BrechtianElementsinThreeFilmsbyP T Anderson

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Brechtian Elements in Three Films by P.T. Anderson
Thesis · June 2015

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The University of Chicago
Brechtian Elements in Three Films by P.T. Anderson
A Thesis Submitted to
The Faculty of the Division of the Humanities
For the Degree of
Bachelor of Arts
Department of Cinema and Media Studies
by
Nathaniel Henry Epstein
Advisor: Professor Jennifer Wild
Chicago, Illinois
May 2015
Nathaniel Epstein BA Thesis 1
Introduction
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director. He also
had a keen interest in film. He collaborated with German composer Kurt Weill (1900-1950) on
several plays including The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1927) and on The
Threepenny Opera (1928)1. Brecht created two films, Kuhle Wampe (1931) and Hangmen Also
Die (1942)2. He collaborated with G. W. Pabst on transformation of The Threepenny Opera
(1931) into a film which failed to meet his expectations. He ultimately sued Pabst and the film
producers. Interestingly, it was not Brecht’s films, but rather his theatrical productions and
theories, that influenced several generations of filmmakers including Max Ophuls, Stanley
Kubrick, and Robert Altman.
The most important aspect of Brecht’s approach is his notion of alienation. Stated simply,
Brecht wanted his audience to become emotionally involved with the world of the play and then,
through various theatrical techniques created by Brecht and his company, step back and think
about the implications of what they were watching. Among the characteristically Brechtian
elements are exposing the trappings of theatre, interspersing songs seemingly unrelated to the
main action, and using signs and placards that signaled ideas to think about. By posing questions,
Brecht expected his audience both to feel and to understand how this play related to social and
political issues, and how those issues impacted their lives.

1. Bertolt Brecht. "The Threepenny Opera." In Brecht Collected Plays: Two, edited by
John Manhein and Ralph Willett. (New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama;, 2010; Bertolt.
Brecht. "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny." In Brecht Collected Plays: Two, edited
by John Manhein and Ralph Willett. New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2010).
2“Kuhle Wampe Oder: Wem Gehört Die Welt?" Brecht, Bertolt. "Kuhle Wampe Oder:
Wem Gehört Die Welt?", 69 minutes. (Amherst, MA: DEFA Film Library: University of
Massachusetts, 1932; 2008) Remastered DVD; Lang, Fritz and Brecht, Bertolt. "Hangmen Also
Die." 134 Minutes: (Cohen Media Group, 2014). DVD
Brecht’s work provided a treasure trove of theatrical techniques that could be modified
by filmmakers. Using the capabilities of film itself, these second generation Brechtian directors
could have a narrator speak over the action, have a camera focus closely on facial gestures, or
fade music in and out, or even weave one story into a second and a third.3 Each of these directors
adapted one or more Brechtian techniques for use in their films. Ophuls used objects as
characters and exposed the trappings of filmmaking to encourage his viewers to point out the
absurdity of social conventions. Like Brecht, Ophuls used humor to lighten his message. Kubrick
used music both diegetically and non-diegetically as nuanced commentary on the actions of the
characters. To the Brechtian repertoire, Kubrick added puzzles embedded within the movie to
encourage viewers to ponder their solutions instead of attending to the relationships of the
characters. Altman, like Brecht, used large casts and told multiple stories. All three shared
Brecht’s passion for using the arts for social or political commentary.
Paul Thomas (P.T.) Anderson (b. 1970), an American film director, has made seven full-
length films to date. A self-trained screenwriter and film director, Anderson watched and
admired the films of Ophuls and Kubrick and worked as an apprentice for Altman. In various
interviews, Anderson stated that he was drawn to the films of these directors because of their
outstanding cinematography. He emulated many of their cinematographic techniques but
modified them to reflect his own person style. Unlike them, Anderson commented on social
rather than on political issues.
It appears that Anderson also emulated many other aspects of these films. He credits
these directors and, in his interviews, talks about how he put his own spin on various cinematic

3 The definition of a second generation Brechtian used in this thesis is a filmmaker who
was alive when Brecht was alive and was among the early cohort of filmmakers who thought of
themselves as Brechtian.
practices. He utilized and enhanced many Brechtian aspects in his own films, taking some of
them to the next level. For example he used music and the lyrics of songs to comment on the
action and on characters’ states of being. He added humor to his puzzles and to the segments that
are tangential to the main action. He took advantage of the television/movie culture and made the
television a portal which compelled viewers to enter subsequent scenes. He used unnamed
narrators, created movies about making movies, employed double identities, and created witty
iconic phrases that commented on unethical actions. The ideas, but not the ideology, he gleaned
from his study of Ophuls and Kubrick and his apprenticeship with Altman prepared Anderson to
become a third generation Brechtian.
Brecht’s Ideas
The volume of Brechtian scholarship is immense. Brecht was a committed Marxist
although he may not have been a card carrying member of the Communist party.4 Brecht’s
political views are important because they influenced the choice of political and social issues
presented in his plays. Similarly, political and social concerns shaped many of the films of
Ophuls, Kubrick, and Altman.
Brecht used many techniques to achieve alienation. Brecht developed a new type of
theatre that he called epic theatre as a way to contrast it with Aristotelian dramatic theatre.5
Dramatic theatre emphasizes plot as essential, while other theatrical elements such as music,
lighting, and staging are of lesser importance. In contrast, epic theatre encourages the audience

4. Esslin contends that it is unclear whether Brecht was actually a card carrying member
of the Communist Party. But Esslin states that it is more important to be aware that “with or
without a party card, Brecht considered himself a Marxist.” See Martin Esslin. Brecht: The Man
and His Work. (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1961), 150.
5 For an extensive discussion of the differences between epic theatre and Aristotelian
theatre see Marc Silberman, Steve Giles, and Tom Kuhn, eds. Brecht on Theatre Third Edition.
(New York: Bloomsbury, 2015),109-112.
members to distance themselves from the action and to think about its meaning. This distancing
is the essence of epic theatre alienation. Brecht refers to the collection of alienation devices as
“Verfremdungseffekts”, and Brecht scholars often refer to them as V-effects.6
Brecht’s alienation effect resembles Freud’s concept of the uncanny. As Royal writes,
“Brecht does not specifically name it [the alienation effect] as uncanny, but the effect of the
alienation-effect can clearly be construed in this way.” 7 According to Brecht, alienation
transforms an ordinary and familiar object into something peculiar and unexpected. Brecht
achieved alienation through the use of a narrator, music, visual devices, telling multiple discreet
stories, and acting style.
A key feature of Brechtian plays is the narrator. The narrator provides us with
information about who these people are, what happened before the play started, what might
happen in the future, and how the story represents the stories of many other people. Often the
narrator enters and stops the action just as something terrible is about to happen (like in The
Good Person of Szechwan) asking us what we would do if we were the central character.8 The
purpose of the narrator is both to get us, the audience, involved in the action and to encourage us
to distance ourselves.
Brecht believed that music should be an important aspect of epic theatre. Over the course
of his lifetime, he shared his ideas about how music could be used as an effective device. Brecht
believed that music (both played and sung) in epic theatre had the capacity to provide
commentary on the action. Brecht cast actors who were not professional singers so they could

6 Brooker, Peter. "Key Words in Brecht's Theory and Practice of Theatre." The
Cambridge Companion to Brecht. Ed. Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006, 194.
7, Nicholas Royal, The Uncanny. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), 5.
8. John Willett and Ralph Manheim, eds. Collected Plays of Bertolt Brecht Volume 6.
(London: Methuen, 1970).
understand and communicate the meaning of the songs. Brecht’s overarching concern was to
think very carefully about every aspect of the music used in theatre and make reasoned conscious
choices about who would sing and what they would sing about in their song.
Brecht was as meticulous about visual metaphors as he was about his choice of music. A
well known example of a Brechtian visual metaphor was the cart used in Mother Courage and
Her Children. A prop, like the cart, was as important to Brecht as his choice of the actor who
played Mother Courage. In addition to props, Brecht also often used placards. Based on the
ideas of Piscator9, Brecht included placards that helped the audience understand what was
happening politically and socially in the nation at that time.
A basic principle of epic narration is to divide the action into discrete episodes so that the
transitions, or "knots," between one scene and the next are easily noticed. The multiple stories
are interrelated because characters appear in more than one story. But each story has a beginning,
middle, and end. The staging, lighting, set, and costuming of each story help separate them yet
show how they relate to one another.
Brecht favored actors who were able to produce an emotional response from the
audience, as well as encourage the audience to distance themselves from the performance and
think about the greater social and political meanings of the actions on stage. Important to Brecht
was gestus, a physical style of acting that conveyed the attitude of one character to another
character as well as the nature of their relationship. Over and above an actor’s job to make the
character real and believable is his/her task of physicalizing the part so as to allow himself or
herself to step outside self and comment on the action at hand. Willet defines gestus as “carrying
the combined sense of gist and gesture; an attitude or a single aspect of an attitude, expressible

9. Silberman, Giles, and Kuhn, 36-38.
in words and actions.”10 By gestus, Brecht was referring to his view that the actor should
emphasize the sociological rather than the psychological motivation underlying his or her
actions. The actor should use physical gestures while holding a particular social attitude that
comments on his or her action. As Eddershaw notes, “the emphasis in Brechtian performance is
placed more on the collective story-telling than on the significance of the individual characters.”
11
For Brecht, the ensemble represented the collective.
Because Brecht worked with many of the same actors over time, actors grew to
understand exactly how each performer might fit into the larger presentation of a play. In some
productions, actors even switched parts so that they could get a better understanding of how each
role fit into the larger picture.
The Filmmakers Who Influenced Anderson
Barthes introduced the term Post-Brechtian to refer to artists who followed Brecht and
took the ideas of Brecht and modified them12. Brady used Barthes’ term to classify filmmakers as
Post-Brechtian if they employed “ Brechtian devices in films which no longer adhere to the
principles of ideology or leftist political modernism.”13 The term Post-Brechtian does not allow
Anderson to be appropriately classified because he did not himself emulate Brecht directly, but
rather acquired some of his Brechtian influence third-hand from Ophuls, Kubrick, and Altman.
So, for the purpose of this thesis, these three filmmakers will be referred to as second generation
Brechtians. What constitutes a second generation Brechtian is a filmmaker who was alive when

10. John Willett. Brecht in Context: Comparative Approaches. (London: Methuen,
1998).
11. Margaret Eddershaw. (Performing Brecht. London: Routledge, 1996), 255 .
12 Barthes introduced the term Post-‐Brechtian. See Barthes, Roland. "Diderot,
Brecht, Eisenstein." Screen 15, no. 2 (1974): 33-‐40.
13. Martin Brady. "Brecht in Brechtian Cinema." In "Verwisch Die Spuren!" Bertolt
Brecht's Work and Legacy: A Reassessment, edited by Godela Weiss-Sussex and Robert Gillet,
295-306. (Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2008) 297.
Brecht was alive and was among the early cohort of filmmakers who thought of themselves as
Brechtian. Anderson can then be termed as a third generation Brechtian.
About Ophuls
Maximilian Oppenheimer, who later changed his name to Max Ophüls, was born in 1902
in Saarbrücken Germany and died in Hamburg in 195714. He studied with Max Reinhardt, the
same person with whom Brecht studied theatre in Germany. Reinhardt staged plays with political
messages. Ophuls began as a theatre director and actor. He knew about Brecht and his plays and
became friends with Brecht when they were both in Hollywood. A particularly Brechtian
example is the famous train ride scene in Ophuls’ Letter From An Unknown Woman. A woman
and her lover, in their brief meeting, take a train ride in which panoramas are displayed, to show
a trip through Europe. This famous scene does not make any pretensions of replicating actual
travel. Instead, panoramas artificially created an experience. Both before and after the trip, the
audience and the characters in the film were able to see how the workman peddling a bicycle
turned the gears that changed the panorama -- very much like the way Brecht showed mechanical
devices on stage. Ophuls’ work has been described as implying “a consciousness that invites us
to distance ourselves from some events, pass judgment on particular characters, or reflect on an
abstract meaning.”15 In Letter From An Unknown Woman (1948), Ophuls has the Unknown
Woman serve as the narrator of the story, again in a very Brechtian manner.
Perhaps the most noticeable way in which Ophuls demonstrates Brechtian sensibility is
in his emphasis on the sociological rather than the intrapsychic causes of behavior. In another

14. For an overview of Ophuls’ life see, Susan M. White, The Cinema of Max Ophuls:
Magisterial Vision and the Figure of Woman. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995) , 8-
11.
15. Susan M. White. The Cinema of Max Ophuls: Magesterial Vision and the Figure of
Woman. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 12.
Ophuls film, The Earrings of Madame de . . . (1953), the film follows a pair of earrings as they
change hands during a series of betrayals and romances. More than being a film about Madame
de . . ., the film is about the earrings and the conventions of an era and depicts how that woman
becomes “the object of exchange between men”.16 In the spirit of Brecht, Ophuls focuses on
social forces rather than on personality characteristics to explain the tension in Madame de’s . . .
life.” That the earrings seem to control the lives of the men and women in the film reverses the
more usual character psychology based on interiority or character development”17. In most of his
films, Ophuls focused more on social forces than on intrapersonal issues.
About Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) was an American film director who made 16 films
including Lolita (1962), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), The
Shining (1980), and Full Metal Jacket (1987). Kubrick greatly admired the work of Ophuls and
emulated some of Ophuls’ camera techniques. Like Brecht, Kubrick chose “actual social
conditions and problems” as subjects for his films.18 Of particular relevance to the future work of
Anderson were Kubrick’s use of music and his focus on games and puzzles, techniques that
distanced the audience so they could think about the social issues in Kubrick’s films.
Much has been written about Kubrick’s use of music and sound. Kubrick used music and
sound both diegetically and non-diegetically. Kubrick’s use of music and sound in The Shining,
both diegetically and non-diegetically, influenced Anderson’s non-diegetic music and sound in

16. White. The Cinema of Max Ophuls. 54.
17. White. The Cinema of Max Ophuls, 56.
18. James Diedrick Geoffrey Cocks, and Glenn Perusek, ed. Depth of Field: Stanley
Kubrick, Film, and the Uses of History. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. p.7
all three films and particularly influenced the music and sound that Anderson commissioned for
There Will Be Blood19.
Much of the music in The Shining is by Penderecki whom composer Jonny Greenwood
emulated in creating his non-diegetic music for There Will Be Blood. An example of such non-
diegetic music in The Shining is The Awakening of Jacob which plays ominously in scenes such
as an elevator door opening and blood flowing out. A second example is Utrenja (meaning
Morning Prayer) which plays during the ending scene when Jack is chasing his wife and child. In
addition, Kubrick overlaid electronic sounds composed by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind
over the non-diegetic music for the purposes of signaling events that would happen. Brecht too
used signaling devices to foreshadow ominous events.
The diegetic music in The Shining consists of big band music that seems to come from
within a photo representing long ago and far away.20 The photo is of a large party in The Gold
Room of the Overlook Hotel sometime in the 1920’s. The people in the photo hear the music,
Jack hears the music, and the viewer hears the music. One song that is used is Masquerade by
Jack Hylton and his orchestra (1932). Like Brecht’s use of music to comment on the action,
Kubrick uses Masquerade to comment on Jack’s masquerade. Another song, It’s All Forgotten
Now, plays when we are looking at the people in the Gold Room in the 1930’s who, in fact, are

19. Jonny Greenwood whom Anderson commissioned to write special music for the film
There Will Be Blood, discusses how that music transformed ordinary experiences into something
peculiar and unexpected. “Sometimes Paul [Anderson] would describe the thing [There Will Be
Blood] as kind of close to the horror-film genre. And we talked about how The Shining had lots
of Penderecki and stuff in it. So yeah. I think it was about not necessarily just making period
music, which very traditionally you would do. But because they were traditional orchestral
sounds, I suppose that's what we hoped was a little unsettling”. See Chris Willman. "There Will
Be Music." Entertainment Weekly, November 8, 2007.
20. In an extremely detailed unpublished manuscript, Sbravatti discusses many aspects of
the music in The Shining. See Valerio Sbravatti. "The Music in the Shining."
http://www.archiviokubrick.it/risorse/saggi/The_Music_in_The_Shining.pdf, 2010.
all forgotten now. This use of music to comment on the action in The Shining is very much like
the way Anderson uses music to comment on the actions of characters in Magnolia.
Brecht never used puzzles in his plays, but Kubrick’s use of puzzles serves as a Brechtian
distancing mechanism. One puzzle involves a game that can be called “Find the 7.” The number
7 seems important in this film because of the many times that 7 and its multiples appear in the
movie. Some of the best examples include Jack’s Black Label #7 (his liquor of choice), Jack
driving to the Overlook from Boulder in 3.5 hours (which is a round trip of 7 hours), cases of 7-
Up stacked in the kitchen, and Jack knocking 7 times on the door to the bathroom where Wendy
is hiding. Geoffrey Cocks adds to the “Find the 7” game by mentioning, “All of the dates
mentioned in connection with the history of the Overlook Hotel are multiples of 7.” The game of
7’s is important because it is very similar to Anderson’s use of the numbers 8 and 2 in Magnolia.
The use of games and clues makes the viewer withdraw from identification with the characters in
order to try intellectually to solve the puzzle.
About Altman
Robert Altman (1925-2006) was an American Director born in Kansas City Missouri. He
made 33 films including several that have been described as Brechtian (Brewster McCloud in
1970, , Nashville in 1975, Buffalo Bill and the Indians in 1976, and Short Cuts in 1993).21

21. Armstrong (2011) discusses Brechtian elements in Brewster McCloud. See Rick
Armstrong. Robert Altman: Critical Essays. (Jefferson NC: McFarland Publishers, 2011).
For a discussion of the Brechtian elements in Buffalo Bill and the Indians see TCM web
article. http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/979%7C0/Buffalo-Bill-and-the-Indians.html
Cardullo describes a Brechtian aspect of Nashville this way: “Unable to empathize fully
with a disturbed woman about whom they know very little really, they are unable moreover
either to like or loathe the young killer whose motives they cannot divine and whom they have
found up to this point a sympathetic, if enigmatic, figure. The assassination is thus freed to act as
a device of Brechtian ‘alienation’ or ‘defamiliarization.’” See Robert J. Cardullo. "The Space in
the Distance: A Study of Altman's Nashville.". Literature/Film Quarterly 4, no. 4 (1976), David
Sterritt says “By switching back and forth among the different stories, Altman succeeds in
Altman begins work on his films “cautiously, tentatively, finding out who the people are,
assessing their relationships . . .There is nothing intellectual about this groping. It is done by
hunch, instinct, intuition. Altman speaks about allowing some internal computer to take over,
unrestricted by his brain.”22 Altman believes that “moviemaking is a collaborative art.”23 He tries
to surround himself with people he finds creative. But “being with Robert Altman can be
unpleasant for less creative people.”24. One of the creative people Altman liked working with
was PT Anderson whom he asked to serve as his backup director for the last film he was ever to
make (A Prairie Home Companion). Anderson dedicated his film, There Will Be Blood to Robert
Altman. Altman and Kubrick knew one another and Kubrick admired Altman’s
cinematography.25
Altman could be said to be a Brechtian in the way he favored large casts of characters,
told many stories in one film, and often made films about the film industry itself in the way that
Brecht wrote self-reflectively about theatre and about opera. “One of the most salient
characteristics in Altman films . . . is a large cast of characters . . . 40 in Nashville, 48 in A
Wedding, another 40 in Short Cuts, over 60 in both Prêt-à-Porter and The Player, with many

fostering a sense of dispassionate observation and ironic juxtaposition . . . Bertolt Brecht . . .
applauded the ‘alienation effect' as a way of prodding audiences to think about stories and
characters, instead of being swept uncritically away by their feelings.” See David Sterritt.
"Altman's Latest Falls Shy of the Mark." Christian Science Monitor, October 1, 1993.
22 David Sterritt, ed. Robert Altman Interviews. (Jackson MS: University of Mississippi
Press, 2000), 12
23 Sterritt, ed. Robert Altman Interviews, 13
24 Sterritt, ed. Robert Altman Interviews, 13
25. “Zsigmond recalled many years ago in London when Altman and Stanley Kubrick
ran into each other after seeing each other’s films, McCabe and 2001. “Robert,” gushed Kubrick,
“those zoom lens shots are incredible. Did you do it yourself?” Altman replied, “No, my
cinematographer does that.” “And you trust him?” Kubrick shot back Allan Tong. "Old, Faded
Pictures: Vilmos Zsigmond on Mccabe & Mrs. Miller." http://filmmakermagazine.com/87150-
old-faded-pictures-vilmos-zsigmond-on-mccabe-mrs-miller/.
playing ‘themselves’.”26. Altman’s plots are episodic -- his films depict many stories that
ultimately come together, usually as a result of Chance. “On one hand, these multiply plotted
films become more like reality, where lives intersect in random, chance and discontinuous ways
without apparent reasons. Narrative coherence gives way to fragmentary puzzles.”27 Of
particular interest to Altman is the film industry. In fact, “nine Altman films in particular take as
their subject a reflective stance toward the entertainment business generally or the film industry
in particular.”28 Almost exclusively, The Player (1992) focuses on the film industry.
Like Brecht, Altman focused on the sociological causes of behavior rather than
conveying that they were psychologically driven. “His characters are victims of the social forces
that Altman is criticizing; they do not transcend their fates through epic emotional values.”29
Sociological issues require large ensemble casts in order to allow Altman to depict how social
forces are the causes of behavior. Multiple interconnected stories become puzzles to distance the
viewer and give the viewer the space to think about the sociological forces responsible for
behavior.
Altman told an interviewer that he differs from Kubrick whom he says he admires.
Altman says that Kubrick supervises every detail of his films whereas he (Altman) is much more
lax in this realm. “ I leave a gap so wide that anything between A and X may be acceptable.
With Kubrick, it’s between A and A1.”30 It appears that Altman trusts his ensemble and gives
them greater flexibility than Kubrick does.

26. Robert T. Self. "Robert Altman." Senses of Cinema, no. 34 (February 2005).
http://sensesofcinema.com/2005/great-directors/altman/.
27. Self. "Robert Altman.", 6
28. Self. "Robert Altman." , 8
29. Janey Place. "Buffalo Bill and the Indians: Welcome to Show Business." Jump Cut
23, no. October (1980): 21-22,
30. Sterritt, ed. Robert Altman Interviews, 57.
Anderson’s Amplification of Brechtian Techniques in his Movies
From early childhood, Paul Thomas (PT) Anderson was surrounded by film and media.
His father worked as a voice-over artist and was sometimes called the voice of ABC and referred
to himself Ghoulardi because he also hosted a horror show. His father, perhaps recognizing PT’s
interest in film, gave him his first video camera when he was just twelve years old. He and his
high school friends created video parodies of TV shows and movies. He was educated in elite
private schools where often the teachers would allow him to submit video projects instead of
papers.
After high school, he enrolled in NYU’s film program but left after a few days. His film
education was obtained through apprenticeship and from the enormous number of films he
watched very carefully. Anderson apprenticed with Robert Altman and served as the backup
director on Altman’s last film, A Prairie Home Companion. Shortly after that film was
completed Altman died.
An archive of Anderson’s interviews provided important information used in this thesis.31
The interviews in that archive revealed that Anderson never attended film school. Interviewers
often asked Anderson if he left NYU film school after only two days. Anderson seems to take
pride in assuring the interviewers that it is true and elaborating on why he dropped out. As he
told one interviewer:

31. Cigarettes and Red Vines is a comprehensive resource for materials about Paul
Thomas Anderson. It includes a year-by-year archive of materials including interviews and blog
posts. It also contains published print interviews with Anderson, online interviews, and video
interviews. Also to be found here are advertisements and other forms of publicity as well as
information about upcoming events. This site was very helpful in locating material for this
thesis. See "Cigarettes and Red Vines: The Definitive Paul Thomas Anderson Resource."
http://cigsandredvines.blogspot.com.
I sat in this class and this arrogant professor said, "If there is anyone here
who wants to write 'Terminator 2,' you can leave now." I thought that was a
rude thing to say. Plus, it's a dynamite movie. Second thing is, we were
assigned to write a page of script with no dialogue. I got a page from (David)
Mamet's 'Hoffa' and turned it in as my own. I got a C+. 'If Mamet's getting a
C+, I thought, I ought to get the hell out of here.'32
In an interview with Jon Patterson in The Guardian, Anderson stated that instead of going to film
school, aspiring directors should watch television and study the supplementary commentary
included on the DVD of a film.
What Anderson Does That is Brechtian: Multiple Interrelated Stories
All three Anderson movies (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and There Will Be Blood) tell
multiple stories. Instead of focusing on a single central story, each of these three movies weaves
together stories that at first seem separate but later turn out to be connected in at least one, but
often more than one way. Magnolia is emblematic of this approach and resembles the way in
which Altman connected multiple stories in Short Cuts. The glue that holds Magnolia’s many
stories together is the Quiz Show What Do Kids Know?
Like Altman’s use of interconnected stories as puzzles, the way in which Anderson uses
multiple discreet stories in his films serves to sometimes confuse viewers thereby distancing
them from emotionally empathizing with the characters. In an article in the International Journal
of Communication Research (2011), Antoaneta Mihoc discusses how filmmakers Altman,
Iñárritu, and Anderson have developed ways to depart from a linear narrative. She notes that
these directors “reject stories of time told in linear sequence.” She quotes Currie (1998) who
says “post-modern narratology shatters living story into many disembodied fragments called

32. Bob Longino. "Life after Boogie Nights." The Atlanta Journal Constitution, January
2000.
‘petit’ or ‘local’ stories.”33 She comments that in his movies, Altman created multiple stories
which were “intellectual puzzles.” She cites Anderson’s Magnolia as a good example of this use
of nine intertwined stories. Mihoc claims that filmmakers use fragmented narratives to create
“puzzle pieces” which the viewer has to put together.
All nine significant characters in Magnolia are featured in at least two interrelated stories.
In a six-minute segment, starting about five minutes into the film, we view numerous story
fragments. Just as the viewer gets caught up in one story, a second story replaces it. First we see
Frank TJ Mackey, a super confident macho stud, presenting a seminar on how to seduce and
conquer women. Just as we are watching a commercial for Frank’s seminar and wondering what
will happen, we see Claudia sitting alone in a bar. An unidentified man approaches Claudia,
smiles at her, raises his eyes and says “So?” Then, through a series of quick edits, we see Claudia
entering her apartment accompanied by the man from the bar, Claudia snorting a line of cocaine,
and finally a shot of the two having sex. Just as we are getting involved in Claudia’s story,
Anderson interrupts it and presents us with Jimmy Gator’s first story. At this point we know
nothing about Jimmy, nor do we know that he is, in fact Claudia’s father. Jimmy Gator is shown
on Claudia’s TV through a mirror screen. Since we are unaware of the relationship between
Claudia and Jimmy, the TV image is a signal of their relationship but its significance is not
apparent to us yet.
Jimmy’s first story is told in a quick compression of events that take place over many
years. We first learn Jimmy has been the host on the game show What Do Kids Know? for
decades. As the TV announcer extols the virtues of Jimmy the “family man,” Anderson

33. Antoaneta Mihoc. "Crazy Narrative in Film. Analyzing Alejandro González
Iñárritu's Film Narrative Technique." International Journal of Communication Research 1,
no. 2 (2011): 109
introduces a second Jimmy story – Jimmy the philanderer. We see Jimmy engaged in sex in his
office with an unidentified woman, probably not his wife. In a sequence that lasts four seconds,
Anderson uses a quick edit and a quick track in to a prominent view of Jimmy’s many Emmy
awards and, in the background, a photo of Jimmy standing next to three unidentified people, each
dressed in formal attire. The first of the four frames in the sequence features seven gold Emmy
awards on the front of Jimmy’s desk. On a credenza behind the desk, partially obscured by the
awards, is a small framed photo of Jimmy and three other people. The second shot zooms in on
three of these Emmys and a larger view of the framed photo. The third frame is a zoom in on the
framed photo; the close-up of the photo now does not include the Emmy’s. The man at the
extreme left in the photo is partially obscured and Jimmy is flanked by a woman dressed in white
on his left and a second woman dressed in black on his right. The final frame zooms in on Jimmy
and the woman on his right. Only later do we learn that the people in the photo are his son, his
wife, and his daughter Claudia whom he molested when she was younger.
A keen observer might discern that the woman to the right of Jimmy is his daughter
Claudia (looking much healthier than she does in the sequence that showed her in the bar). More
likely, the sequence was displayed so quickly that the picture would probably not register with
most viewers, let alone enable them to understand that Claudia is Jimmy’s daughter. Used this
way, the photo serves as a clue that Anderson has dangled in front of us, that can reveal to the
viewer who is paying exquisitely close attention, that the story of Claudia and the story of Jimmy
Gator are connected. This is a good example of how Anderson uses fragments of interrelated
stories and hidden clues to create distancing to encourage the viewer to think about the meaning
of what he or she is watching.

Anderson next presents a ten-second sequence of Jimmy and a woman who is probably
his wife in the corridor of a hospital. It appears that the woman is there to support Jimmy
because she is holding his arm supportively. The scene seems grave because neither of them is
smiling. Jimmy is in the foreground and several close-ups show his worried face. Just as we are
beginning to attend to what is happening to Jimmy, Anderson switches to a story about Stanley.
Stanley, a child prodigy, is close to breaking the record for number of wins on the game show
that Jimmy has hosted for years. Stanley’s introduction parallels TJ’s. We see Stanley first
through a TV screen where he is shown in his exciting world answering every question thrown at
him. Next we see Stanley’s humdrum everyday home and school life. We now know that the
character has an exciting life within the TV industry and a mundane one outside of it.
Before we can get engrossed in Stanley’s story, Anderson switches to the story of Donnie
Smith. We see a television screen showing Donnie, decades ago on the very same quiz show in
which we just saw Stanley. To highlight this parallel, the shot is constructed in the same sort of
shot used for introducing us to Stanley. Before we can learn the details of Donnie’s quiz show
story, we see him as an adult in a dentist’s office. It is now that we learn what has happened in
the past. As the dentist fits the retainer, the two dental assistants ask Donnie what it was like to
be successful Quiz Kid Donnie who won more money than any other contestant. Donnie seems
focused on the present and dismisses his past. The next scene, one in which Donnie crashes his
car into a plate glass window, gives us a clue that Donnie is no longer the success that he was,
although he is still recognized everywhere.
The next shot begins a new story, the tale of hospice nurse Phil Parma and his patient
Earl Partridge. At this point we are unaware that Earl had been the producer of the show that
Jimmy Gator now hosts and on which both Donnie and Stanley starred. At this juncture, Phil’s
story focuses on him and his job, providing compassionate care to Earl. Later, we learn about the
extraordinary efforts he makes to locate Earl’s son, the boy Earl abandoned and whom we met
earlier as Frank TJ Mackey. But before we can get emotionally involved in Earl’s story,
Anderson inserts animated depictions of lung disease thereby transforming a heart wrenching
tale of illness into a clinical lecture about the medical aspects of cancer. This technique again
serves as a distancing device.
Anderson next focuses on Linda. Linda abuses drugs. Linda is married to Earl who is rich
but is dying. From her room filled with a well stocked closet, Linda swoops into the living room
which has been transformed into a hospice. She gracefully kisses Earl and quickly departs. She
enters her Mercedes, drives a short distance, stops, and pounds her steering wheel in frustration.
We have no idea why she is so upset. Finally, before we can get involved in Linda’s or Earl’s or
Phil’s story, we are introduced to Officer Jim Kurring. We get clues about several of his stories
but few details to flesh them out. His first story is about placing a personal ad in hope of finding
a soul mate. The second story focuses on Jim’s quest to be the best person he can be and to do
the right thing in all aspects of his life. The final story, his chance meeting with Claudia, his
attraction to her, and his efforts to have a meaningful romantic relationship with her is reserved
for later.
As the movie continues, the characters and the stories become increasingly more
intertwined. Everything is a disaster: Stanley pees in his pants; Jimmy Gator is about to commit
suicide; Donnie has gotten apprehended as he is trying to return money which he stole; Phil has
dropped Earl’s pain medication which poisons one of Earl’s dogs; Claudia, after falling in love
with Jim Kurring, has rejected him and returned to snorting cocaine; Frank TJ Mackey has been
unmasked as a phony and has reluctantly cried at his father’s deathbed; Linda has failed at a
suicide attempt and Earl has died. It seems as if none of the characters will be able to “Wise Up”
on their own. Enter the Rana Ex Machina – frogs falling from the sky. The frogs fall from the
sky, disrupt the habitually self-destructive patterns, and allow each character (except for Earl
who dies--peacefully having been reconciled with his son) to begin a new phase in his or her life.
What Anderson Does That is Brechtian: Puzzles, Games and Clues
Like Kubrick, Anderson often provides clues about relationships and uses numerology in
a game-like manner. Unlike Kubrick, Anderson’s games, clues and puzzles are rarely spooky and
are more often humorous. Unique to Anderson is the use of signage embedded within scenes. A
viewer could become enraptured with a sign and try to figure out whether it is important or is a
mere set decoration. In Boogie Nights, a Pee-Chee poster appears on the wall of the classroom in
the high school that Roller Girl unhappily attends. Pee-Chee posters of the 1970’s showed people
participating in clean-cut activities, like playing football or doing ballet. Yet non-clean-cut
students often defaced these posters. Viewer A can see the Pee Chee poster and hardly notice it.
Viewer B, someone who grew up with these posters and loved school athletics, can see the poster
and momentarily reminisce about the good old days. Viewer C, aware that these posters had a
history of being defaced, can wonder whether this poster predicts Roller Girl’s academic failure.
Anderson places many such signs, posters, and advertisements all of which encourage viewers to
ponder their significance. Yet Anderson doesn’t impose these hidden meanings on the viewer.
Rather, he offers “extra credit” opportunities for viewers who are very observant.
Early in Magnolia we are tantalized with an inscrutable puzzle – a story that seems to
have nothing to do with anything that preceded it and as the film progresses, still seems to have
no connection to the other stories. This puzzle distracts us and forces us to think about what we
are watching. The puzzle is presented as a story about Sydney Barringer. Sydney attempts to
commit suicide by jumping off the roof of his apartment house.
In the scene, a fictional narrator analyzes Sydney Barringer’s death, and we are afforded
a long shot of the building from which Sydney jumps.34 This shot allows us to see the “play-by-
play” details of Sydney’s death at the hand of his parents. Sydney, just a little speck in the
picture, looks like a specimen we view under a microscope. This depiction diminishes the very
essence of Sydney, so much so that he becomes something through which we analyze the shot
distancing ourselves and responding in a sterile clinical manner rather than responding
emotionally to his death.
As Sydney jumps off the building roof, the camera freezes the frame. Meanwhile, in the
background we can faintly hear the sounds of surreal carnivalesque music. The narrator draws
circles and arrows across the still-frame shot so that we can see where Sydney jumped, where he
was shot as he was falling, and find out that, had he not been shot, he would have survived
because several days earlier workmen had set up a safety net. This episode ends and a new story
begins leaving the audience bewildered. Only at the end of the film are we given the solution to
the puzzle. We learn that the power of chance serves as the connection between the Sydney story
and the rest of the film. We learn that all the stories in Magnolia are bound together because they
demonstrate that almost everything is out of our control and affected by chance.
Magnolia is replete with hidden clues that Anderson uses to tease us in a playful game.
Like the hidden Nina’s in a Hirschfeld playbill caricature, we are challenged to find the hidden
8’s and 2’s and figure out why they appear so frequently. What are they signaling? Only at the
end of the film do we realize that these numbers stand for the chapter and verse (chapter 8 verse

34. Jason Sperb. Blossoms and Blood. Austin Texas: University of Texas Press, 2013:
134.
2) in the book of Exodus that talks about the plague of frogs. This game starts at the beginning of
the film where a gambler says “all I need is a 2” but instead he is dealt an 8 and he loses. After
losing he pummels the dealer. At another point in the film we see a placard announcing the
weather stating that the humidity is 82%. When Sydney Barringer is about to commit suicide by
jumping off his roof, there is a difficult to notice piece of graffiti that reads 82. On the window
of the Solomon and Solomon store where Donnie works there is a hidden inscription saying
Exodus 8:2. And in the audience of the game show, members hold up a placard with the words
Exodus 8:2. In the opening sequence showing three men being hanged, one of them wears the
number 82. All of these and the numerous other allusions to the numbers 8 and 2 are to give us
clues that something unusual, perhaps even biblical, will occur.
What Anderson Does That is Brechtian: Narration
Many screenwriters have adapted Brecht’s practices with regard to narration.
Contemporary viewers have come to accept instances of characters voicing their inner thoughts
through narration, narrators making predictions about what will happen, and voiceovers filling in
details about character motivation. Only novel approaches to narration are likely to succeed in
encouraging the audience to stop and think, the way Brecht intended. In particular, Anderson
developed a unique and unorthodox set of scenes in the movie Magnolia, that bracket the main
action and use a narrator in a singular and memorable way.
The first set of scenes precede the main story of the film and seem unrelated to it.
Anderson creates what looks like old newsreel footage as well as reality-TV-like segments to tell
three stories, each unrelated to each other as well as unrelated to the primary action. Using voice-
over, an unseen and unidentified narrator speaks to the audience. The first story, shown in black
and white, tells the tale of a 1911 murder of a pharmacist. Using quirky humor, the narrator talks
about coincidence: the pharmacist lives at Greenberry Hill and his murderers are named Mr.
Green, Mr. Berry, and Mr. Hill. This segment ends with the hanging of all three murderers who
each have numbers 8 and/or 2 displayed on their clothes.
The second narrated scene features the story of a Las Vegas card dealer whose hobby is
scuba diving. The narrator tells us of a particularly angry habitual gambler who blames the
dealer for dealing him an 8 when he needed a 2 to win at blackjack. A fistfight ensues. The next
day, during the dealer’s scuba dive, a fire breaks out in the forest surrounding the lake. A
firefighting plane, piloted by the same habitual gambler, dumps foam on the lake. In one of his
low-flying passes, the pilot unintentionally snares the scuba gear of the card dealer, thereby
pulling the diver up into a tree, resulting in the diver’s death. The gambler, reading about the
diver/dealer’s death in a newspaper the next day, is filled with such remorse that he commits
suicide. Just as the audience most likely chalks up these coincidences to fate, the narrator
suggests that maybe other forces contributed to the situation.
The third story, that of Sydney Barringer (mentioned in a previous section as an example
of puzzles and games), is the final part of the narration. The narrator describes how this story has
moved from a suicide to a homicide. Again, the narrator comments that “in my humble opinion”
stranger things have happened. Following this narrative introduction, the movie begins.
We don’t hear from the narrator again until near the end of the movie, when frogs have
stopped falling from the sky. The narrator, who now refers to himself as “your narrator,” tells the
audience that the events of his stories were not chance occurrences but happened for a reason.
The frogs served as a signal to the characters that they must wise up and change their ways. The
narrator’s statement suggests to the audience that the stories he told were allegorical and that
there may be some connection between his stories and the stories told in the film. He says “you
may think that you are done with the past, but the past ain’t done with you.” In the main film, we
see the characters beginning to change. Stanley tells his father “you have to be nicer to me.”
Donnie realizes that getting braces will not gain him love. Claudia smiles at Jim and Mackey
goes to the hospital to visit Linda.
What Anderson Does That is Brechtian: Music and Sound
Anderson has been said to consider music in his films to be of paramount importance.
According to Jason Sperb, one of the motivating factors that led to the fruition of Magnolia was
the song “One” written by Harry Nillson and sung by Aimee Mann35. And, in fact, this song
serves as a commentary to the diegetic action. The song does not simply sound good and “right”
in conjunction with the vignettes that seem to flash before our eyes, it suggests that everyone is
alone and lonely. The music provides a critical analysis to the plot, to character development,
and to the narrative structure. In other words, music does what Brecht wanted music in his plays
to do: to provide an opposing view, to imbue a group of wildly dissimilar people with an
essential shared characteristic, and to ask the viewers to note how society adds to a person’s
sense of loneliness. Anderson believes that music is not merely an element, aspect, or technique;
Anderson treats music as if it were a character with all the power and influence afforded a
character. And for Anderson, music is not the hum-along variety, but a melody or words or both
that helps provide another layer to the film.
Another Aimee Mann song stops the action: the full cast singing “Wise Up.”36 Before
beginning the analysis of the scene, it should be noted that every character sings with Aimee
Mann’s voice. By overlapping the character’s diegetic singing and Aimee Mann’s extradiegetic

35 Harry Nillson. "One." In Magnolia: Music From the Motion Picture, sung by Aimee
Mann: Warner Music, December 7, 1999.
36. Aimee Mann. "Wise Up." In Magnolia, sung by Aimee Mann: Reprise Records, Inc.,
January 1, 1999.
singing we are asked to question this choice and to establish for ourselves what the function of
the singing is. The overlapping of voices metaphorically manifests how singing should not be
just digested, but rather critically analyzed, just as Brecht encouraged his audiences for his own
plays. Anderson, like Brecht, uses music here to break down the narrative structure into a series
of multiple, yet complete stories, just as he had done in the beginning of the film. Music here,
also suggests the loneliness that each character feels, how life is never-ending, and, as the song
proclaims in the end, that we should not try and conquer life, but simply, “give up.” The music
begins in the darkly lit room of Claudia. One lamp lights the left half of the room; another lights
the right half, with lighted candles interspersed on the table that is in the center of the shot. We
hear the soundtrack of Aimee Mann singing Wise Up. Claudia soon follows after completing a
line of cocaine. Claudia starts off by singing faintly, but her singing becomes stronger every
second. The camera also slowly tracks in as she gets louder. The camera tracks forward and
shows her face, half lighted, half completely obscured by shadow.
The next shot tracks through Jim Kurring’s house. He too is lonely. His house is devoid
of all light, except for one lamp. On the wall we see a crucifix informing us of Kurring’s strong
faith. More prominently, we see Jim’s enormous shadow that makes the crucifix look minute in
comparison. Jim joins the singing.
Subsequently, each character joins the song. Each shot summarizes the essential nature of
the character within. The narrative break that Anderson establishes here is very Brechtian. Why
are the characters breaking out into song in the first place? Truly, it does not serve any narrative
purpose, but an intellectual one. It coerces us into being cognizant of the inner workings of
narrative structure. The characters are all singing about the loneliness that each feels. The song is
symbolic, but the act of singing in the middle of the narrative shouts, “Brecht!”
In all but one shot, the characters are alone when they sing. The one deviation from this
element is the shot with Phil Parma and Earl Partridge. Still, even in this shot, Phil is unaware
that Earl is singing. In fact, Earl is nearly passing out from the liquid morphine that he was
administered, but is still singing faintly. Most of the shots also show objects important in the
lives of the characters. For example, we see Jimmy Gator surrounded in his room by awards
statues and plaques, Claudia with her cocaine, and“Quiz Kid” Donnie Smith with the a copy of
the huge (in both size and amount) check that he was awarded for “superior knowledge” when he
was on the fictional TV game show What Do Kids Know? These objects telegraph the central
essence of each character. We don’t discover who they are through an emotional interaction; the
characters don’t interact with their objects (with the exception of Claudia who does snort the
cocaine). Anderson coldly shows us who they are. All shots continue to be dimly lit.
Cinematographer Robert Elswit employs bold camera tracks that symbolically and literally
create an extremely tight shot on each characters’ face by moving in so close that the objects are
no longer in the shot, just each face.
In Boogie Nights Anderson uses popular music from the 1970’s and the 1980’s to portray
the respective eras in a more nostalgic light. Yet, the music Anderson chooses for the film does
more than just replicate time periods. Anderson wisely incorporates the pop songs to provide
commentary on the diegetic action. The music can be literal--directly commenting on actions in
the film, like when Anderson uses Three Dog Night’s “Mama Told Me Not to Come” to parallel
Eddie Adam/Dirk Diggler’s decision to leave his childhood home/life to pursue a career in
pornography.37 Dirk’s mother, a fierce woman who is displeased with Dirk’s career choices, does
not approve of Dirk partying with Jack Horner and company. The song plays as Dirk enters the

37. "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)." In Three Dog Night - The Complete Hit Singles,
sung by Three Dog Night: Geffen Records, May 25, 2004.
Horner household where a wild party is in progress. The song comments on the actions and
makes us think that maybe mother knows best.
Sometimes, Anderson uses music ironically. Little Bill’s introduction is accompanied not
like everyone else’s (with the song “The Best of My Love”), but rather with a song called
“Sunny” by Boney M. 38 The song’s lyrics are the opposite of how Little Bill views life. His
temperament is grumpy, his life is in shambles, and nothing seems to be going right for him. One
of the quintessential lyrics of the song is “The dark days are gone and the bright days are here”
could not be further from the truth regarding Little Bill.
Sometimes the music predicts. The phone Call for Maggie Scene is a good example of
how both the melody and the lyrics of a song telegraph to us what may soon happen. A phone
rings in Jack’s home. Maurice answers. The voice on the phone asks for Maggie; Maurice (not
knowing that Maggie is Amber’s real name) says, “There is nobody named Maggie here.” The
voice says, “It’s my mother.” Maurice hangs up the phone because Amber is not able to answer
it; she is doing drugs with Roller Girl. And in the background to this scene, the music that is
playing is “Oh What A Lonely Boy.”39 Right off the bat, the minor key of the melody and the
slow tempo makes us feel sad. The placement of this song in the film, after we know Amber has
a son whom she rarely sees and deeply misses, plus the lyrics themselves comment on the
mother-son relationship and presage Amber’s unsuccessful attempt to gain custody of her son. In
the court hearing, Amber will be accused of being a bad parent to her “lonely boy.” The song

38. "Best of My Love." In Boogie Nights: Music From The Original Motion Picture,
sung by The Emotions: Capitol Records, October 7, 1997; Sunny." In Sunny, sung by Boney M:
Ariola Express, February 13, 1995.
39. "Lonely Boy." In When You Were Born: 1977, sung by Andrew Gold: The Magic of
Music Records, Re-recorded 2014.
also portends that the father will accuse Maggie of teaching her son what she learned as Amber -
- doing drugs and getting involved in pornography.
In a scene that takes place in a restaurant, Dirk discovers that Jack is replacing him in
Jack’s home and in his films. It is clear from the body language and dialogue that Johnny is
Jack’s new protégé. Dirk suspects that he is about to be replaced in Jack’s life and in Jack’s
movies. The song playing under this scene is Brook Benton’s It’s Just A Matter of Time , a
well-known song which has lyrics that are almost bluesy in nature. 40 The lyrics contain a lament,
“after I gave you everything I had, you laughed and called me a clown.” These lyrics tell us that
Dirk, deep down, feels that he really has no value. He hopes he and Jack will reconcile because
“it’s just a matter of time.”
Unlike most of the music Anderson used in these two films, the music composed for
There Will Be Blood by Jonny Greenwood has no lyrics and is not a popular song already heard,
sang, or danced to by characters in the film or by viewers of the film. Yet it extends the
Anderson notion of music as character and as commentary in unique ways. Discrete sounds and
the sound of this orchestration seems to comment at least as much as, but perhaps more so, than
might be possible for music with words, especially as analysis to the diegesis.
“Henry Plainview” is the beginning track used in the start of There Will Be Blood.41 The
music does not last long. It does not have to. The beginning long shot of the film is simply a
barren dessert, excruciatingly arid and almost thirst-inducing. Devoid of any semblance of
civilization, the mountain range, both high and treacherous, depletes us of all hope that any
person could possibly traverse this horrid landscape with ease. It is the kind of landscape that

40. "It's Just a Matter of Time." In Brook Benton Greatest Hits, sung by Brook Benton:
Curb Records, Inc., 1955.
41. Jonny Greenwood. "Henry Plainview." In There Will Be Blood (Music From The
Motion Picture): Nonesuch Records, Inc., December 17, 2007.
begs to be named “no man’s land,” or perhaps, “death valley.” The music sounds a siren. The
function of a siren is to announce a warning. Like a siren, the music crescendos to its highest
volume and, more importantly, illuminates the perilous nature of the dessert. The preceding shot
had shown an unnamed character (Daniel Plainview) arduously pickaxing in the mine. The music
decrescendos and finally fades away to silence. Though the music stops, its purpose has not fully
run its course. Only two minutes later in the film we understand that the siren not only provides
commentary on the landscape but also serves as a harbinger that warns: something bad will
happen. Daniel Plainview does not head the warning and falls as he climbs down the ladder. It is
as though the music is simply saying, “Hey Daniel, you should have watched your step. Did we
not warn you?”
Another song effectively used in the film is the track “Future Markets.”42 The title of the
track is very illustrative of the action that takes place as Daniel continues to buy up property after
property and outsmart his competitors. Although the title of the music is apt, the music itself
does even more to provide commentary on the action. The instrumental track is divided into
different sections. The beginning part of the track features strings played in staccato style with
fast tempo which illustrates Daniel Plainview’s tenacious, ruthless, yet gradual style of buying
land. The music begins softly as Daniel makes the Sunday ranch purchase as the music begins.
The volume increases in the next shot which shows Daniel buying what seems to be the entirety
of Little Boston (that is, except for the Bandy tract that will cause Plainview trouble later in the
film). Brief moments of complete silence are interspersed within the prevailing staccato music
The trajectory of the song seems quite atypical as the staccato ends for a moment and is followed
by smooth legato uninterrupted sound played at a slow tempo. We see Daniel’s competitors,

42. Jonny Greenwood. "Future Markets." In There Will Be Blood (Music From The
Motion Picture): Nonesuch Records, Inc., December 17, 2007.
other oil prospectors, arriving in Little Boston. Daniel and another oil man spar verbally. Perhaps
Greenwood’s music is commenting on the roadblock that Daniel’s competitors pose.
“Proven Lands” is perhaps the most percussive song of the soundtrack.43 “Proven Lands,”
shot by shot, is made up of a sequence of images, some may say a montage, that matches
perfectly with the striking sounds of the percussive instrument. The percussive instrument does
not provide melody, it simply creates beat. But the actual sound of the percussion parallels the
actions of both Daniel and Henry Plainview who go from field to field hammering stakes into the
ground. Like a drummer striking a drum, the stakes are hammered into the ground. Meanwhile
the tempo is rather energetic and builds tension, but also manifest the fast and efficient work of
both men as they seek to find more and more places to drill oil.
The music which Jonny Greenwood created for Anderson’s There will be Blood, seems
similar in many ways similar to the music composed for Kubrick’s The Shining. Both scores
comment on action, serve as harbingers, and most importantly distance us and prevent us from
being lulled into a sense of security. Like the score to Kubrick’s Shining, the music in There Will
Be Blood can be characterized as both horrifying and jarring. The music does not complement
the action. The music makes us think, question, and experience a sense of “the uncanny.”
What Anderson Does That is Brechtian: Acting
Anderson likes to use a stable of actors. When we look at Magnolia and Boogie Nights,
we notice that many of the same actors are in both films. Interestingly, the actors seem to switch
character type from one film to the other. This is analogous to Brecht’s acting exercise that has
actors practicing different parts. Melora Walters plays Buck’s wife, a sweet and accommodating
woman in Boogie Nights and plays a difficult drug addict daughter in Magnolia. Phillip

43. Jonny Greenwood. "Proven Lands." In There Will Be Blood (Music From The Motion
Picture): Nonesuch Records, Inc., December 17, 2007.
Seymour Hoffman plays a not-yet-out-of-the-closet gay gofer in Boogie Nights and plays a
caring home health aide in Magnolia. Julianne Moore plays an overly accommodating vulnerable
drug using porn star in Boogie Nights and plays an aggressive drug using shrew wife whose
suicide attempt reunites the family in Magnolia.
In Magnolia, Anderson has cast a group of actors who develop layered characterizations
that can be classified as Brechtian in nature. Like Altman before him, Anderson works with large
ensemble casts and juggles multiple stories. But more than participating in a large cast and multi-
storied films, these actors make subtle acting choices that don’t scream “I am talking to you out
there now,” but rather say, “let me shade my performance in terms of the choices I make about
my movement, my speech pattern, my breathing, and my focus to let you know that I am
commenting on myself.” As many times as we may watch Magnolia, each viewing shows us yet
another detail of these nuanced performances that let us in on actors self-reflecting. These
subtleties, further enhanced by camera techniques and editing choices, create multi-layered
presentations.
The way Anderson works with his actors is very much like the way Brecht and
particularly Altman worked with their actors. All three developed an ensemble of actors who
were able to perform many kinds of roles and contribute to the development of a work in
progress. It’s hard to imagine Boogie Nights and Magnolia without his ensemble of these actors:
Philip Seymour Hoffman, and William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Melora
Walters, and Philip Baker Hall. Anderson considers his actors an ensemble and as his partners in
making the film.
Anderson allows his actors to contribute to the ensemble and to each of their respective
roles in particular. In an interview for Creative Screenwriting, he tells the interviewer how he
gave Tom Cruise the freedom to be himself in the scene where Tom (as Mackey) reluctantly
agrees to visit his dying father. Anderson described how he underwrote the scene in which TJ
Mackey reunites with his dying father. He told the interviewer that, “I explained that the crux of
the scene is that the character is going to see his father.” He gave some bare bones directing: to
walk in very quickly. He played the music that would be part of the sound track “to evoke some
emotions.” He said he told Tom, “Listen, you can be as angry as you wanna be, you can be as
sad as you can get. Let’s start doing it and let’s see what happens.”44 So, although Anderson
typically plans what actors need to do, in this case he wanted the actors to bring to the scene
whatever they were feeling.
Anderson enhances the ensemble through his camera work. The way that Anderson uses
the camera enables him to highlight Brecht’s emphasis on the importance of relationships. The
long take introduces characters and settings. The tracking shots call attention to the relationship
of one character to the next and of the relation between one character and his or her environment.
The tracking shot can also be used to depict causality. The long-take and the tracking shot work
effectively in tandem to create Brechtian distancing. The long-take makes us pay attention to the
character, but when used in conjunction with tracking, it becomes difficult to maintain such
intense focus on a single character.
The beginning segment of Boogie Nights is a good example of how Anderson introduces
an ensemble. Before meeting any of the characters, we are introduced to the locale, Hot Traxx, a
night club in an unspecified location. A crane shot is used to descend from the elevated neon sign
to the streets of what we soon learn is the San Fernando Valley in 1977. The camera cuts through
a whirlwind of activity and focuses first on Maurice Rodriguez owner of the nightclub. The shot

44. David Konow. "PTA Meeting: An Interview with Paul Thomas Anderson." Creative
Screenwriting, January 2000.
expands to include Jack Horner and Amber Waves, each well known in the porno industry.
Maurice leads Jack and Amber inside and seats them in their booth.
The camera then stays with Maurice as he walks up to three new characters – Reed
Rothschild, Becky Barnett, and Buck Swope. The camera first focuses on Reed and Maurice,
then moves to Maurice and Becky, and finally to Maurice and Buck. The camera moves away
from Maurice, follows a waiter for a few seconds, and then returns to Amber and Jack. In
introducing the characters of the ensemble so far, Anderson adds concentric circles to expand the
universe of the ensemble. He doesn’t stay with any character too long yet he introduces all
members whether they play a large or a small part.
The camera once again moves away from Amber and Jack and focuses on Roller Girl
who is skating toward their table. Roller Girl and Amber have a quick conversation which is
interrupted when Roller Girl says that she has to use the bathroom. She skates across the dance
floor toward the bathroom, the camera moves away and in a slower frame speed moves to a
close-up of the film’s protagonist Eddie Adams soon to rename himself Dirk Diggler. The only
clue that Anderson provides to suggest that this character will become the main character in the
story is that the camera lingers on him a few moments longer than it lingers on other characters.
This long take, used in conjunction with the tracking shot, hints at some of the traits of
each character as well as provides a tantalizing snippet of the world and people in Boogie Nights
and some of their relationships. It also establishes the ensemble nature of the cast. It entices the
viewer to think more deeply about who the characters are and about the nature of their
relationships. Anderson sets up the place, the time period, and an almost even playing field for
the characters. The movie then begins.

Conclusion
How Brechtian is Anderson? The thesis began with an idea that the films of Anderson
contain many Brechtian elements: large ensemble casts, films that told multiple stories, and
music that commented on the action. Unfortunately, no scholarly articles, no interviews with
Anderson, and not one critical review of his films mentioned the influence or imprint of Brecht.
A review of the literature revealed that earlier filmmakers had considered themselves Brechtian
or had been characterized as such by scholars or reviewers. Coincidentally, several of those
filmmakers classified as Brechtian were ones that Anderson admired and from whom he learned
directly.
The films and writings of Ophuls, Kubrick, and Altman explored Brechtian conceits.
These second generation Brechtians modified for film what Brecht had developed for theatre.
Each provided a unique twist to what would be considered Brechtian filmmaking. Ophuls gave
an object the opportunity to star in his film and injected humor in his films. Kubrick used music
as a distancing mechanism and sprinkled clues throughout his movies to keep his viewers on
their toes. Altman employed large casts and wove a web of interconnected stories. These three
filmmakers usually had social commentary and occasionally had political commentary within
their films.
Anderson too modified many Brechtian techniques to reflect his own personal take on
society, his trust in his technical associates, his love and respect for his actors and their craft, his
optimistic view of the world, his love of games and puzzles, and his extraordinary knowledge of
popular music. More than anything, however, Anderson’s quirky humor defines him punctuating
his interviews and his films.

Missing from this thesis is a discussion of the social issues that were explored in his
films. Without question these three films focus on important social issues. Boogie Nights focuses
on the decline of an industry because of advances in technology—video replacing film. The
optimistic Anderson doesn’t allow this development to destroy the characters in the film. Instead,
Buck, a failure in the industry, is able to open a successful business in which employs his out-of-
work actor and technician friends to make his commercials. Fate worked for him rather than
against him to enable him to ultimately succeed. In Magnolia, when feelings of entitlement lead
to the downward spiral in the lives of the characters, PT Anderson sends a storm of frogs falling
from the sky as a wake-up call. Many of the characters are able to transform their lives. The only
one of the three movies in which greed is punished is There Will Be Blood. Daniel’s greed leads
him to complete deterioration. Eli’s greed leads to his brutal murder. But even as Eli meets his
end, Anderson injects humor as Daniel tells Eli, “I drink your milkshake.” Perhaps because
Anderson’s humor softens the message, the social message does not seem as important to
Anderson as it does for the second generation Brechtians.
Perhaps the most Brechtian aspect of Anderson’s films is the way he uses music,
particularly its lyrics to comment on the action. This is true in Boogie Nights and Magnolia but
not so in There Will Be Blood. Another prominent Brechtian aspect is the way Anderson tells
multiple interconnected stories that are presented in fragmented form so as to constitute puzzles.
In order to keep track of all the relationships and connections the audience has to be distanced
emotionally from the characters and not to overly empathize with them. This is true for all three
films discussed in this thesis. And finally, Anderson was able to tell these stories effectively
because of the excellence of the actors he selected. Individually and as an ensemble, their
performances, whether developed independently or under the precise guidance of the director,
they create an effect that seems like the performances of the Berliner Ensemble as described by
Brecht.
The ideas in this thesis would benefit by the opportunity to talk with Anderson about
what seem to be Brechtian elements in his films. His response to this assessment would be most
illuminating,
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Brechtian Elements in Three Films by P.T. Anderson

Thesis · June 2015

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The University of Chicago

Brechtian Elements in Three Films by P.T. Anderson

The Faculty of the Division of the Humanities

For the Degree of

Department of Cinema and Media Studies

Nathaniel Henry Epstein

Advisor: Professor Jennifer Wild

Die (1942)2. He collaborated with G. W. Pabst on transformation of The Threepenny Opera

Kubrick, and Robert Altman.

political issues, and how those issues impacted their lives.

outstanding cinematography. He emulated many of their cinematographic techniques but

rather than on political issues.

become a third generation Brechtian.

The volume of Brechtian scholarship is immense. Brecht was a committed Marxist

Ophuls, Kubrick, and Altman.

“Verfremdungseffekts”, and Brecht scholars often refer to them as V-effects.6

alienation-effect can clearly be construed in this way.” 7 According to Brecht, alienation

stories, and acting style.

happening politically and socially in the nation at that time.

show how they relate to one another.

role fit into the larger picture.

The Filmmakers Who Influenced Anderson

Brechtian. Anderson can then be termed as a third generation Brechtian.

films, Ophuls focused more on social forces than on intrapersonal issues.

There Will Be Blood19.

used signaling devices to foreshadow ominous events.

order to try intellectually to solve the puzzle.

characteristics in Altman films . . . is a large cast of characters . . . 40 in Nashville, 48 in A

without apparent reasons. Narrative coherence gives way to fragmentary puzzles.”27 Of

them greater flexibility than Kubrick does.

Anderson’s Amplification of Brechtian Techniques in his Movies

completed Altman died.

An archive of Anderson’s interviews provided important information used in this thesis.31

told one interviewer:

included on the DVD of a film.

What Anderson Does That is Brechtian: Multiple Interrelated Stories

stories together is the Quiz Show What Do Kids Know?

of Communication Research (2011), Antoaneta Mihoc discusses how filmmakers Altman,

“puzzle pieces” which the viewer has to put together.

of what he or she is watching.

although he is still recognized everywhere.

serves as a distancing device.

What Anderson Does That is Brechtian: Puzzles, Games and Clues

commit suicide by jumping off the roof of his apartment house.

emotionally to his death.

clues that something unusual, perhaps even biblical, will occur.

What Anderson Does That is Brechtian: Narration

Many screenwriters have adapted Brecht’s practices with regard to narration.

action and use a narrator in a singular and memorable way.

each have numbers 8 and/or 2 displayed on their clothes.

suggests that maybe other forces contributed to the situation.

goes to the hospital to visit Linda.

What Anderson Does That is Brechtian: Music and Sound

that helps provide another layer to the film.

shows her face, half lighted, half completely obscured by shadow.

comparison. Jim joins the singing.

no longer in the shot, just each face.

makes us think that maybe mother knows best.