criterionforum.org

Punch-Drunk Love



Chaos lurks in every corner of this giddily off-kilter foray into romantic comedy by Paul Thomas Anderson. Struggling to cope with his erratic temper, novelty toilet plunger salesman Barry Egan (Adam Sandler, demonstrating remarkable versatility in his first dramatic role) spends his days collecting frequent-flyer-mile coupons and dodging the insults of his seven sisters. The promise of a new life emerges when Barry inadvertently attracts the affections of a mysterious woman named Lena (Emily Watson), but their budding relationship is threatened when he falls prey to the swindling operator of a phone sex line and her deranged boss (played with maniacal brio by Philip Seymour Hoffman). Fueled by the careening momentum of a baroque-futurist score by Jon Brion, the Cannes-award-winning Punch-Drunk Love channels the spirit of classic Hollywood musicals and the whimsy of Jacques Tati into an idiosyncratic ode to the delirium of new romance.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:

• 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Paul Thomas Anderson, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Blossoms & Blood, a twelve-minute 2002 piece by Anderson featuring Adam Sandler and Emily Watson, along with music by Jon Brion
• New interview with Brion
• New piece featuring behind-the-scenes footage of a recording session for the film's soundtrack
• New conversation between curators Michael Connor and Lia Gangitano about the art of Jeremy Blake
• Additional artwork by Blake
• Cannes press conference from 2002
• NBC News interview from 2000 with David Phillips, "the pudding guy"
• Twelve Scopitones
• Deleted scenes
• Mattress Man commercial
• Trailers

obloquy wrote:Excellent piece.

[...]with his most recent film, Punch Drunk Love, it can be argued that Anderson has taken a seminal step into the realm of auteur.

That's exactly how I've always felt about PDL. It's brilliant and completely Anderson's own.

That article is about the most pretentious thing I've read all week (and I've read a lot of pretentious things over the week, and written a few, even).

Why's that?

If I were to wager a guess it would be because of the words "seminal" and "auteur". "Realm" doesn't help much, either.

Don't forget the egregious phrase "it can be argued"!

Also, the pretentiousness of realm of auteur is much greater than the combined pretentiousness of realm and auteur.

So you dislike his choice of words. I see.

Well that, and I think that his choice of words indicates an intention to seem more profound or insightful. What the phrase essentially says is that Punch Drunk Love is P.T. Anderson's first major work as an auteur. The "it can be argued" is a pointless evasive technique (that I've probably used before), the idea being that if someone wanted to attack the claim, then they are either attacking something that the writer didn't officially claim, or they are attacking the notion that that claim can be argued rather than the claim itself. That phrase doesn't exist for any other reason. Of course, no one attacking the piece would operate on such a literal grammatical level.

As for "the realm of auteur," what is "the realm of auteur"? I assume it simply means "auteurship," but maybe it refers to that elite group of directors onto which critics benevolently bestow the laurel of "auteurship" (Hitchcock, Kubrick, Renoir, et al). All of these words are perfectly good words, but here there being put to poor use.

Good post, thanks for explaining what you meant. It still sounds like your issue is mainly with his relatively amateurish writing.

I happen to agree with the author's point, so it didn't seem to me that he was fishing for profundity when he wrote exactly how I feel about PDL and what it means for Anderson.

Unfortunately I can't read the rest of the article, as my corporate proxy blocks that site, so all I had to go on was that fragment. :(

Certainly I agree with the notion that that was Anderson's first solid work (if that's what that fragment was saying), though whether it was semen-like -- er, seminal -- remains to be seen.

Is this respect being given to PDL because it is Anderson's least derivative (most original) work?

I would agree that PDL doesn't seem to rely on Scorsese's influence as much as Magnolia and especially Boogie Nights.

But aside from that, I fail to see how someone could put this film, wonderful as it is, above Magnolia. And even if you find PDL to be better than Magnolia, I think by calling it his "first solid work" you are insulting his previous films which are at the VERY least, solid.

I would agree that PDL doesn't seem to rely on Scorsese's influence as much as Magnolia and especially Boogie Nights.

Yeah but PT Anderson was going through the Tati phase when making PDL. How is that different from Anderson going through the (from what I thought) Altman phase (Magnolia) or the Scorsese phase (Boogie Nights)?

I fail to see how someone could put this film, wonderful as it is, above Magnolia.

Absolutely! I looooooooove Magnolia.

Sorry, I don't find Anderson's previous films to be very solid. I find them rather meandering, dull, and silly. They lack the earnestness of something like Mean Streets, where you can see both the enjoyment in making such a film (thinking about this always recalls for me the scene with Harvey Keitel spinning around with the camera in front of him), and the connection that the filmmakers have with the character types that the film is depicting. They seem like exercises in story-weaving. Stylistically I don't seem them going anywhere, and I hope that he will either abandon his insistence on silliness (dramatically the films are simultaneously intriguing and frustrating) or use it against itself, as he does with Punch Drunk Love. PDL is largely successful in the way it uses Sandler's persona against itself, much like The Truman Show, which despite all of its problems, very effectively turns Carrey's persona in on itself to great dramatic effect.

Anderson clearly has a foundation on which to make much more interesting films. He's taken on Altman and Scorsese and played around with storytelling techniques that he's borrowed from them. He clearly has the technical capacity to make a very interesting and slick Hollywood film, and in Punch Drunk Love he has accomplished this. I'm very interested to see where he goes from here, though I can't imagine he'll ever step outside of the Hollywood filmmaking world.

This stands up for me as my favorite movie of all time. Even just seeing pictures of the scopitones puts me in the same mood I get when I saw the movie for the first time. This movie doesn't get enough love by a very long shot.

Magic Hate Ball wrote:This stands up for me as my favorite movie of all time. Even just seeing pictures of the scopitones puts me in the same mood I get when I saw the movie for the first time. This movie doesn't get enough love by a very long shot.

It's by a wide margin the most popular PTA film on this board, and for good reason.

It casts quite a magical spell, equal parts horrifying and warm.

One of my favourite films of the decade, and definitely my favourite PTA, though I haven't seen TWBB.

Eh not a big fan of PTA, but I suppose this is his best work to date (both the Sandler and Watson character don't make sense, though). Till I watch There Will Be Blood, I suppose.

noelbotevera wrote:both the Sandler and Watson character don't make sense, though

Exactly! Isn't it great?!

domino harvey wrote:

Magic Hate Ball wrote:This stands up for me as my favorite movie of all time. Even just seeing pictures of the scopitones puts me in the same mood I get when I saw the movie for the first time. This movie doesn't get enough love by a very long shot.

It's by a wide margin the most popular PTA film on this board, and for good reason.

No kidding. I do enjoy his other films, although they have their faults; Sydney is not terribly gripping, Boogie Nights is overly long (however, it is tightly edited and no scene could really be cut, and also is terribly gripping), and Magnolia is just butt-numbing. Also, the lengthy opening sequence featuring "One" made me physically sick of the damn song. plink plink plink plink plink plink plink plink

I like all his films, though I liked them more before I knew anything about film. Punch-Drunk Love was my least-favorite PTA film when it came out, now it's so clearly his masterpiece.

Magic Hate Ball wrote: Sydney is not terribly gripping

It is to me. It would be his most gripping if it weren't for...

Magic Hate Ball wrote:Magnolia is just butt-numbing.

Hmmm. I think I disagree. All I can say is that I've only seen Magnolia twice, as with AI, because there are some experiences too overwhelmingly powerful to dare return to often if you value the purity of that experience. For me, at this time in my life anyway, over familiarity breeds a lack of gratitude.

John Cope wrote:

Magic Hate Ball wrote:Magnolia is just butt-numbing.

Hmmm. I think I disagree.

All I can say is that I've only seen Magnolia twice, as with AI, because there are some experiences too overwhelmingly powerful to dare return to often if you value the purity of that experience. For me, at this time in my life anyway, over familiarity breeds a lack of gratitude.

I liked it when I first saw it, but it didn't really hold up well to repeat viewings. It's too uneven. Then again, picking my (second)favorite PTA movie is like throwing three different fruits into a blender and eating the one that hits the ceiling first.

I get what you mean by the powerful thing, though. That's how it is for me with Punch-Drunk Love, INLAND EMPIRE, and Requiem For A Dream. I love all three to pieces, but watching any of them keeps me up at night. And I'm almost afraid to return to Science Of Sleep because I loved it so much in theaters and I'm worried it'll be worse when I see it again.

Punch Drunk Love, until I catch There Will Be Blood, remains Paul Thomas Anderson's greatest accomplishment.

I think what makes the film remarkable is that despite the use of so much music, it's also quiet and restrained, which is a major departure from either Boogie Nights or Magnolia. Of course, Brion's music complements the entire production very well.

Now I must go and pray that Paul Dano won't succeed in ruining PTA's new film (as I've been told).

Marcel Gioberti wrote:Now I must go and pray that Paul Dano won't succeed in ruining PTA's new film (as I've been told).

you have been wrongly informed (about Paul Dano), at least in my opinion.
Paul is quite convincing, in that he seems like his character is acting.
There Will Be Blood is PTA's masterpiece, so far, but Punch-Drunk isn't far behind. TWBB continues his style of crafting a dramatic whole with evenly transitioning each sequence to create a story arch, instead of the 'normal' style of having dramatic parts that are blocked end to end to create a feature film.
I do love to watch PTA's films because they seem very fluid (especially when he's dealing with individuals, and not ensembles) despite having very awkward and uncomfortable tones (like PDL).

TWBB reminded me, at times, to the old epics of the 60's (Lawrence of Arabia especially), but instead of having a (near) perfect main character (who maybe has a weakness for booze) Daniel Day-Lewis is quite the opposite.

Punch-Drunk Love will become for PT Anderson's career what Brief Encounter has for David Lean's.

Cde. wrote:

noelbotevera wrote:both the Sandler and Watson character don't make sense, though

Exactly! Isn't it great?!

More grate than great. Magnolia's a mess, Boogie Nights seems thirty minutes too short (PTA seems to lack a second act, or a convincing means of chraacter and plot development). Overall, an Altman wannabe doing Scorsese style.

But hey, maybe that new movie'll change my mind.