On Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread

Milan 2019

The year is 1955, and we’re in London, amid the bustle and pomp and fuss of a fashion house. Look at the styles, examine the fabrics, but notice, too, the exertion of the workers who measure and shape and stitch, all of them focused on the grind that’s required for any craft. But don’t get too comfortable, as we’re in the opening minutes of Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 film Phantom Thread, and there’s soon to be a rather peculiar shot, though there’s nothing too dramatic or odd or even unexpected in this frame, which means that the peculiarity of Anderson’s choice doesn’t arrive until you remember it later.

For most of the film, in fact, the camera remains a bystander. We watch the drama from subtle, unadorned, almost forgettable angles. Anderson resists the justifiable urge to muck about with flashy, clever shots and simply lets the drama unfold. So we mostly watch as voyeurs, spying as the film proceeds, forgetting that we’re guests in this play. We watch from behind furniture, or we trail the conversation from another room. Yet Anderson manages to do this while also creating a simply gorgeous film of soft colors and muted light—which isn’t exactly a minor accomplishment.

This rather passive view puts our focus on the distance between the characters—the actual physical space in which they move. So we see a rather strident designer, Reynolds Woodcock, who is driven by his obsession to craft. We also see the accidental muse, a waitress named Alma who joins this intense world. A third character, Cyril Woodcock, provides the subtle hinge on which this drama swings. And our story truly begins once Alma takes a finicky meal order from Reynolds while we watch from a distance—and it is worth remembering that taking a food order is Alma’s first act. We see how Reynolds maintains an exactness to his life and desires while leaving almost nothing to chance.

But it is the character of Cyril Woodcock who provides that peculiar angle in the opening minutes: she’s in the house where most of the film occurs, and we watch her walk toward the front door, halt for just a moment, then contort her stoic face into a smile—while she stares directly into the lens. To look directly at the viewer is the most confrontational angle in film, and, in this moment, Cyril makes a slight adjustment, it is a moment of pretense, the moment when her smile becomes her costume. It is also the moment when we become the arriving guests, and, as Cyril opens the door, she gestures us inside the home—her mask secure, her armor impenetrable.

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Of course this is a film with countless masks—this is a film where, notably, the characters are always thinking about fashion. And in many ways fashion is the perfect subject for film, because it concentrates our mind on surfaces, on the outer layers, with playfulness and beauty coming from the distance between what we see and what we know. If the subject is glamour, or charisma, even temptation, then the subject is longing, it is about the imaginative quality that you want to inhabit. Which makes the camera the ideal window for a story that obsesses about what a dress hides, about what a dress reveals, about why every glance contains layers. So there are silent breakfasts charged with meaning. There are deceptive marriages described as sincere. There are hidden messages stitched into clothes. There are conversations where nods provide catharses. There are meals cooked with precision, and meals cooked, quite purposely, without precision.

And these masks set the drama between the characters, leaving us to watch how the atmosphere in the exquisite rooms of this film begins to shift—how a sister affects a brother, how a new muse affects a stubborn designer, how that stubborn designer affects his new muse. We’re still bystanders, watching from a distance, not intruding on the action. But we discern how one character alters another, how all of these masks imbue every gesture with meaning. And here’s where Anderson limits himself and concentrates on what film does best: the frame excels at exteriors, at the spaces between the characters, but can’t look any closer. So Anderson shows how one character excites or disappoints another, how one character inspires or maddens another, but we’re always watching reactions, always seeing the environment from a distance, with its flawless style and soft light and countless masks. We’re stuck with these surfaces—where the meaning is always elusive. And after the opening shot of Cyril Woodcock looking directly at the viewer, there’s no further moments of interior thought, not a single display of a character’s mind, we’re left with what the camera sees—those glances, those surfaces, those masks.

Watching a film is a bit like watching a rainstorm through a window. You see how the wind affects the trees, you hear the patter against the sill, but you, fundamentally, view the storm from a comfortable distance, through a frame, still inhabiting your own mind while you observe the turmoil. What you mostly see are effects. The results of what’s already occurred. Reading a novel, however, is a bit like standing in a rainstorm. Because there’s no distance when the words on the page direct your thoughts. A novel keeps you immersed, until you begin to inhabit the writer’s mind by absorbing and incorporating their thoughts, with the novel, at its best, about interiors, about the closing of distance.

Anderson uses this distinction to sharpen his film, moving the frame closer and narrowing the space between his characters when they are most exposed. The audience never quite leaves its voyeuristic position, but there are moments of closeness. Such as when Reynolds discusses—rather notably—his affinity for hiding messages within dresses. It is a moment of vulnerability, a rare time when the subject isn’t about surfaces. A more typical moment comes at the more feverish point when Reynolds shouts that he is “surrounded on all sides.” It is this stress on the distance between the characters when Anderson’s drama comes alive.

What’s most intriguing to me is how Anderson created this character as an artist. Reynolds could have been a writer, a painter, or any number of more typical creative professionals. There’s an implicit belief, however, that the artistic sensibility of those passions is best observed in the work: on the pages of the novel, with the paint on the canvas. There’s the mysterious drive of the artist, and the external work that’s created, without any necessity of coherence or linearity between the two. So Anderson selected a craft, one that’s suffused with notions of mastery, expressiveness, brilliance, and has his character inhabit the role of artist in tangible form—with the artistry present in both the designs and the life. While the painter’s creation hangs on the wall, the designer’s creation walks across the room. There’s no separation between the artwork and the life; the gaze expresses as much as the cut of fabric, and Anderson’s camera gives us a voyeuristic view of this artistic sensibility. With Reynolds Woodcock, we have a character that works his craft as nothing less than an artist, directed toward virtuosity, with his drive expanding to fill every space. He inhabits the desire to create, and we see how this reverberates onto those around him, because he is obsessive, monomaniacal, relentless, and we can’t stop watching, secure in our distance.

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