Phantom Thread

[boogienights]

This Christopher Nolan's kids watching Phantom Thread story is so wholesome.

time: 16:41

What a cool panel

I'm hoping that home media sales make up for it/ Megan Ellison still finances him.

If I had that money, I'd gladly fund his career regardless of the costs/box office losses. She's a hero.

Same, and I can't speak for her but she clearly sees something in him that deserves the investment despite the risk, and she has so much money that she can do it. I already respect her for doing so, but if she keeps doing it she'll be a saint for the betterment of movies.

[wilberfan]

I have to assume there's a certain amount of industry cred or cachet from producing/financing PTA's films.  Perhaps especially if you already have a lot of money, or other films are taking up the slack?  If I had George Harrison money, for example, I certainly would have financed Monty Python films.  There might be a Warner Bros/Kubrick argument in there somewhere as well.  (Not sure what kind of money latter Kubrick films made.)

[Jeremy Blackman]

I'm hoping that home media sales make up for it/ Megan Ellison still finances him.

If I had that money, I'd gladly fund his career regardless of the costs/box office losses. She's a hero.

Same, and I can't speak for her but she clearly sees something in him that deserves the investment despite the risk, and she has so much money that she can do it. I already respect her for doing so, but if she keeps doing it she'll be a saint for the betterment of movies.

Yeah. Megan Ellison's net worth is $41 billion. Phantom Thread's budget was $35 million. She could finance 1,171 of them.

I think she's perfectly fine with losing money on these films. I'll take her at her word:


https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/megan-ellison-gives-rare-speech-796478

On stage, Ellison admitted that her work so far in the film industry has had an emotional impact on her. “It has made me feel less alone in the world, and for that, I will always be grateful,” she said. “I don’t believe in very many things, but art is definitely one of them. And at the top of that list, film and art, influence our world’s culture much more than many of us understand and fully respect. Art does not belong to the few, but to the many.

She continued to say that the perspectives filmmakers are putting out in the world should not come from such a small subset of people because that would be a disservice. In closing, she quoted iconic American scribe Kurt Vonnegut, proving that her artistic inspirations also include literature.

“As Kurt Vonnegut said, the arts are not a way to make a living, they are a very human way of making life more bearable. And that’s what I believe. And that’s what I want to be a part of.”

[Jeremy Blackman]

Just ran across this. Wow...


https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2013/03/megan-ellison-27-producer-zero-dark-thirty

But when The Master opened to much lower receipts than expected, Ellison and Weinstein fell apart. “Harvey told Megan that the film wasn’t doing well because P.T.A. and the actors weren’t doing enough press,” says a source with knowledge of the situation. “Now, that obviously doesn’t have much to do with it, but Harvey knows two things before he gets up in the morning: Megan thinks P.T.A. is a god, and P.T.A. isn’t going to do more press just because he’s asked. So that makes *The Master’*s receipts her fault. And she’s 25, so when he tells her that, she believes it. And then he tortures her about it.” (Weinstein declined to comment.)

Actions by Weinstein have “brought Megan to tears four or five times,” says a source, who adds that Ellison declared upon occasion that she would leave the business if she and Weinstein couldn’t get along. But eventually she found her footing. When he began pushing her to make changes to their next movie, Killing Them Softly, starring Brad Pitt—he also moved it from her preferred slot before the election to a holiday date—she refused. In fact, she denied Weinstein a chance to test the movie.

Unfortunately, the film didn’t perform well domestically and received a rare F grade on CinemaScore. According to a source, Ellison has vowed not to work with Weinstein again. David O. Russell and the actor Bradley Cooper—who stars in Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook, produced and distributed by Weinstein, and will also be in Ellison’s new film with Russell—tried to broker peace. (Cooper’s publicist did not return messages.) “We did ask her to consider [working with Harvey] in the future, and from there, that’s about her relationship with Harvey,” says Russell.

[wilberfan]

Two great finds, Jeremy.  Thanks.   Yeah, she's got Oracle money, (I knew absolutely nothing about her before just now).  Pretty good track record in Hollywood so far, at least in terms of Oscar noms.

[KJ]

fuck harvey.

all hail the queen! etc.

[boogienights]

fuck harvey.

all hail the queen! etc.

Here, here! She sounds awesome!

[BB]

I understand why IV lost money, but I'm surprised The Master did and this isn't looking good.

Man, the vast majority of people I know haven't ever heard of any of these movies. A bunch of my friends who are into movies (more mainstream fare) hadn't heard of Phantom Thread until I mentioned it ("...the guy who did There Will Be Blood.").

These are weird times. Film culture has never been more robust yet its station is diminished. PTA will be fine and the next PTA best-of-a-generation filmmaker will be fine too. I don't know what's gonna happen after that though.

[Punch Drunk Hate]

The closest theater playing the film is 48 minutes away from where I reside. It's supposedly coming soon according to my local theater site, though I have little faith there will be a substantially time slot for the film.  It makes me jealous of those who live in the big cities that have showings before the rest of the country can see the picture.

So, my local theater is playing this next week. What's the problem here? The only showing is at 9:20, which means I'll have to get my ass down there as soon as possible. Theater chains really screwed up the momentum by making these ridiculous scheduling sessions.

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

Uwe Boll attempting to troll PTA about the Phantom Thread poster

https://www.avclub.com/uwe-boll-accuses-paul-thomas-anderson-of-hiding-a-fuck-1822890557

[jenkins]

"But the snipe, the great snipe, the jack snipe, the woodcock in their season, the quail, the curlew?"

that's a line from Bulgakov's The Master & Margarita which alerted to me to the fact a woodcock is not only a bird but a bird served at the finest restaurant in Moscow.



that's a woodcock (with a worm in its beak). i just hadn't realized that and someone might very well have mentioned this already.

on top of that, i had before thought of a "phantom thread" in relation to a "phantom pattern" and therefore thought of it as illusory, but that's true and not true. because you see i went to the Museum of Jurassic Technology and i spent 80% of my time there reading about Athanasius Kircher and magnetism. basically Kircher presented magnetism as a unified theory, which unified theory is what science craves. his exhibit was titled "The World is Bound with Secret Knots". the theory is that the world is composed of synthesis and antithesis and this is all magnetism which relates to, for example, gravity and love.

so i still think of the phantom thread as being composed of love (certainly whether it's a love of self or a love for others has been a hot topic), but i'm able to picture this thread within a larger concept.

[Drenk]

The deleted scenes for the BR/Day will last five minutes. I was hoping a twenty minutes short like Back Beyond. It's a nice way to put together footage you didn't use.

The camera tests: eight minutes.

The fake Woodcock show: two minutes.

[jviness02]

Aside from Criterion, it seems special features have kind of been forgotten about. Possibly a casuality of streaming.

[csage97]

The deleted scenes for the BR/Day will last five minutes. I was hoping a twenty minutes short like Back Beyond. It's a nice way to put together footage you didn't use.

The camera tests: eight minutes.

The fake Woodcock show: two minutes.

I'm pretty satisfied with the kind of content they're putting on there. As a tech junkie, the camera tests and the photos by Michael Bauman are wonderful. And then as someone who works in the audio industry and as a Certified Radiohead Maniac, I'm very excited for the score demos.

The timing is a bit short ... but ehh, I can't really ask for more, and I'll be glad for quality content over quantity.

[Lewton]

The Cinema Scope review of the film (don't read it if you're totally avoiding spoilers) includes this line:

A large debt is owed to Daniel Day-Lewis, an actor who inspires some of Anderson’s best instincts and who co-wrote the screenplay, but apparently begged out of sharing screen credit.

Is this just speculation on the writer's part, or does it have some basis in an interview or something? Day-Lewis begged to be uncredited?

As far as I understand, DDL contributed research, but didn't do any of the actual writing. He also helped PTA reorient the dialogue so that it sounded authentically British (Manville did something similar during production). So, he researched and advised on the script, but that doesn't technically qualify as writing, right? I'm not sure if this has something to do with WGA rules about what does or doesn't constitute a co-writer credit.

I'm just trying to get a more accurate idea of the preproduction process. This particular point has been a bit foggy -- for me, anyway -- since the beginning.