Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Alma Elson (Vicky Krieps) are caught in a cycle: Reynolds’s obsession with his dressmaking craft and his deceased mother send him dithering between immense sweetness and crass irritability, with Alma often on the receiving end of both his affection and his aloofness. But while Alma’s not the first to suffer Reynolds’s mercurial temperament, she’s the first who seems ready to do something about it.
We’ve welcomed returning guest Abbie Phelps to pull at the stitches of PHANTOM THREAD! It got its flowers when it was released to critical acclaim, dozens of nominations, and plenty of industry awards, but we’re taking advantage of nearly a decade of discussion around it to see if we can’t provide some more depth to the discussion around Paul Thomas Anderson’s period drama.
In this episode, we discover how the power dynamic of PHANTOM THREAD’s central relationship isn’t as one-sided as you might first assume; prod at the psychological forces that have taken root in the aging craftsman Woodcock; and consider just how seriously we should take that ending!
Find Abbie…
References:
#TheMasterworksofPaulThomasAnderson #35mm
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Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: "House of Woodcock" by Jonny Greenwood from the PHANTOM THREAD soundtrack.
Timestamps
0:00 - Episode 323: PHANTOM THREAD (with Abbie Phelps)
2:51 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary
4:02 - Our collective mileage with PHANTOM THREAD and Paul Thomas Anderson
14:19 - Constructing Reynolds and Alma, two ridiculous people
20:25 - Mapping PHANTOM THREAD against PTA's history of bonkers characters
27:53 - Are we on board with Reynolds's and Alma's quests for self-actualization?
37:06 - Influences from Gothic literature (among other places) (or guy who’s recently into the Bronte sisters: “Getting a lot of Bronte vibes from this”)
47:11 - How Cyril fits into the film's power structures
57:20 - "Jonny Greenwood is that bitch": how PHANTOM THREAD sounds and looks
1:04:53 - The Junk Drawer
1:14:23 - To All the Loves We've Tried Before: 2017
1:17:39 - Cody's Noteys: PTA ETA (guessing the runtime of various Paul Thomas Anderson films)
