Magnolia (film)

Magnolia is a 1999 American drama film produced, written, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, narrated by Ricky Jay, and starring Jeremy Blackman, Tom Cruise, Melinda Dillon,Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ricky Jay, William H. Macy, Alfred Molina, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Jason Robards, and Melora Walters. Magnolia is an epic mosaic of several interrelated characters in search of happiness, forgiveness, and meaning in the San Fernando Valley.

The film was distributed by New Line Cinema.

Magnolia was a critical success in 1999. Of the ensemble cast, Tom Cruise was nominated forBest Supporting Actor at the 72nd Academy Awards, and won the award in the same category at the Golden Globes of 2000. This film was also the last appearance in a feature film by Jason Robards.

Plot

Three urban legends are described by a narrator:

1. Sir Edmund William Godfrey, a resident of Greenberry Hill, London, is murdered by vagrants named Joseph Green, Stanley Berry and Daniel Hill.
2. Blackjack dealer Delmer Darion, while scuba diving in a lake, is killed by a firefightingairplane as it fills its tank with water. The pilot of the plane encountered Darion a few days prior, and started a fight with him after losing a hand of blackjack. The guilt and measure of coincidence drives the pilot to commit suicide.
3. 17-year-old Sydney Barringer attempts suicide by jumping off the roof of his apartment building; he is accidentally shot by his mother as he falls past his apartment window. His parents often threatened each other with the shotgun, which was kept unloaded. Sydney loaded the gun hoping they would kill one another. A newly-installed netting for window washers would have saved Sydney's life.

Police officer Jim Kurring investigates a disturbance at a woman's home, finding a body in her closet. Other police officers arrive but disregard his report. A young boy, Dixon offers to help Jim by performing a rap. Dixon claims that he told Jim who committed the murder, but Jim ignores him.

Former TV producer Earl Partridge is dying of cancer, and is cared for by a nurse, Phil Parma, while Earl's trophy wife Linda collects prescriptions for morphine. Earl asks Phil to find his estranged son, Frank Mackey.

Cocaine addict Claudia Wilson is visited by her father, child gameshow host Jimmy Gator, who is dying of cancer. Claudia orders him to leave. One of the contestants of Jimmy's gameshow, Stanley Spector, arrives at the studio with his father Rick, who encourages him because he wants the prize money. A former champion of the show, Donnie Smith, is fired by his boss, Solomon Solomon. Donnie says he needs money for oral surgery, though Solomon tells him he does not need braces.

Jim is called to Claudia's home after her disagreement with her father is reported as a disturbance. Jim is attracted to her and tries prolonging the visit, although they are socially awkward. Jim is called away but asks Claudia on a date. Linda collects the drugs at a pharmacy, then goes to see Earl's lawyer, Alan Kligman, begging him to change Earl's will. She married Earl for his money, but now loves him and wants none of his money. Alan says there is nothing he can do.

The game show begins and Stanley's intelligence provides the kids with a good start. During a commercial break the producers refuse to let Stanley use the bathroom. When the game continues he wets himself and stops answering questions. Jimmy sickens as the show continues, finally collapsing on stage. He orders his friend Burt Ramsey to go on with the show. Rick is furious with Stanley for not answering questions. As the game continues Jimmy asks Stanley to come out for the final round, but Stanley asks Jimmy why he should feel like a "doll" just because he is intelligent. Jimmy replies that he does not know.

Phil has gotten through to Frank's assistant. She gives the message to Frank, who breaks into weeping. Linda hangs up Phil's phone, angrily telling him not to get involved. Donnie visits a bar so he can watch Brad, a bartender with whom he is infatuated. Brad has braces; Donnie hopes that getting some will make Brad love him. Seeing Brad talk to a barfly, Thurston Howell, Donnie asks Howell if he has love in his heart. Howell mocks Donnie, who confesses his love for Brad before leaving.

Jim investigates a suspicious jaywalker. A mysterious assailant shoots at Jim, causing him to drop his gun, which is stolen by Dixon. Linda apologizes to Phil and tells him to apologize to Earl for her, then goes to the car and ingests his medication, attempting suicide. Earl tells Phil the story of his first wife, Lily, whom he loved but cheated on.

Jim and Claudia go on their date, promising to be honest. Jim confesses to losing his gun and that he has not been on a date since he was married, three years ago. Claudia asks him never to see her again, saying he will hate her. She claims she has problems, but Jim assures her he does not care. They kiss before she runs off.

Jimmy is taken home to his wife Rose and tells her he cheated on her. Rose asks why Claudia does not talk to him, and Jimmy replies that she thinks he molested her, but he cannot remember whether he did. Rose leaves and Jimmy decides to kill himself, taking a gun from the kitchen.

Donnie decides to use copies of Solomon's keys to steal money from the safe. He is successful, but breaks his key in the lock. After driving away he realizes the foolishness of what he is doing. He goes back to replace the money but cannot get back in, having broken the key. Donnie climbs a utility pole to try to get in through the roof. Dixon finds Linda near death in her car. After taking money from her purse he calls an ambulance, reciting his rap as the paramedics arrive. Frank watches Earl die, sobbing and disgorging a stream of invective against the father who ruined his life while asking him not to die. While driving home, Jim sees Donnie climbing the utility pole and goes to stop him.

The city experiences a raining animal event, frogs raining from the sky. Rose crashes her car outside Claudia's apartment and reconciles with her daughter. As Jimmy is about to kill himself the frogs fall through his skylight, causing him instead to shoot the TV, which sets his house on fire. The frogs cause Donnie to fall from the pole and smash his teeth; he now needs oral surgery. The rain of frogs ceases and Jim's gun falls from the sky and lands in front of him. Jim helps Donnie replace the money. Having been given the morphine by Phil, Earl dies as Frank watches. Frank goes to the hospital to see Linda, who is recovering. Stanley tells his father that he needs to be nicer to him; Rick responds by telling Stanley to go to bed. Jim visits Claudia. He tells her that he wants to make things work between them. After a long, sullen gaze, she smiles.

The narrator urges the audience to consider the coincidences mentioned at the beginning of the film.

[edit]Cast

Main characters

• Jeremy Blackman as Stanley Spector, a current contestant on What Do Kids Know?. His greedy father, an aspiring actor, capitalizes off of his son's success and constantly pressures him to win.
• Tom Cruise as Frank T.J. Mackey, author of Seduce and Destroy, a self-help system for men to "tame" women. Mackey's character was inspired by Ross Jeffries.^[1]
• Philip Baker Hall as Jimmy Gator, host of What Do Kids Know?, who is dying of cancer. He seeks reconciliation with his daughter, Claudia.
• Philip Seymour Hoffman as Phil Parma, a kind, sympathetic, and lonely nurse working for the terminally ill Earl Partridge.
• William H. Macy as "Quiz Kid" Donnie Smith, who won a large sum of money on the television game show What Do Kids Know? in the 1960s, but whose adult life has gone downhill after appearing as a celebrity spokesperson.
• Julianne Moore as Linda Partridge, a woman dealing with her much older husband's terminal illness and feelings of guilt for her infidelity. She is Mackey's stepmother.
• John C. Reilly as Officer Jim Kurring, a divorced, religious, and forthright police officer. While on patrol, Kurring often speaks to an imaginary camera, as if he were appearing on a reality TV series such as COPS.
• Jason Robards as Earl Partridge, a wealthy television producer with terminal lung cancer. He is the estranged father of Frank T.J. Mackey and husband to Linda Partridge.
• Melora Walters as Claudia Wilson Gator, a young woman plagued by psychological problems and a cocaine addiction; daughter of Jimmy Gator.
• Felicity Huffman as Cynthia, part of the staff of "What Do Kids Know?." She is responsible for the child contestants.
• Michael Murphy as Alan Kligman, Esq., Earl and Linda Partridge's trusted friend and lawyer who is deeply concerned about the latter's erratic and frantic behavior.
• Ricky Jay as Burt Ramsey / Narrator

Other characters

• Michael Bowen as Rick Spector
• April Grace as Gwenovier
• Luis Guzman as Luis
• Henry Gibson as Thurston Howell
• Orlando Jones as Worm
• Neil Flynn as Daniel Hill
• Patton Oswalt as Delmer Darion
• Thomas Jane as Young Jimmy Gator
• Craig Kvinsland as Brad the bartender
• Clark Gregg as WDKK Floor Director
• Art Frankel as Pharmacist
• Mary Lynn Rajskub as Voice of Janet, Frank's secretary
• Jim Beaver, Ezra Buzzington, and Denise Woolfork as Smiling peanut patrons
• Bob Downey, Sr. 'A Prince' as WDKK Show Director
• William Mapother as WDKK Show Director's assistant
• Alfred Molina as Solomon Solomon

[edit]Character relationships

 Many of the characters have thematically similar stories:

-	Jim Kurring (John C. Reilly)	Earl (Jason Robards)	Jimmy (Philip Baker Hall)	Claudia (Melora Walters)	Stanley (Jeremy Blackman)	Donnie (William H. Macy)
Linda (Julianne Moore)	-	Both have been unfaithful (Linda to Earl and Earl to his first wife) and feel remorse	Both make admissions of infidelity, and both unsuccessfully attempt suicide.	Both abuse drugs and suffer from psychological problems	-	Both suffer emotional outbursts
Donnie (William H. Macy)	Both are lonely and desperately seeking love	-	-	Both have a persecution complex	Both are "quiz kids" who feel unappreciated by their parents	-
Frank (Tom Cruise)	-	Both mistreat women	-	Both engage in self-destructive behaviors as a result of childhood trauma, as well as living underpseudonyms	-	&-
Stanley (Jeremy Blackman)	Both feel like outcasts, Stanley from his teammates and Jim from his co-workers	-	Both suffer breakdowns on Jimmy's show (Jimmy physically, Stanley emotionally)	Both abused by their fathers, Stanley verbally and emotionally, Claudiasexually	-	-
Jimmy (Philip Baker Hall)	-	Both are (or have been) big names in TV, both are dying of cancer and both cheated on their wives and now regret it	-	-	-	-
Earl (Jason Robards)	Both had a troubled first marriage	-	-	-	-	-

The plot reveals all these relationships over a number of interlocking events, including:

• A crime that investigators think was committed by the Worm (played by Orlando Jones in scenes that were deleted).
• The broadcasting of a live episode of What Do Kids Know?, a quiz show that pits children against adults.
• A noise complaint that leads to an awkward conversation, and eventually a date between Jim and Claudia.
• Donnie's barroom conversation with an eccentric barfly, and his misguided attempts to woo the braces-wearing bartender, Brad. His love for him results in an attempt to steal money from his former employer to pay for braces that he does not need.
• An interview in which a reporter attempts to penetrate the emotional wall that Frank hides behind.
• The last hours of Earl's life, which complicate Linda's life with a number of vital decisions and in which a desperate Phil attempts to fulfill Earl's wish to see Frank, the son who despises him.

[edit]Raining frogs and Exodus references

Further information: Raining animals

At the end of the film, a rare but precedented event occurs: frogs rain from the sky. While the plague of frogs is unexpected, there have been real-life reports of frogs being sucked into waterspouts and then raining to the ground miles inland.^[2] While there have been incidents of a moderate number of frogs falling from the sky along with other precipitation, there has never been a recorded incident of a dry, torrential frog downpour as is depicted in the film.

All along the film there are references to the Bible's Book of Exodus 8:2 "And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with {a} frogs", some of the props around the characters are shaped to resemble these numbers and also clocks, weather services and other items refer to these numbers, most notably at the beginning of the contest a man is holding a sign with Exodus 8:2 which is taken away by one of the hosts and also some lines of dialogue include these numbers.

The movie has an underlying theme of unexplained events, taken from the 1920s and 1930s works of American intellectual Charles Fort.Fortean author Loren Coleman has written a chapter about this motion picture, entitled "The Teleporting Animals and Magnolia," in one of his recent books.^[3] The film has many hidden Fortean themes. The fall of frogs is merely one of them. One of Charles Fort's books is visible on the table in the library and there is an end credit thanking Charles Fort.^[4]

Other repeated references to animal rain in the story include at least four different characters in different scenes using the cliché, "It's raining cats and dogs". The only character in the story who seems to be unsurprised by the unusual meteorological event is the child prodigy, Stanley. He calmly observes the falling frog silhouettes, saying "This happens". This has led to the speculation that Stanley is seen as aprophet, allegorically akin to Moses, and that the "slavery" the movie conveys alludes to the exploitation of children by adults.^[5] These "father issues" persist throughout the movie, as seen with the abuse and neglect of Claudia, Frank, Donnie, Stanley and Dixon.^[6] Another interpretation of Stanley's "This is a thing that happens" points the remark toward the acts of reconciliation and healing that take place in the midst of traumatic experiences, suggesting that in the real world people actually do recover from these "thing[s]".

[edit]Development

Paul Thomas Anderson started to get ideas for Magnolia during the long editing period of Boogie Nights (1997). As he got closer to finishing the film, he started writing down material for his new project^[1] After the critical and financial success of Boogie Nights, New Line Cinema, who backed that film, told Anderson that he could do whatever he wanted and the filmmaker realized that, "I was in a position I will never ever be in again".^[7] Michael De Luca, then Head of Production at New Line, made the deal for Magnolia, granting Anderson final cut without hearing an idea for the film.^[7][8] Originally, Anderson had wanted to make a film that was "intimate and small-scale",^[9] something that he could shoot in 30 days.^[10] He had the title of "Magnolia" in his head before he wrote the script.^[11] As he started writing, the script "kept blossoming" and he realized that there were many actors he wanted to write for and then decided to put "an epic spin on topics that don't necessarily get the epic treatment".^[9] He wanted to "make the epic, the all-time great San Fernando Valley movie".^[11] Anderson started with lists of images, words and ideas that "start resolving themselves into sequences and shots and dialogue",^[9] actors, and music. The first image he had for the film was the smiling face of actress Melora Walters.^[9] The next image that came to him was of Philip Baker Hall as her father. Anderson imagined Hall walking up the steps of Walters' apartment and having an intense confrontation with her.^[12] Anderson also did research on the magnolia tree and discovered a concept that eating the tree's bark helped cure cancer.^[11]

[edit]Screenplay

By the time he started writing the script he was listening to Aimee Mann's music.^[9] Anderson used her two solo albums and some demo tracks from a new album that Mann was working on as a basis and inspiration for the film.^[13] In particular, Mann's song "Deathly", on her album Bachelor No. 2 or, the Last Remains of the Dodo, features the lyric "Now that I've met you/Would you object to/Never seeing each other again", which was used by Claudia as line of dialogue in the film.^[9] In addition, "Deathly" also inspired the character of Claudia.^[13]

The character of Jim Kurring originated in the summer of 1998 when actor John C. Reilly grew a mustache out of interest and started putting together an unintelligent cop character. He and Anderson did a few parodies of COPS with the director chasing Reilly around the streets with a video camera. Actress Jennifer Jason Leigh made an appearance in one of these videos. Some of Kurring's dialogue came from these sessions.^[9] This time around, Reilly wanted to do something different and told Anderson that he was "always cast as these heavies or these semi-retarded child men. Can't you give me something I can relate to, like falling in love with a girl?"^[14] Anderson also wanted to make Reilly a romantic lead because it was something different that the actor had not done before.^[9]

For Philip Seymour Hoffman, Anderson wanted him to play a "really simple, uncomplicated, caring character".^[9] The actor described his character as someone who "really takes pride in the fact that every day he's dealing with life and death circumstances".^[10] With Julianne Moore in mind, the director wrote a role for her to play a crazed character using many pharmaceuticals. According to the actress, "Linda doesn't know who she is or what she's feeling and can only try to explain it in the most vulgar terms possible".^[15] For William H. Macy, Anderson felt that the actor was scared of big, emotional parts and wrote for him, "a big tearful, emotional part".^[9]

While convincing Philip Baker Hall to do the film by explaining the significance of the rain of frogs, the actor told him a story about when he was in the mountains of Italy and got caught in bad weather — a mix of rain, snow and tiny frogs. Hall had to pull off the road until the storm passed.^[16] According to an interview, Hall said that he based the character of Jimmy Gator on real-life TV personalities such as Bob Barker,Alistair Beck, and Arthur Godfrey.^[17] The rain of frogs was inspired by the works of Charles Fort and Anderson claims that he was unaware that it was also a reference in The Bible when he first wrote the sequence. At the time the filmmaker came across the notion of a rain of frogs, he was "going through a weird, personal time", and he started to understand "why people turn to religion in times of trouble, and maybe my form of finding religion was reading about rains of frogs and realizing that makes sense to me somehow".^[1]

[edit]Casting

Tom Cruise was a fan of Anderson's previous film, Boogie Nights, and contacted the filmmaker while he was working on Stanley Kubrick'sEyes Wide Shut (1999).^[18] Anderson met with Cruise on the set of Kubrick's film and the actor told him to keep him in mind for his next film. After Anderson finished the script, he sent Cruise a copy and the next day, the actor called him. Cruise was interested but nervous about the role. They met with Cruise along with De Luca who helped convince the actor to do the film.^[7] Frank T.J. Mackey, the character that Cruise would play in the film, was based in part on an audio-recording done in an engineering class taught by a friend that was given to Anderson.^[1]It consisted of two men, "talking all this trash" about women and quoting a man named Ross Jeffries, who was teaching a new version of the Eric Weber course, "How to Pick Up Women," but utilizing hypnotism and subliminal language techniques.^[1] Anderson transcribed the tape and did a reading with Reilly and Chris Penn.^[7] The director then incorporated this dialogue and his research on Jeffries and other self-help gurus into Mackey and his sex seminar.^[1] Anderson felt that Cruise was drawn to the role because he had just finished making Eyes Wide Shut, playing a repressed character, and was able to then play a character that was "outlandish and bigger-than-life".^[11]

Anderson wrote the role of Earl Partridge for Jason Robards but he was initially unable to do it because of a serious staph infection. Anderson approached George C. Scott, who turned him down. Eventually, Robards was able to do the film.^[19] Robards said of his character, "It was sort of prophetic that I be asked to play a guy going out in life. It was just so right for me to do this and bring what I know to it".^[10] According to Hall, much of the material with Partridge was based on Anderson watching his father die of cancer.^[17]

Several of the cast from Boogie Nights return in Magnolia. As well as the major characters played by Hall, Hoffmann, Macy, Moore, Reilly and Walters, there are cameo performances from Alfred Molina as 'Quiz Kid' Donnie Smith's employer Solomon Solomon, Luis Guzmán as Luis, one of the adult contestants on "What Do Kids Know?", and Ricky Jay, who also doubles as narrator, as the television executive Burt Ramsey.

[edit]Production

Before Anderson became a filmmaker, one of the jobs he had was as an assistant for a television game show, Quiz Kid Challenge, an experience he incorporated into the script for Magnolia.^[8] He also claimed in interviews that the film is structured somewhat like "A Day in the Life" by The Beatles, and "it kind of builds up, note by note, then drops or recedes, then builds again".^[11] The production designers looked at films with close, tight color palettes, films that were warm and analyzed why they did that and then applied it to Magnolia.^[10] They also wanted to evoke the colors of the magnolia flower: greens, browns and off-whites. For the section of the prologue that is set in 1911, Anderson used a hand-cranked pathé camera that would have been used at the time.^[10] Some of the actors were nervous about singing the lyrics to Mann's "Wise Up" in the film's climactic scene and so Anderson had Moore do it first and she set the pace and everyone else followed.^[9]

Anderson and New Line reportedly had intense arguments about how to market Magnolia.^[7] He felt that the studio did not do a decent enough job on Boogie Nights and did not like the studio's poster or trailer for Magnolia. Anderson ended up designing his own poster, cut together a trailer himself,^[7] wrote the liner notes for the soundtrack album, and pushed to avoid hyping Cruise's presence in the film in favor of the ensemble cast.^[19] Even though Anderson ultimately got his way, he realized that he had to "learn to fight without being a jerk. I was a bit of a baby. At the first moment of conflict, I behaved in a slightly adolescent knee-jerk way. I just screamed."^[7] In a Rolling Stone article, published around the time of Magnolia's release, Anderson said that he walked out of Fight Club after the first half hour and criticized its director, David Fincher, for making jokes about cancer, saying that he should get it as punishment. Afterwards, Anderson wrote Fincher a note apologizing and explained that he had lost his sense of humor about cancer.^[20]

[edit]Music and soundtracks

Main articles: Magnolia (soundtrack) and Magnolia (score)

Anderson met Aimee Mann in 1996 when he asked her husband, Michael Penn, to write songs for his film, Hard Eight. Mann had songs on soundtracks before but never "utilized in such an integral way" she said in an interview.^[18] She gave Anderson rough mixes of songs and found that they both wrote about the same kinds of characters.^[18] He encouraged her to write songs for the film by sending her a copy of the script.^[10]

Two songs were written expressly for the film: "You Do," which was based on a character later cut from the film, and "Save Me," which closes the film;^[13] the latter was nominated in the 2000 Academy Awards and Golden Globes and in the 2001 Grammys. Most of the remaining seven Mann songs were demos and works in progress; "Wise Up," which is at the center of a sequence in which all of the characters sing the song,^[9] was originally written for the 1996 film Jerry Maguire. At the time Mann's record label had refused to release her songs on an album.^[13] The song that plays at the opening of the film is "One" by Harry Nilsson. Mann's track "Momentum" is used as the loud playing music in Claudia's apartment scene when Officer Jim arrives and was also featured in the trailer for the film.

Anderson produced a music video for "Save Me" that featured Mann in the background of what appeared to be scenes from the film, singing to characters. Unlike in many such music videos, there was no digital manipulation involved; the video was shot at the end of filming days with Mann and actors who were asked to stay in place. The video, which contains exactly seven cuts, won the Best Editing award at the 2000MTV Video Music Awards and was nominated for Best Music Video from a Film.

The soundtrack album, released in December 1999 on Reprise Records, features the Mann songs, as well as a section of Jon Brion's score and tracks by Supertramp and Gabrielle that were used in the film. Reprise released a full score album in March 2000.

The film also features the famous Habanera from the opera Carmen and the opening from Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra, the latter of which plays over the deathbed of Earl Partridge and introduces his son Frank Mackie on stage.

[edit]Reception

Magnolia initially opened in a limited release on December 17, 1999, in seven theaters grossing USD $193,604. The film was given a wide release on January 7, 2000, in 1,034 theaters grossing $5.7 million on its opening weekend. It ended up making $22.4 million in North America and $25.9 million in the rest of the world with a worldwide tally of $48.4 million, above its budget of $37 million.^[21]

While Magnolia struggled at the box office, it was well-received critically. It currently has an 85% rating (with an 82% "Cream of the Crop" designation) on Rotten Tomatoes.^[22] USA Today gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and called it "the most imperfect of the year's best movies".^[23] In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert praised the film, saying: "Magnolia is the kind of film I instinctively respond to. Leave logic at the door. Do not expect subdued taste and restraint, but instead a kind of operatic ecstasy".^[24] Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B+" rating, praising Cruise's performance: "It's with Cruise as Frank T.J. Mackey, a slick televangelist of penis power, that the filmmaker scores his biggest success, as the actor exorcises the uptight fastidiousness of Eyes Wide Shut ... Like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, this cautiously packaged movie star is liberated by risky business".^[25] The Independent said that the film was "limitless. And yet some things do feel incomplete, brushed-upon, tangential. Magnolia does not have the last word on anything. But is superb".^[26] Kenneth Turan, in his review for the Los Angeles Times, praised Tom Cruise's performance: "Mackey gives Cruise the chance to cut loose by doing amusing riffs on his charismatic superstar image. It's great fun, expertly written and performed, and all the more enjoyable because the self-parody element is unexpected".^[27] In his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote, "In the case of Magnolia, I think Mr. Anderson has taken us to the water's edge without plunging in. I admire his ambition and his very eloquent camera movements, but if I may garble something Lenin once said one last time, 'You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs'."^[28]

In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "But when that group sing-along arrives, Magnolia begins to self-destruct spectacularly. It's astonishing to see a film begin this brilliantly only to torpedo itself in its final hour," but went on to say that the film "was saved from its worst, most reductive ideas by the intimacy of the performances and the deeply felt distress signals given off by the cast".^[29]Philip French, in his review for The Observer, wrote, "But is the joyless universe he (Anderson) presents any more convincing than the Pollyanna optimism of traditional sitcoms? These lives are somehow too stunted and pathetic to achieve the level of tragedy".^[30] Timemagazine's Richard Schickel wrote, "The result is a hard-striving, convoluted movie, which never quite becomes the smoothly reciprocating engine Anderson (who did Boogie Nights) would like it to be".^[31]

Roger Ebert included it in his "Great Movies" list in November 2008 saying "As an act of filmmaking, it draws us in and doesn't let go."^[32]

[edit]Awards

Magnolia was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards in 2000, Cruise for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture and Mann for Best Original Song for "Save Me". Cruise won.^[33] The film was also nominated for three Academy Awards, including Cruise for Best Supporting Actor, Anderson for Best Original Screenplay, and Aimee Mann's "Save Me" for Best Original Song. Magnolia did not win in any categories it was nominated for.^[34] Anderson's film won the Golden Bear at the 50th Berlin International Film Festival.^[35]

The Toronto Film Critics Association Awards named Magnolia the Best Film of 1999 and gave Anderson Best Director honors. His screenplay also tied with the ones for Being John Malkovich and American Beauty as the best of the year.^[36] Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julianne Moore won Supporting Actor and Actress awards from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.^[11]

2000 Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards

• Nominated, Best Picture

2001 Grammy Awards

• Nominated, Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media
• Nominated, Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media
• Nominated, Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media: Aimee Mann, for the song "Save Me"

2000 Screen Actors Guild Awards

• Nominated, Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Theatrical Motion Picture
• Nominated, Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role: Julianne Moore
• Nominated, Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role: Tom Cruise

[edit]Themes

Many essays and other writings have been composed on the themes in Magnolia. Some themes that are often associated with the film include regret, loneliness,^[18] the cost of failed relationships as a result of fathers that have failed their children,^[37] cruelty to children and its lasting effect,^[32] not all events and their results can be controlled, but an individual can control his or her own actions: to some degree, mistakes of the past cannot simply be erased (We might be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us), exploitation, and the limits of forgiveness. Some themes also include familial violence. The opening murder of the boy by his mother, and the implied sexual assault perpetrated on Claudia by Jimmy are among the most obvious.

[edit]DVD release

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved. (December 2010)

The Magnolia DVD includes a lengthy behind-the-scenes documentary, That Moment. It uses a fly-on-the-wall approach to cover nearly every aspect of production, from production management and scheduling to music direction to special effects. The behind-the-scenes documentary is an in-depth look into Anderson's motivation and directing style. Pre-production included a screening of the film Network (1976), as well asOrdinary People (1980). Several scenes showed Anderson at odds with the child actors and labor laws that restrict their work time. The character of Dixon has further scenes filmed but, from Anderson's reactions, appear not to be working. These scenes were cut completely and have never been shown on DVD.

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