It’s strange the way the ostensible subject of films have so little to do with the film itself. Rock biopics are, by and large, awful however big a fan you are of the band themselves. While my disinterest in ballet meant that for years I avoided seeing Powell and Pressburger’s ‘Red Shoes’, before finally find it a favourite of theirs. But when it comes to dressmaking, particularly when it comes to the devising of gowns to be draped over the wealthy,then my interest in ballet becomes by comparison almost an obsession.
And yet that’s no barrier whatsoever to Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Phantom Thread’. Chief character Reynols is a fashion designer, but that’s not particularly significant. The subject of his obsessions isn’t the focus on the film, his obsessions themselves are the subject of the film. His art is Platonist, he works not from omissions but ceaseless sketches, realising the perfect object he sees in his mind. He’s learnt how to turn on the charm to the society ladies who purchase the finished product, but they’re merely an unfortunate necessity to him, the ignorant but cash-dispensing patrons to his Renaissance artistry.
The film’s a character study of ‘the artistic temperament’, and we watch with contradictory feelings of admiration, abhorrence and plain puzzlement. There are very few exteriors, and the vast majority of the film takes place inside the limited sets of the house. (I didn’t even know when it was set until reading it afterwards.)
The next most significant characters are Alma, his latest muse, assistant and living mannequin, and his sister Cyril. (I have no idea why she’s called Cyril!) While Reynols busies himself with his work, Cyril is the business head. When he intends to refuse a society invitation, Cyril curtly informs him such people pay for their house. Viewing a finished dress, he pronounces it as matching his specifications yet “ugly” before (albeit involuntarily) damaging it. If it doesn’t work for him it’s of no use. Cyril then goes into gear, politely but firmly telling the seamstresses no-one’s going home until it’s repaired and the client’s order fulfilled.
Alma is demonstrated to be unlike Cyril, her interest in the man not the goods he produces. When a (particularly disliked) customer collapses in one of his dresses, she brusquely forces her way into the room to rescue it. And as that example shows, she’s capable of agency. Unlike her predecessor muse, a doormat whose shunting offstage is even accomplished offstage.
But the fact we’re discussing Alma in the negative, seeing her in terms of not occupying space blocked off elsewhere, is indicative. The film, so fixated in Reynol’s fixations, has little interest in her fixation on him. Does his devotion to his work attract her at the same time it shuts her out? Does she sense someone beneath all this? Is she merely looking for a place in the world?
She has no backstory, or anything else which might help us out there. She has strength of character yet no actual character. And such questions simply pass unasked. As in the classic Frank Sinatra quote, it’s his world and she just lives in it. And as this becomes more acute, as Reynols rebuffs her more and more cruelly and ruthlessly, and as she still persists, this absence of any actual Alma becomes a bigger and bigger space.
We all know rom-coms where unlikely couples overcome obstacles to get together. (And most mainstream films now have at least a rom-com element.) Naturally, they’re two-handers. We also know films where small characters work as our link to the lives of great ones. (Perhaps most exemplified in the early scene in ‘Citizen Kane’, where anonymous figures in a darkened movie theatre speculate on him.) ‘Phantom Thread’ is a strange mish-mash of the two.
Other reviews have found this a weakness of the film. But it’s clearly not a mistake. It’s a deliberate decision, however strange. Reynols isn’t portrayed sympathetically, he’s actually shown quite unsparingly. In the showing I saw, some were laughing out loud at his self-importance, as he delivered the most scathing abuse in the most mellifluous of tones. But in another way he’s simply not shown at all. Through non-Alma, we’re simply standing too close to him to frame him, and so we become radiated by his light.
The film comes to feel like something Reynols would make if he took up directing. Individual scenes can be stunning and exquisite. The afore-mentioned dress repair sequence, for example, has the dress laid out below multiple seamstresses like a patient on an operating table. A party scene is as elaborate and fantastical as a Fellini set-piece, yet occupies the screen for an absurdly brief period of time. It’s a film that’s cut from the most priceless cloth, but there’s no gaining any purchase on those silky surfaces.
The next most significant characters are Alma, his latest muse, assistant and living mannequin, and his sister Cyril. (I have no idea why she’s called Cyril!) While Reynols busies himself with his work, Cyril is the business head. When he intends to refuse a society invitation, Cyril curtly informs him such people pay for their house. Viewing a finished dress, he pronounces it as matching his specifications yet “ugly” before (albeit involuntarily) damaging it. If it doesn’t work for him it’s of no use. Cyril then goes into gear, politely but firmly telling the seamstresses no-one’s going home until it’s repaired and the client’s order fulfilled.
Alma is demonstrated to be unlike Cyril, her interest in the man not the goods he produces. When a (particularly disliked) customer collapses in one of his dresses, she brusquely forces her way into the room to rescue it. And as that example shows, she’s capable of agency. Unlike her predecessor muse, a doormat whose shunting offstage is even accomplished offstage.
But the fact we’re discussing Alma in the negative, seeing her in terms of not occupying space blocked off elsewhere, is indicative. The film, so fixated in Reynol’s fixations, has little interest in her fixation on him. Does his devotion to his work attract her at the same time it shuts her out? Does she sense someone beneath all this? Is she merely looking for a place in the world?
She has no backstory, or anything else which might help us out there. She has strength of character yet no actual character. And such questions simply pass unasked. As in the classic Frank Sinatra quote, it’s his world and she just lives in it. And as this becomes more acute, as Reynols rebuffs her more and more cruelly and ruthlessly, and as she still persists, this absence of any actual Alma becomes a bigger and bigger space.
We all know rom-coms where unlikely couples overcome obstacles to get together. (And most mainstream films now have at least a rom-com element.) Naturally, they’re two-handers. We also know films where small characters work as our link to the lives of great ones. (Perhaps most exemplified in the early scene in ‘Citizen Kane’, where anonymous figures in a darkened movie theatre speculate on him.) ‘Phantom Thread’ is a strange mish-mash of the two.
Other reviews have found this a weakness of the film. But it’s clearly not a mistake. It’s a deliberate decision, however strange. Reynols isn’t portrayed sympathetically, he’s actually shown quite unsparingly. In the showing I saw, some were laughing out loud at his self-importance, as he delivered the most scathing abuse in the most mellifluous of tones. But in another way he’s simply not shown at all. Through non-Alma, we’re simply standing too close to him to frame him, and so we become radiated by his light.
The film comes to feel like something Reynols would make if he took up directing. Individual scenes can be stunning and exquisite. The afore-mentioned dress repair sequence, for example, has the dress laid out below multiple seamstresses like a patient on an operating table. A party scene is as elaborate and fantastical as a Fellini set-piece, yet occupies the screen for an absurdly brief period of time. It’s a film that’s cut from the most priceless cloth, but there’s no gaining any purchase on those silky surfaces.
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