible consequences of this choice, but he still has no hesitation. select it. This is an active choice made by Reynolds to get rid of passive and sexual protection (the absence of his sister, Mel). Only love made Reynolds choose "blind obsession". He completely got rid of his reason, put down Wood, and chose the sensibility and intuition brought by love, and picked up Cock.
Reynolds' fascination with clothing design, his extreme desire for control, and his love complex (the dead person is the most easily manipulated perfect object) perfectly satisfy Reynolds' "self-actualization" needs and perfectionism the perception of the person. On the surface, the story revolves around three people, but in fact the real core of the conflict is Reynolds' relative who was never present. Reynolds is immersed in the shelter where his relatives have not disappeared; Elma wants to expel the image of his relatives from Reynolds' heart; independent new self. The ending of the story is that Elma and Reynolds are together, and the "ghost" relative is replaced by the intruding Elma, and in the criticized play, "the character of my sister is unknown in the second half", maybe it is She got out of this relationship that she shouldn't have been involved in, and found her own account.
Therefore, many viewers think this is a "dark love story" after reading it, but this is actually a warm feeling of using "abnormal methods" to turn an "abnormal person" into a "normal person" love story. What PTA wants to discuss is not passion, love, desire, and sexual impulse in intimate relationships, but a higher level of love: through the exploration of power and control, to find the one that truly belongs to one's own free choice and that perfectly meets the needs love.
<1> Jiao Yaping. The marginality of characters in Paul Thomas Anderson's films. J. Film Literature, 2014(06): 50-51.
<2> Zhang Yong. Paul Thomas Anderson: Ironic Narrative, Contrastive Rhetoric and Testimony Image J. Contemporary Cinema, 2013(11):150-154.
<3>Slavoj The Parallax View, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006, p. 36, p. 23.
<4> "The greatest actor in the world, has since stopped acting" Zazie
<5> Wu Guanjun. Love as the driving force of death: Affinities between psychoanalysis and film art J. Literature and Art Research, 2017(05):97-108.
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