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Paul Thomas Anderson
Director / Screenwriter / Producer
1970 - 
Born January 1, Studio City, California, USA
Key Production Country: USA 
Key Genres: Drama, Ensemble Film, Comedy Drama, Period Film
Key Collaborators: Robert Elswit (Cinematographer), Joanne Sellar (Producer), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Leading Character Player), Philip Baker Hall (Leading Character Player), Luis Guzman (Leading Character Player), Dylan Tichenor (Editor), Jon Brion (Composer), John C. Reilly (Character Player), Julianne Moore (Leading Player), William Arnold (Production Designer)

Highly Recommended: Hard Eight (1996), Magnolia (1999)*, Punch-Drunk Love (2002)*^
Recommended: Boogie Nights (1997)*, There Will Be Blood (2007)*^
* Listed in TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films section; ^ Listed in TSPDT's 21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films section.

 
 
 
Links: [ Amazon ] [ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Wikipedia ] [ The Definitive P.T. Anderson Resource ] [ Movie Maker Article ] [ A.V. Club Interview (2007) ] [ Slate Article (2007) ] [ Guardian Interview (2008) ] [ LA Weekly Interview (2008) ]
Books: [ Paul Thomas Anderson: From Hard Eight to Punch-Drunk Love ]
 
Hard Eight (1996)Magnolia (1999)Punch-Drunk Love (2002)Boogie Nights (1997)
 
     
  "Paul Thomas Anderson emerged as one of the most exciting young directors in Hollywood, with two epics as vast and sprawling as the San Fernando Valley in which they are set - Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999). His films already show the hallmarks of a distinctive vision and are marked by a surprising maturity, delving deep into themes of family, loneliness and the ghosts of the past." - Andrew Syder (Contemporary North American Film Directors, 2002)  
     
  "No other American director working today has such sad, tender, and smart ways of looking into the depths of society, or for feeling out their poignant juxtapositions. He writes great, ragged speeches, and he is like a fond parent with his family of actors." - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)  
     
  "Perhaps the most ambitious American filmmaker of his generation, Paul Thomas Anderson grew up around movies and worked as a production assistant from a young age...Influenced above all by Robert Altman, Anderson has two wildly ambitious, panoramic ensemble movies to his name (Boogie Nights, Magnolia)." - Ronald Bergan (Film - Eyewitness Companions, 2006)  
     
  "I have a feeling, one of those gut feelings, that I'll make pretty good movies the rest of my life. And maybe I'll make some clunkers, maybe I'll make some winners, but I guess the way that I really feel is that Magnolia is, for better or worse, the best movie I'll ever make." - Paul Thomas Anderson (IMDB Biography)  
     
  "I try and balance it out. I mean, I don't want to be blabbermouth-young-white-director-guy, but I gotta help. You just don't want to get a disgusting sheen on yourself." - Paul Thomas Anderson  
     
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"Like most American directors of his generation, Anderson has obvious roots in the cinema of the 1970s. His first two films in particular show the imprint of Martin Scorsese, in the restless energy of the camera, the crisp pacing, the smart use of popular music and the low-life seedy settings. Similarly, the large casts and overlapping plotlines of Boogie Nights and Magnolia show a clear debt to Robert Altman. But Anderson’s thematic concerns and perspective on his characters are distinctively his. His movies have their share of violence and emotional rawness, but there is something fundamentally warm about them." - Jesse Fox Mayshark, Post-Pop Cinema: The Search for Meaning in New American Film

 
 
Top 250 Directors 
21st Century Top 50 
100 Essential Directors (Pop Matters)
Ranked 21st on The Guardian's 2004 List of the World's 40 Best Directors
Ranked 16th on Film Comment's list of the 25 Best Directors of the Decade (2000-2009)
501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers
 
See Also
Robert Altman
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Jonathan Demme
Terrence Malick
Alan Rudolph
Paul Schrader
Martin Scorsese
Steven Soderbergh
Erich von Stroheim
Michael Winterbottom
 
 
 
         
         

 

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