As I sat there watching a dinner scene with Woodcock's muse and loosely defined 'girlfriend' it occurred to me I had a very similar conversation with my girlfriend in college when I was in the midst of making my first short film.
At 22 years old, I was maxing out my credit cards and constantly pressured to maximize our resources to make a film in Northwest Ohio...without the slightest infrastructure to do so. Stressed but focused.
My girlfriend at the time surprised me with a dinner. During the dinner, I noticed she grew silent. She finally explained how rude it was that I inhaled the food without a slightest notion what it meant that we spent time together quietly. Exhausted I snapped at the food prepared, the martini (I'm not joking) made and a bath she'd drawn earlier (before dinner). It was an ugly argument. Which led to make-up sex. And so it went.
We said a lot of things that hurt. Being that I was so focused on my film, little mattered. A few months later, as the film was finished and about to be screened, my friends from high school came up to celebrate and come to the screening. I crashed out with them, instead of going back to her place as requested to spend the night. I think she had something planned that night as well. A quiet celebration between us. But I fizzled those plans as well. These scenes injure me deeply now in my heart, since I realized too late that our muses and guides sometimes will do things for us and TO us that slow us down enough to realize the life isn't consumed by craft.
This film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson reminds me why I love cinema and why I shoot it on film. It's an exquisite portrait of a man who spent an entire life clothing beautiful women who gush over his work but he is so empty inside. His identity and accomplishments are based solely on who he can bully with a great deal of status. Daniel Day Lewis plays Reynolds Woodcock, the curmudgeonly artist at the House of Woodcock, a boutique for the richest and well-known women in society. His name means something to women old and young. With his nose buried into a sketchbook, he is constantly laser beam focused. Again, something I do see in myself when in film maker mode. Interruptions are a constant strain.
Woodcock pays a visit to the countryside and comes across Alma (Vicky Krieps) a waitress whom he sizes up to be...a model. Or perhaps the muse. Little is known of their encounter, only that she is intrigued by him. They go on a date and eventually spend more time in his studio which he begins to use her as the clothing dummy. This leads to a more personal relationship that is too complicated to describe here.
Anyone who makes art or creates should watch this movie. It taps into all the small things we consistently talk about. Like after an exhaustive screening, we go into a deep depression (post-partum). These are small details Anderson understands with his own craft. Like having muses. Or focusing more on the result rather than the person. This happens to me constantly in photoshoots. Most models think they are there for sexual gratification. To an artist, they are light hitting beautiful shapes with color. You can see that in Woodcock as he takes measurements, and in how P.T. Anderson films Alma. There's also, Cyril (Lesley Manville) Woodcock's sister who seems to have encompassed Woodcock's life from the beginning as his go-between his personal relatonships. As maybe a savant Woodcock at the very least seemed to believe a human barrier was necessary. Perhaps she aimed to be a model whose measurements weren't to par.
These little nuances make for this high society stylish love story that is unconventional yet will speak to artist relationships. They are volatile, fiery, needy and ultimately...essential.
A wonderful work of art.
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