Magnolia: Art or imitation?

PT Anderson can tell a story. Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood are marvelous films. But setting those aside and focusing only on Magnolia paints a picture of an egocentric, imitating director who doesn't know how to tell a meaningful story.
In the wake of Pulp Fiction, cinema experienced a great change in filmmaking. Films began to tell stories through new eyes and different perspectives. Magnolia, like Pulp Fiction, is a movie with many interweaving storylines. While it isn't told out of order, the scenes act like vignettes, lasting for minutes with long shots and heavy monologues. Each scene feels like it is so important, and building piece by piece to something special. Magnolia uses all the great cinematic techniques to concoct beautiful shots and interesting scenes, however it is missing everything that made Pulp Fiction great. Imagine Pulp Fiction stripped of all the comedic moments, the interesting thrill and action and perfectly structured conversations and you're left with Magnolia; rambling dialogue, poorly crafted conversations, no action or drive to the story and lots and lots and lots of acting. Each scene felt like it wanted to be great, and have something interesting to do or even move the story forward. But all we find are voidless zooming into characters faces, and actors staring off far too many times, and far too early in the film before the audience has made a real connection with the character.

These vignettes also are built and maneuvered for two purposes; they should be telling their own story and doing that while intertwining with the other stories. The opening section and narration leads us to believe that all the stories that are to come(and then the narration at the end speaking of the stories we just saw) are supposed to be mysteriously connected, and not just by coincidence. Except what Anderson doesn't understand is that in pointing this out, and even without the pointing out, we know he has written this story by himself to try and make art that is supposed to magically connect. When you can see the strings all magic is lost. Movies that point themselves out is a gimmick, and one used usually in a comedy. But in a drama, when you are told that there will be connections, and make the audience assume those connections will be fantastic, they better be. They can't just be people randomly meeting each other on the streets of LA, or working together or related by blood. It isn't magical; we can see your writing, PT Anderson, all over the screen, from the opening with the cop and black kid to the frog scene. Are we supposed to think that this is smart writing, when you have everyone living in the same vicintiy and have a black kid that wanders the streets bumping into the cop and later Julianne Moore, and then everyone is tied somehow to a kid's gameshow?
And then the stories by themselves, none of them come even close to being fully flushed out stories. And yet even bunched together into one movie they go no where. Let's break down the stories to see if any of them have any meaning or are compelling.
Wait! I was going to write out the stories to show that they went no where, but it turned out too long. I even went so far as to write the cop's whole boring story. Basically, every single storyline goes no where. I'll skip to the endings.
The cop makes the girl laugh, I guess? But what about the bodies in the closet? And the black lady? Why did the black kid rap that he knew something, but he never met him again. The gun fell from the sky with the frogs?
The show host ends up not killing himself after revealing he may have molested his daughter. Alright, so a frog stopped him, then what?
The blond girl still does coke and the cop made her smile. Okay?
The male nurse - he kind of was just the motion for the other stories. So in the end he was sad...because the old man died? Or because Tom Cruise killed a dog by drop kicking it after it got too close? Or frogs just make him sad?
Julianne Moore is in the hospital and she's gonna be okay. Great, and Tom Cruise is going to start having feelings because of it? Who knows.
The whiz kid - what was his story again? There was no story, it was like a flashback part of a Lost episode, except even the flashbacks of Lost have a point. This story ends with him telling his dad to be nice to him. No hug, no "shut the F up," all the Dad said was for him to go to bed. Plus, the kid was out till all hours of the night, why isn't the Dad pissed about that?
And the old whiz kid. His story was the most pointless. He wanted braces to impress the bartender. Then he puts the money back and that's the end of it. Nothing happened!?

I could go on, but hopefully the point has been made. This film was three hours long and nothing happened. Except it's not a nothing happened like a beautiful European film. This was like nothing happened as in PT Anderson thinks he's an artist and can tell a story. Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood aside, PT Anderson cannot tell a story. He's a kid that grew up in the San Fernando Valley watching videos of great films and thinks he can do it himself. Except, like American cinema is apt to do, he makes imitation of art. We see it in the beautiful composition of the shots. He dollies in to great framing and uses a crane to show William H. Macy's emotion. It's like he knows from all those videos he saw, when you want to show that an actor is thinking hard, you zoom in real close.
The whole film is like one long build up. The music and the zooms all make the audience think that something important or interesting is happening. But what's really happening? Some coke head is having coffee with a cop in her house. That's it. They actually aren't saying anything interesting, the scene isn't going anywhere, and the story is only connected because they say it is. Oh but, the meaning. The meaning! Won't someone think of the meaning? I'm sick of meaningless meaning. Frogs falling from the sky are not subject to interpretation, they are meaningless, just like every other scene. Sorry to all the hipsters and artists that have been scammed by this film. It's not art. PT Anderson wrote it in a cabin when he was afraid of the snake outside.

Just like Up, the film is manipulating the audience into buying into the story with their emotions. Except, this film uses strong dramatic music and long slow takes and the actors stare off, then act their hearts out. It's as if Anderson was saying just before the take, "Okay, Tom, now act better than you've ever acted before." "Okay, Juliane, cry like you've never cried before, then yell like they do in Network."
I thought it was interesting that in the film diary it shows Anderson screening Network for his crew. Although Magnolia is evidence itself that it is trying to be art, and comes off as an imitation, this shows where Anderson got his style and tone from. It shows through in the film, it has a tone similar to Network. People are really emotional, there is even a relation to television, and there's some yelling. But the difference is that Network may be one of the smartest scripts of all times. And one of the best. Magnolia is not smart. In fact, it's worse than Crash, another interweaving episodic film that shoots for the moon, dramatically.
Magnolia definitely shot for the moon. Any film where the cast sings along with the music playing to only the audience and concludes with frogs falling from the sky is definitely shooting something...
1. Themselves in the foot?
2. And definetly missing?
3. The audience in the face?

You make the call.

AFI Top 100 Movies: 68 to 65

68. An American in Paris - Oh boy! Sarcasm? Maybe. This film is just a big ball of joy. Nothing shows that more than the climax of the film: an 18 minute ballet style dance number through stylized sets of Paris. Oh boy!
That's pretty much the whole film. The plot is just kind of in the background, the songs don't really have to do with a whole lot and they dance around. Like a lot of musicals? Not entirely. The best musicals actually have a story. An American in Paris is about an American painter in Paris who starts stalking his friend's fiance. Somehow she ends up with him in the end. The end being the 20 seconds after the 18 minute dance number.
What's interesting to note about this musical is that the people in the world of the film not singing stop and smile and notice the people singing as if it were a show. Shouldn't they be going about their normal business, while the singing people emote how they feel? (Just like in other musicals.) Isn't that what the song in the musical is for, just a way to emote how you feel in an artistic way? So this film doesn't make much sense, it's just a chance for Gene Kelley to dance and sing and 1951 America to feel good about itself.

 67. The Manchurian Candidate - This is a near perfect film. Every shot is planned perfectly and artistic. Some of the cinematography is years ahead of its time, but watching it now you don't notice it because it's been copied so much since. There is a documentary look at times, then it gets closer and it's intimate. And all that flows together so well that you never notice, you're just swept into the story and characters.
The film is so interesting because it's almost satire, but it's not a comedy. They take it all so serious, with the political implications, Iselin is definitely patterned after McCarthy, but he never plays it overboard. The film plays with the notion of communist infiltration, and the joke is that the people supposedly blowing the whistle on secret commies in the government, are the actual communists. Pretty scary, and pretty close to things that have happened. Looking at the details of the Kennedy assassination, there is a haunting prophetic tone in the film. People in this film are patriotic, but yet they are doing things that are harming the country, whether they are forced to or not. (Several theories propose that Oswald was a loyal CIA operative, who spent time in Russia as part of one of their secret operations. If that's true, that's scary to think that a loyal CIA op would be told to kill the President.) It's unclear how much of a true communist the mother is, if she believes it or is just using it as a chance to get into the highest position of power. It hints at that at the end when she talks about when Iselin will be swept into power making Marshall Law seem like anarchy. There is so much depth to the film, from the technical aspects to the metaphors and social commentary, honestly, it's one the greatest American films. A+. Good Job.

66. Network - Ding dong, this movie was exhausting. I'm exhausted as hell and I'm glad this movie is over! Everyone was yelling in this movie. The 70's were the worst decade of all time, and people were awfully pissed about it. I would be too. Sky high oil prices, terrorists, commie black nigga's robbing banks, (Betsy was super pissed that I repeated the N-word. I think it's in the public domain by now.), and tons of other crap going on. The world was going to crap, and the only people that could possibly help people out and get through it are the people running TV. The problem is that people running TV networks are the worst people on the planet. Faye Dunaway, as usual, plays a crazy chick, who runs the programming on the network, and looking at her face in the movie poster, she's got a little bit of the Crazy Eyes.
The social commentary is pretty thick, and poignant even today. But still we've seen so much of this kind of satire that it wasn't shocking. What I took away from the film was this trend in America toward catching and cashing in on fads. Fads are like lightning and can only rarely be caught in a bottle. This is so true for TV, where one show gets high ratings and works, then is copied repeatedly. But what worked with the original doesn't carry over to the copies and they fail. In the movie they try to capitalize on Beale's live breakdown, re-tooling the news around his craziness. Then, Dunaway is trying to capitalize on the public fascination with revolutionary groups, despite the fact that they're collaborating with terrorists. Also, in the side plot, Harry leaves his wife of 40 years to have an extended affair with Dunaway. He gives up a lifetime of love and commitment for a fling with the craziest chick on the planet. A super fun idea at first, but not something you should ruin your life for.
That's what I get from the film, that destroying consistency for trends, ends up destroying everything; from decent television to our morals and values. Basically, that's the history of television. Thankfully, though, full-time news organizations and shows have maintained an acceptable level of standards. Reality TV today has provided that vent for the public's need for trashy, trendy and low brow entertainment. But this film definitely foresees some troubling times ahead, as we as a nation struggle between getting our fix of disaster and trends and maintaining a level of consistency in our actions, passions and morals.

65. The Silence of the Lambs - Ne'er was there a better example of a perfect script than this film. It's basically the Screenwriting book, with what to do, what not to do, and how to side step cliches while still using the best story format man has ever come up with. As the credits roll there is hardly any dialogue, but yet through the first few scenes you learn so much, not only about setting and the tone, but about Starling. Even the name is great, she's a lil star about to explode.
The film isn't stuck in film structure, it uses it as a tool. The twists and revelations are needed to build the story and drive, but they're never expected or contrived. I think that's the case because the script has just enough differences from usual stories to make it completely new and unique. For instance, Starling never meets the villain until the end. He isn't a classic nemesis that she knows and either was friends with. In fact, he isn't even trying to attack or elude her directly until the final battle. He has no clue about her, and she barely even knows who he is, only his persona.
The other obvious twist is the character of Hannibal Lecter. It's a rare treat to see such a unique and deep supporting character as him, especially since he's so bad. Lecter really provides the heart of this film, because Starling has to face him first before she ever gets close to Buffalo Bill. Lecter is THE twist of the film, it's what distances this film from any other average cop drama that preceded it. Story format and structure can be learned, but writing and using a character like Lecter is what makes screenplays into movies that excel above everything else.
As well, his character is used so perfectly, because he draws out Starling's past. She could have had flashbacks or dreams that she wakes up in a sweat, but instead we have the world's greatest psychologist pulling it out. It just so happens that he's a cannibal. Again, without him, and without him being written so perfectly, we have a B movie cop drama. Or worse yet, a Law and Order episode. It seems apt to point out as well that police procedurials probably wouldn't be the same without The Silence of the Lambs. Every L&O or CSI or even Dexter, pulls a little from this landmark film. In every Law and Order, the killer is interesting and deep, and even many of the side characters are. This film took a seriel killer and brought him out and made him intelligent, witty and sometimes human. Every show now wants to paint the same picture of their villains. The painting of Hannibal Lecter may be gruesome, but it takes a looking at every now and again to remember how well made it is, even if it's hard to look at.