Threads that bind

Excerpts from a chat with the 49-year-old, on his film Phantom Thread, ahead of its TV premiere.
Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps in Phantom Thread
Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps in Phantom Thread

A brilliant couture designer’s meticulous lifestyle undergoes a drastic change when he falls for a waitress who later becomes his muse and lover.

This is the plot of Phantom Thread, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

The 2017 period drama is said to be loosely inspired by English-American fashion designer, Charles James.

Anderson whose films have been nominated for over 25 Oscars (winning three for cast and crew), is
an alumnus of the Sundance Institute, and also the man who helmed memorable films like Hard Eight (1996), Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), The Master (2012), Inherent Vice (2014).

There Will Be Blood (2007), which revolves around an oil prospector during the Southern California oil boom, is considered one of the best films of the 2000s.

Excerpts from a chat with the 49-year-old, on his film Phantom Thread, ahead of its TV premiere:

Do you consciously look to push yourself with each new project?

It’s a push but it’s an organic push. I’ve had an instinct for a while to return to a kind of romance story. I’ve always thought I’d love to make a story with a woman as the protagonist.

But the most obvious thing was wanting to work with Daniel again.
 
This film is a portrait of an artist. Did you have your own experiences?

Loads of it I know at first hand. I wouldn’t call myself an artist, and movies about artists are tricky – moments of inspiration are usually pretty corny.

But I needed a character that was self-consumed. The idea of making him a fashion designer seemed like a smart one – it got me into a world that was very glamourous and controlled.

You can recognise a lot of similarities between being a film director and being a fashion designer, I suppose – ultimately you are making something that people are going to pay cold hard cash for and go and see.  
 
You and Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock, had a lot of back-and-forths while you wrote the script. Why was that?

For a number of reasons.

Number one is that I don’t speak English, I speak American (laughs), so I needed help in that department, from the silliest things like having a character say they’re “mad” as opposed to “angry”.

He was incredibly helpful for me understanding class, which is completely foreign to me.

I think we knew on a practical level that we weren’t getting any younger, and for me to go away and write a movie alone in a room and then to show it to him would have been counter-productive.

Once you have a completed script, for him it’s about a year to go through every nook and cranny of it.

Once you start shooting with Daniel, there’s not a lot of dialogue, not a lot of thinking. You adapt to the moment here and there, but the work has been done.
 
You shot the film yourself. Would it have been a different film if you’d collaborated with a cinematographer?

If you’re collaborating with someone, they’re going to add something to it. (Shooting the film myself)
grew out of a lot of the projects.

Going into this, it felt manageable. It’s essentially interior, between the Fitzroy Square house and the Cotswold country house. It was a natural progression. It felt good.
 
Will you be your own DP in future?

Certainly I would do it again, but also I wouldn’t want to miss out on the joys and opportunities that can come collaborating with a really great cinematographer. There’s too much you can get out of that.
 
Phantom Thread, like all of your films, deals with the theme of family, isn’t it?

Absolutely. I can’t get away from it. It’s food and drink to me. When I began writing it,
I knew there was this woman here, and she’s this strong force in his life.

Then I thought, “This is her sister”. And by coincidence, my research showed that all these guys –
or a lot of them – had sisters who were the frontlines of their business.

But it’s not too weird – there’s the golden child boy who can sew, the mother who obsesses over him and pushes him to be the best that he can be, and then the daughter on the side, who is marginalised and told, “You’re going to take care of him when I’m gone.”

Watch Phantom Thread on October 1 at 3:00 am only on Sony PIX

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