Beware of anyone who associates with Ricky Jay. He shows up in the films of David Mamet, who always loves a good con. He’s the narrator of one of my favorite movies of 2009, The Brothers Bloom, also a movie about con artists. When there is trickery and sleight of hand afoot, look around and you might notice a large bearded man peering around the corners.
I know a magician. He’s a pretty damn good one. His name is Jerry. To tell you more is to reveal his secrets. I asked him a few weeks ago which magician he is most impressed by. I mentioned some popular names like David Blaine (you know, to help him out). He shook his head at every name I mentioned and said, “That’s easy. The greatest magician I’ve ever seen is Ricky Jay.”
Ricky Jay pops up every so often in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia. He’s the producer seen with the masonic pinky ring. He accounts for us three strange stories of coincidence at the start of the film. He reminds us of them in the end before closing: “And so it goes, and so it goes. And the book says… we may be done with the past but the past ain’t through with us”.
The past comes into play often throughout Magnolia. Sins of the three primary fathers (Jason Robards, Philip Baker Hall and Michael Bowman) lead to a very unfortunate assortment of tragedies. The fathers are abusers. They’re oppressors. By the end of the film, they’ve all paid the price for it. One father is forgiven even if we never hear the apology (there is, at the very least, a cathartic moment). Another is reprimanded and there is hope he will not continue down his destructive path (though we cannot be sure). The other is simply damned. He refuses to “wise up” completely. So he’s going to burn for it, a consequence for his refusal to own up to his actions.
The past is not through with anybody. Melora Walters’s Claudia can’t forgive or forget it. Tom Cruise‘s Frank T.J. Mackey doesn’t want to remember or harp on it, it’s “so useless”. Phillip Baker Hall’s Jimmy Gator claims he can’t remember it. Jason Robards’s Earl Partridge feeds off it to the point of confession. Julianne Moore‘s character, Linda, regrets it. William H. Macy‘s Donnie Smith can’t let it go. And so it goes.
In many ways Magnolia is about the day Earl Partridge dies. Earl is handing over an empire. He’s a successful television producer. But he’s dying of cancer. Phil Parma (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is his caretaker, the most decent man in the film. Earl has a trophy of a wife in Linda who married him for his money, cheated on him constantly, but now has fallen in love with him as he lays dying. She is depressed and guilt-ridden. He also has a son who despises him so much he doesn’t take his name. He goes by the name Frank T.J. Mackey. Part of his legacy belongs to a game show hosted by Jimmy Gator, whose daughter, Claudia – in an echo of his employer’s paternal relationship – hates him. You get a sense that Earl’s awful behavior has spread throughout his empire… to his game show host, even its troll show coordinator (Felicity Huffman). Claudia is a coke addict but she does meet a decent man (a policeman, actually) named Jim Kurring (John C. Reilly) who may share her father’s first name but certainly not his last. Partridge’s show, the condescendingly titled What Do Kids Know?, has featured at least two child prodigies and stars. One of them is Quiz Kid Donnie Smith (all grown up now), whose parents exploited him and sucked him dry of his winnings. To add insult to injury, he later got zapped with lightning and now is “just stupid”. The other child prodigy is Stanley Spector, the son of yet another father in show business (almost), who is close to breaking one of the show’s records. Nine story lines but they all come from the Earl Partridge tap. An apt association as this is truly a kitchen-sink movie.
As you can see, in his wake Earl Partridge has left a bit of mess. Will the show go on? Not if chance has anything to say about it. There is a storm brewing that’s going to coincide with his final exit. And it’s going to knock everyone on their ass. Hints of the storm begin early with Anderson giving us continual weather forecasts. Magnolia is about why that storm comes and the aftermath. All of those people in pain, fallout from the life of Earl Partridge – some victims (the children), some offenders (the fathers), others a little of both – they have everything to gain or lose when judgement befalls them. There are also caregivers, like Hoffman’s Phil Parma. He’s sort of a cipher in this cast because he is mostly offstage in this play of tragedies; a grip. Neither a victim or oppressor. Reilly’s Jim Kurring is a caregiver too, although he does makes the mistake of dismissing a child early in the film.
The movie trailer tells us. “Things fall down. People look up.” Kurring elaborates in the film:
People think if I make a judgment call… that’s a judgment on them, but that is not what I do. And that’s not what should be done. I have to take everything and play it as it lays. Sometimes people need a little help. Sometimes people need to be forgiven… You can forgive someone. Well, that’s the tough part. What can we forgive? Tough part of the job. Tough part of walking down the street.
This is important. It is clear P.T. Anderson is judging no one. He’s just playing it as it lays. Everyone in Magnolia is given a chance at redemption for their crimes large and small, even the irredeemable (Jimmy Gator could have ended it with one shot if only he’d come clean). Be a good person. Don’t mistreat your children. Be sympathetic. Your actions have lasting effects you cannot fathom.
But I’m getting lost again. This is a whirlwind of a movie, a graduate of the 1999 class – one of the best years for film in memory. It was a box office flop despite being one of the best reviewed films of the year. The DVD box will tell you it landed on over 80 Top Ten Lists for 1999. It took the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival and landed 3 Academy Award nominations including Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Tom Cruise, who amazes) and Best Original Song. In 2008, Roger Ebert added it to his Great Movies List. It still bewilders some, angers others.
Sitting in a theater back in 1999, I was emotionally destroyed by this movie but also electrified by Anderson’s daring craft. The skill with which he cuts across his nine stories, weaving in and out of different story lines that on the surface perhaps do not seem to relate is pretty astonishing. It doesn’t feel disjointed because somehow, someway it doesn’t feel like several different stories, it feels like one; it all fits together, even if you aren’t sure why on first viewing. There is an elegance to the narrative, almost like we’re floating through it all. We whip from one story to the next but there – to smooth all the transitions – is Jon Brion’s excellent score. And I don’t mean to get too flowery when I say Anderson is in many ways a conductor himself, orchestrating his nine story lines into one grand symphony. This is a magnum opus of the highest order.
Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the top five filmmakers working today. I feel the same way about his films as I do Quentin Tarantino‘s. As I write this I’m getting ready to go to an Orlando theme park, Islands of Adventure. When you ride a roller coaster, you sometimes have to wait in line a long while. Even though the ride is over in a blink, it’s totally worth it. Both Anderson and Tarantino tend to take long breaks in between their movies, but I will never give up my place in the line.
When I asked my friend Jerry, the magician I mentioned earlier, why he favored Ricky Jay above all others he said, “Because, Andre, all those other guys… they do impressive tricks. They do. But I have a pretty good idea how they did them. I’ve seen Ricky Jay do his acts up close, and for the life of me I can’t figure that guy out. I can’t explain his tricks. He’s as masterful a presenter as I’ve ever seen. To me, he epitomizes a great magician, a great performer. I can’t fully articulate to you why, but when you see him, you know.”
Sometimes a movie speaks to you in ways you can’t completely articulate and I apologize if this is yet another one of those instances. This is a movie that effects me very deeply. It’s a sprawling emotionally heavy piece of masterful movie making. It comments on its very existence, moving in and out of realities and realism. You see the layers, the themes, the work Anderson, his cast and crew all put into this production. It’s better than the film Anderson was influenced by most (Robert Altman’s very good Short Cuts). And one of the great things about Magnolia – if you love it as I do – is when you go back and revisit it. That’s when you can really have some fun with it. After you have set the distractions off to the side and get to the core of what it is, you can then invite them in again on repeated viewings. You can take in the “cats-and-dogs” messages, the 8s and the 2s, the secret messages on walls, on books splattered across tables, the meaning of the title, the comparisons to the Book of Exodus, enslaved children, and the talk of prophets and prophecies and plagues. And when you see all the work and all the attention to detail from one scene to the next you have to question Anderson when he claims he didn’t even know the Book of Exodus contained a plague of frogs. Never trust the artist, nor a magician, nor friends of Ricky Jay.
If you don’t own it already, Warner Home Video will be releasing it on Blu-ray January 19, 2010 for everyone to revisit, more info on that right here.
NOTE: For the nitpickers in the audience, Magnolia actually premiered in the U.S. on December 8 and opened wide on January 7. We are celebrating it’s New York and Los Angeles release with this post… something of a gentleman’s compromise.
For more from Andre’s monthly film anniversary articles click here.
