So where does Magnolia stand? Certainly not a money-maker, nor art-house- it is a curious creature. A serious auter picture made in and influenced by Hollywood. And influenced in the best way too. People have criticized PTA for borrowing from Scorsese and Altman, but to tell you my stand, I think that it was just a natural progression. Film-makers do learn from each other. The reason why people get so angry about Magnolia's influences is that they come from very established auter's. Maniacs of the auter theory have got Scorsese's filmic style down to a T, and jump on anyone who uses a long tracking shot or character-centric style as thieving from the Hollywood master. It happened when people learned from Hitchcock too. And I would like to argue that, that is all PTA is doing- Learning, and why should we complain if he learns from very good sources! It is about time someone learned from the masters of post-classical Hollywood good and proper, and not just messed around with it. Technically, Magnolia is a revelation, hard to imagine improvements.
The film is, however, a flawed masterpiece. It is a masterpiece because it gets its priorities right. It is flawed because it puts more than a few feet wrong. Content experimentation does not sit well with intense Hollywood drama. The film seems to have an identity crisis. Am I trying to be realistic? Do I want people to feel these emotions? Or am I a fantasy, there for spectacle? There are a few points in the film in which PTA suddenly makes a sudden cross-over to the bizarre and theatrical. The film is not consistent in its expectations from the audience. It asks to be taken seriously as a 'this could really happen... trust me, it could' to- 'Oh dear, no it couldn't, sorry!'
I am talking of course, about 'The Song'. The film-makers reason for the songs inclusion was that it was 'the musical number'- just like in old Hollywood films where people suddenly stopped what they were doing and sang and danced about what they were feeling. As much as I respect the man, PTA is confused. Did he know what kind of film he was making? The film comes across as an altmanesque criss-cross of small stories about BIG things. The big difference is the emotional intensity. Whereas Altman was happy to let his story work its magic naturally, PTA pushes his characters to the limits of emotions. He creates atmospheres and situations that are almost beautifully unbearable in their emotional pathos. He wrote from the heart, listening to stirring music as he jotted down the script, and it shows in the finished product. Why he thought a musical number would improve the film, I have no clues on. It is actually destructive- it destroys the emotional intensity that has been building up until that point. It suddenly pulls the plug out the socket and professes that all the actors (and they are just that by the way!) were really just urinating about- the narrative at this point becomes inconsequential- retires to the background.
When the song finally finishes (it seemed like an eternity) there is a desperate and quite awkward scramble to put the plug back in the socket. The reason why the film can actually get away with the song is its ability to rebuild afterwards- if it hadn't done it quite so well, I wouldn't be talking about the film in such length now. What follows is probably the most emotionally wrought sequence of events in the history of cinema. I for one have not seen any film that sustains such a punch for quite so long. It is at this point that the film really throws caution into the wind. It could have been soap opera time, a well-meaning mistake, but instead the audience becomes fully engaged in the characters' problems. This is when cinema works. This is what cinema was built for. The sound (including score) the camera angles, the editing and the mise-en-scene (especially the performances) all make this one of the peaks of modern film-making. Its achievement is as simple as it is monumental.
The film gets under the skin of humanity, delves deep into its subconscious, way past it's modesty and cynicism and dives strait for the heart. Rarely before has the world's pain and beauty been so wonderfully juxtaposed in art. Perhaps this is a personal thing but... what more do you want from the cinema?
As for what the film deals with, this is another case of PTA getting his priorities right. It deals with huge everyday emotions, not whether someone can stop a bomb from exploding (just in time- 00:00:01 to go...), or whether the aliens will sap our precious bodily fluids. This deals with family, evolutionary necessities and fundamental human life events such as growing up, and opening up to the world. But the main stance of the film is one of reflection, and it makes you reflect upon your own life too- taps into all those little concerns about the future, and those regrets for the past. In probably the most telling sequences of the film a dying Robards rasps about regret. Indeed, the world of Magnolia revolves not around money, or love, but regret, remorse and guilt. Emotions that destroy a persons soul, for it is a destructive world in which everything falls apart. And in a world like that, salvaging a smile is probably the most precious ability in the world.
Perhaps that is why I like film, poetry, photography so much- they seem to re-assemble the world somehow and make it all simple again by structuring it all within a frame, a narrative. So where does Magnolia stand? As sure as it is technically excellent, as sure as it is thematically complex and poignant, as sure as it is emotionally draining, visually ravishing, mentally stimulating: in with the masterpieces of cinema.
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