The ending feels to me like
Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
- StevenJ0001
- Joined: Mon May 05, 2008 12:02 pm
- Location: Los Angeles
Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
Yes, run, don't walk, to see a projected print--35mm or 70mm will do--to erase the memory of that bad DCP experience!
The ending feels to me like
The ending feels to me like
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a "possible future," given Alma's accompanying narration. It may well be a likely future, but it's clearly seen from Alma's perspective (figuratively) and did not at all feel like a flash-forward to me.
- diamonds
- Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2016 2:35 pm
Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
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I seem to recall that Alma's fantasy of their future is interrupted with Woodcock saying, "But right now we're here," or something along those lines, with a shot of the him clearly ill lying on her lap. In other words, there was no ambiguity; the scenes with the baby carriage were explicitly a fantasy she was relaying to him, over which he expresses reservations.
- mfunk9786
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
diamonds wrote:SpoilerShowI seem to recall that Alma's fantasy of their future is interrupted with Woodcock saying, "But right now we're here," or something along those lines, with a shot of the him clearly ill lying on her lap. In other words, there was no ambiguity; the scenes with the baby carriage were explicitly a fantasy she was relaying to him, over which he expresses reservations.
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It's also the best window we get into the tenderness between the two of them when the wind is out of his sails. One of the lovely touches of the film, which takes a repeat viewing or two to sink in fully, is how much of that is kept sort of private between the two characters. Whatever it is Alma enjoys so much about her time alone with Reynolds is not only "none of our business," but we probably wouldn't find it all that dramatic, either, because no correctly functioning romantic relationship ever is.
- ianthemovie
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
mfunk9786 wrote:SpoilerShowIt's also the best window we get into the tenderness between the two of them when the wind is out of his sails. One of the lovely touches of the film, which takes a repeat viewing or two to sink in fully, is how much of that is kept sort of private between the two characters. Whatever it is Alma enjoys so much about her time alone with Reynolds is not only "none of our business," but we probably wouldn't find it all that dramatic, either, because no correctly functioning romantic relationship ever is.
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That's well put. Initially I was bothered by how little of their private life we see, but having now seen the film twice (and I agree, a second viewing really deepens everything) I rather like the mysterious nature of the relationship. There are a lot of question marks about their sex life that the film also raises and leaves ambiguous.
- Roger Ryan
- Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2010 12:04 pm
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
I'm curious how others interpret these two things...
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When Alma is first explaining Woodcock's "spells" to the young doctor, are we to assume she has already started poisoning him and only reveals that fact later in the conversation? Or, are his depressive episodes/emotional breakdowns real and Alma seeks to "recreate" the effect of these episodes by poisoning him? Also, how much is the doctor complicit in the continuing poisoning of Woodcock? As I understood the film after a single viewing, Alma has already explained to the doctor what she has been doing prior his examination of Woodcock in the film's short penultimate scene.
- mfunk9786
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
Roger Ryan wrote:I'm curious how others interpret these two things...SpoilerShowWhen Alma is first explaining Woodcock's "spells" to the young doctor, are we to assume she has already started poisoning him and only reveals that fact later in the conversation? Or, are his depressive episodes/emotional breakdowns real and Alma seeks to "recreate" the effect of these episodes by poisoning him? Also, how much is the doctor complicit in the continuing poisoning of Woodcock? As I understood the film after a single viewing, Alma has already explained to the doctor what she has been doing prior his examination of Woodcock in the film's short penultimate scene.
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The framing device with the doctor seems to be an aside during the same visit as the examination we see. Something tells me it (the involvement of the doctor at that point) is only there to reassure the viewer that Woodcock isn't being poisoned in any way that is majorly detrimental to his health, insofar as that could have been understood medically in the 1950s. Alma does seem to be describing the actual effect of Woodcock "coming down" after his show earlier in the film, and I think the snippets we see are of him decompressing after that particular event. Correct me if I have the timeline wrong, but I think that may be what triggers the idea in her, seeing him in that state a (couple?) times, then testing his limits with the private dinner to see if he'll send her packing, and then experimenting with the mushrooms for the first time once she realizes she's got some level of immunity with Woodcock that other women before her did not. Presumably, somewhere between that incident and the next time we see her cooking with the mushrooms, she and Woodcock have had a private discussion where he has given some sort of consent to it, or at least has been made aware that she's going to have it in her arsenal if he flies off the handle.
Re: the doctor being complicit - I think he has eyes for Alma (who wouldn't?), and it likely is indeed their little secret, though he's probably hoping that someday he can swoop in as the only other man in her life. Or at least that's my reading of his involvement.
Re: the doctor being complicit - I think he has eyes for Alma (who wouldn't?), and it likely is indeed their little secret, though he's probably hoping that someday he can swoop in as the only other man in her life. Or at least that's my reading of his involvement.
- ianthemovie
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
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She does test him at lots of points in the film but I didn't see that dinner as a test. I believe her motives are more innocent at that point. She wants alone time with him, something she repeatedly says she's frustrated about, and she's insecure because she's just observed him lavishing lots of time and attention on the Belgian princess, by whom she appears to feel threatened. She believes that a sincere and conventional romantic gesture (romantic dinner for two) will win him back. It's only when this fails that she turns to other, less innocent means of forcing a bond between them.mfunk9786 wrote:testing his limits with the private dinner to see if he'll send her packing
I don't believe Alma and Reynolds ever discuss the poisoning, or that he even realizes what she has been doing, until the omelet scene, which feels epiphanic. Reynolds puts the pieces together while watching her cook with the mushrooms and "tests" her by stretching out that first bite. He even asks her, "Am I going to die?", and she indicates that the poison is not strong enough to kill him. That makes it sound like this is the first time they've talked about it.mfunk9786 wrote:Presumably, somewhere between that incident and the next time we see her cooking with the mushrooms, she and Woodcock have had a private discussion where he has given some sort of consent to it, or at least has been made aware that she's going to have it in her arsenal if he flies off the handle.
It's then that the doctor is called. (When Reynolds is in the bathroom about to vomit he asks Alma if she will call him, presumably to confirm that he's not at the risk of dying.) We see the doctor arrive, presumably examine Reynolds and then sit down with Alma in front of the fire, at which point we're back at the beginning of the film and Alma's narration.
The doctor does seem to have a crush on Alma based on his flirtation with her during the Christmas dinner-party scene, but I suppose he's also willing to write the whole thing off since Reynolds has for all intents and purposes consented to being poisoned. I can't imagine he's hoping to make a move on her-- after hearing her story he'd be crazy to do so, for a number of reasons!
- mfunk9786
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
Interesting - I absolutely read it as sort of a band-aid being ripped off - push him to the very edge of his comfort zone to see if his feelings are genuine and are still there. She very nearly says as much during the dinner.ianthemovie wrote:SpoilerShowShe does test him at lots of points in the film but I didn't see that dinner as a test. I believe her motives are more innocent at that point. She wants alone time with him, something she repeatedly says she's frustrated about, and she's insecure because she's just observed him lavishing lots of time and attention on the Belgian princess, by whom she appears to feel threatened. She believes that a sincere and conventional romantic gesture (romantic dinner for two) will win him back. It's only when this fails that she turns to other, less innocent means of forcing a bond between them.
- Shrew
- The Untamed One
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
I read the dinner scene more like Ian. It seemed like her attempt to artificially create one of Woodcock's "tender" moments, in which he cedes all control to Alma (i.e., him eating buttered asparagus would be equivalent to him letting her drive). Once that fails, she takes more extreme measures.
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I'm less convinced that she's told the doctor about the poisoning. At one point he asks her how often/long "these spells" last, which seems to conflate the poisonings with Woodcock's natural cooldowns. Her narration uses coded language about "slowing down his step" that only the images make clear, and I think the gap between those words/images is clearly intentional. And while the doctor does pose a threat in the first incident, where he might take Woodcock to a hospital or reveal the nature of the illness to him, those possibilities are less pressing in the later moment (and I'm not sure how easy it would be to detect poisoning with a routine checkup if you weren't looking for it).
One discombobulating moment I noticed on rewatch is how much the fabric of the chair Alma is sitting on in the framing device resembles the chair she's on when the doctor first comes to visit (when she's awoken by Cyril knocking).
One discombobulating moment I noticed on rewatch is how much the fabric of the chair Alma is sitting on in the framing device resembles the chair she's on when the doctor first comes to visit (when she's awoken by Cyril knocking).
- ianthemovie
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
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The ambiguity surrounding how much Alma tells the doctor is very interesting. I assumed that she must have told him what she was doing, because otherwise every time Reynolds keeps getting sick Cyril would insist on calling the doctor, suspicion would keep getting aroused, etc. It makes sense to me, in a bizarre way, that Alma would just confess to the doctor, and that her telling him the whole story is a way of explaining/contextualizing the poisoning. Maybe Reynolds even corroborated that he knowingly ate the poison mushrooms. Otherwise they would not be able to keep up this ruse time and time again. Alma narrowly got away with it the first time, because Reynolds happened to be so irascible that he scared away the doctor. Had the doctor been able to examine Reynolds thoroughly that time, he probably would have been able to tell that he was poisoned.
- FrauBlucher
- Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
April 10 bluray release. Some pretty decent extras.
Special Features:
Camera Tests – With audio commentary by Paul Thomas Anderson
For the Hungry Boy – A collection of deleted scenes. Music by Jonny Greenwood
House of Woodcock Fashion Show – Fashion Show narrated by Adam Buxton
Behind the Scenes Photographs – Photographs from the film by Michael Bauman with demo versions of Jonny Greenwood's score
Technical Specs:
Audio: English DTS:X and Dolby Digital 2.0, French and Spanish DTS Digital Surround 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
- Big Ben
- Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:54 pm
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
Fantastic! I'm quite interested in seeing those camera tests.
- mfunk9786
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
So there’ll be UHD in Canada but not the U.S.?
- Big Ben
- Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:54 pm
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
I'm certainly not seeing that here.mfunk9786 wrote:So there’ll be UHD in Canada but not the U.S.?
- mfunk9786
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- Ribs
- Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm
Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
More likely than not that UHD listing is itself a phantom - PTA still *did* the HDR grade, so it's theoretically 4K UHD disc ready at the drop of a hat, but maybe Focus needs more time to get their feet wet and they'll dump several of their titles at once. But it doesn't seem like it's happening *for now*, though Anderson indicated it would be happening in his AMA which, again, was before the BP nod probably doubled this film's box office and commercial value.
- JamesF
- Joined: Thu Mar 04, 2010 1:36 pm
Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
Insta-buy! On a related note, Buxton just released two new episodes of his podcast intervewing Anderson and Greenwood. Among the highlights of the former is discussion of probably my favourite scene in the film (Julia Davis' cameo).FrauBlucher wrote:House of Woodcock Fashion Show – Fashion Show narrated by Adam Buxton
- ianthemovie
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
According to the back-cover details posted on Amazon the special features total a mere 25 minutes. This is still a must-own film as far as I'm concerned, but it's a shame there isn't more. I always look forward to PTA's re-edited compilation of the deleted scenes and it looks like this one is only five minutes long.
-
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
Wasn't this great? Honestly didn't know what to expect seeing him doing an interview PTA just based on how kind of irreverent he often is, but I didn't expect them to just be chatting essentially as friends and it was just really enjoyable. I can't remember hearing PTA sound that relaxed during a long interview before, even with Maron it had a different feeling cause Maron's style is quite aggressive sounding, this was just fun.JamesF wrote:Insta-buy! On a related note, Buxton just released two new episodes of his podcast intervewing Anderson and Greenwood. Among the highlights of the former is discussion of probably my favourite scene in the film (Julia Davis' cameo).FrauBlucher wrote:House of Woodcock Fashion Show – Fashion Show narrated by Adam Buxton
Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
I’ve now seen this a second time in a much better (though still digital) presentation. It’s much clearer to me now thatWerewolf by Night wrote:Now I feel like a dotty old woman because I missed any indication thatHitchcockLang wrote:I imagine the women just didn't realize what kind of a film they were in for and were trying to make the best out of it when they could as when they were leaving , I overheard one of them say, "It was so boring, and I don't getSpoilerShowthe ending. Was she dreaming or was that for real? (I have spoiler-tagged this not because it's really a spoiler but because its ludicrousness may suggest more of a spoiler than what is actually here and I suppose it does spoil the fact that a somewhat surprising ending does exist).Also, I want to make an apology for questioning the value of a 70mm presentation of this film. I saw it with an extremely lousy DCP presentation (lines on the screen) and wished desperately that I was seeing it in 70mm where, regardless of the necessity of the large format, some care at least might have been taken with the quality of the image. I plan to see it again soon somewhere else. It’s awfully sad that I have to look forward these days to Blu-ray releases of films so that I can watch them in a viewing environment better than most local cinemas.SpoilerShowthe ending is imagined by Alma. I see the Wikipedia entry for the film also states quite authoritatively that the ending is imagined. Is that everyone’s interpretation? What did I miss in the film that indicates this?
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the scene with the baby carriage and the scene of Alma altering the dress in the atelier are imagined. There’s a moment when her voiceover shifts subtly from being addressed to Dr. Hardy to being addressed to Woodcock. She begins talking about a vision for their future, and Woodcock says, as someone else pointed out above, “but now we’re here.”
- mfunk9786
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
There is a UHD listing on Amazon UK with no release date now
I am seeing it suggested on Twitter by people with far more knowledge of the UK home video market that preordering this, despite it being [in essence] a placeholder, will increase the odds and speed with which it becomes a reality. Even if you don't have a 4K Blu-ray player - if you love this film, I hope you'd consider placing a risk-free preorder just to get the numbers to tick up. Would love to see it actually released, and apparently there is a precedent of Universal releasing 4K titles overseas months before they do so in the US in some cases.
And UHD/4K Blu-ray is completely region free.
So yeah, that's my pitch! Pre-order it! Do it for................. me! And other people!
I am seeing it suggested on Twitter by people with far more knowledge of the UK home video market that preordering this, despite it being [in essence] a placeholder, will increase the odds and speed with which it becomes a reality. Even if you don't have a 4K Blu-ray player - if you love this film, I hope you'd consider placing a risk-free preorder just to get the numbers to tick up. Would love to see it actually released, and apparently there is a precedent of Universal releasing 4K titles overseas months before they do so in the US in some cases.
And UHD/4K Blu-ray is completely region free.
So yeah, that's my pitch! Pre-order it! Do it for................. me! And other people!
- senseabove
- Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 3:07 am
Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
Saw this for the second time last night, and
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I strongly disagree that the ending is imagined. Given that the entire movie is couched very loosely in a flashback, it would be pretty incongruous for it to suddenly show a different "timeline" that is only in Alma's head. But most importantly, during Alma's voiceover, we see at least one new moment from a previous scene that we did not see in its temporal narrative location (Alma and Reynolds slow-dancing alone at the New Years Eve ball), as well as extended moments from scenes we did see,
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significantly, a return to the fitting at Reynold's city house that we saw early in the film when Alma, in voiceover, is boasting to the doctor about how nobody can stand as long as she can, and that scene is both one of the last things we see and one of the longer single takes in the whole "summary" passage. I think we are intentionally misdirected a bit, to think that Alma's final voiceover is to the doctor, until she says "you" and we realize that she's talking to Reynolds after the last or another of their... rituals or whatever you want to call it, but that only further emphasizes that the ending is showing actual events non-linearly. That take's length gives us plenty of time to recognize both the scene's repetition, the new reading of the dynamics in the scene, and to think about what Alma's early monologue means in relation to this one:
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the possibility that she's goading Reynolds to work just as much or more than Reynolds is making her stand. In other words, she has much more control over the dynamics of their relationship than we allowed her at the start. So while the Alma that is speaking may be imagining their future together, what we're seeing is the proof that the power dynamic is not temporary, that Alma is here to stay, Reynolds isn't going to try to get rid of her again.
- Ribs
- Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm
Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
There's good news, in that a UHD release of Darkest Hour has now been confirmed for the UK in June. It seems very likely that disc will come over to the US at that point (Get Out did the same thing from Uni.), and it's very likely the same thing will happen for Phantom Thread on UHD at or near the same point. So it might be a bit more of a wait, but the signs are good.mfunk9786 wrote:There is a UHD listing on Amazon UK with no release date now
I am seeing it suggested on Twitter by people with far more knowledge of the UK home video market that preordering this, despite it being [in essence] a placeholder, will increase the odds and speed with which it becomes a reality. Even if you don't have a 4K Blu-ray player - if you love this film, I hope you'd consider placing a risk-free preorder just to get the numbers to tick up. Would love to see it actually released, and apparently there is a precedent of Universal releasing 4K titles overseas months before they do so in the US in some cases.
And UHD/4K Blu-ray is completely region free.
So yeah, that's my pitch! Pre-order it! Do it for................. me! And other people!
- Big Ben
- Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:54 pm
- Location: Great Falls, Montana
Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
I ordered two copies because mfunk told me to. One for myself and one for a friend.
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
- Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
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Re: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
Buy two more.