Paul Thomas Anderson reveals the secret to making movies
As someone named by many of the greatest living directors as one of the best in the business, hearing the opinion of Paul Thomas Anderson as it relates to filmmaking is something any aspiring writer or director should pay attention to.
After all, he might still be waiting on his first Academy Award win after being nominated no less than 12 times so far to no avail. His filmography speaks for itself. From the noir stylings of his debut, Hard Eight, to the almost ethereal dramatic comedy of Licorice Pizza, Anderson’s features can flit between genre at will while retaining his unmistakable and singular voice.
Even talents of his calibre can’t speak highly enough of the basics, though, as Anderson put it to The New Yorker. When offering his insight into the creative process, he noted that “it all begins and ends with the writing.” As obvious as that sounds – furthered by his assessment that “if the writing is good, you’ve got a very good shot at making a good film” – it’s the explanation that matters.
Continuing to outline one of his favoured tricks to separate the creative wheat from the chaff, Anderson put it all down to what’s on the page: “When you write a scene that doesn’t work, you generally spend way too much time trying to do it,” he suggested. “You spend too much time reshooting it, rewriting it, trying it a hundred different ways. And then you realize this thing doesn’t belong in the film.”
Calling it “the most important part” of his approach, the Boogie Nights and Magnolia director elaborated on how self-confidence in his screenplay feeds into the entire filmmaking experience: “If it’s good and it’s happening, I’m that much more comfortable on a set or that much more comfortable waking up each day, going, ‘Great, I’m looking forward to shooting the scene.'”
He’s not above trimming the fat when necessary, either, even if he’s under the initial impression the writing is of the highest quality. If he believes something is “the greatest scene that we have in the movie,” and the voice inside tells him otherwise, then he’s happy to discard it. “That’s the trick,” he said. “It’s like, after this many years, you’d think you’d be able to spot it quicker.” Sometimes, too much dialogue can be a bad thing, forcing Anderson to rein himself in and think, “enough with the writing!”
It would be fair to say his internal monologue has proven to be correct more often than not based on the strength of his back catalogue, so long may he continue to abandon excessively verbose pages whenever his brain tells him that maybe the characters don’t need so many words to put their point across.
