Films & Career of Paul Thomas Anderson

Born in Studio City, California in 1970, Anderson grew up in the Valley and all his films, with the exception of ôHard Eight,ö are set in the environment of the San Fernando Valley. AndersonÆs debut feature, the low-keyed ôHard Eight,ö was released in the United States in 1997 following its 1996 release under the title ôSydney.ö The movie was based on a short film Anderson made in 1992 titled ôCigarettes and Coffee,ö that was financed by Anderson from a refund of his tuition after he dropped out of New York University film school. Following a successful screening of ôCigarettes and Coffeeö at the Sundance Film Festival of 1993, Anderson was offered the opportunity to expand it into a feature, which he did. Reworking his short films into features is an Anderson characteristic, and his earlier short film about the porn

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ollection of old disco hitsö (Bernardinelli). Overall, ôBoogie Nightsö is a memorably, penetrating motion picture (Bernardinelli). AndersonÆs next film, the 1999 ôMagnoliaö (which received two Academy Award nominations) is as ambitious as ôBoogie Nights.ö AndersonÆs trademarks and multiple characters and storylines and the theme of forgiveness and redemption are at play here. As Chris Vognar wrote in The Dallas Morning News, ôRemorse, regret and redemption, played out in a family or surrogate-family setting, have been key elements in all three of Mr. AndersonÆs filmsö (Vognar). Roger Ebert called the film ôoperatic in its ambition, a great joyous leap into melodrama and coincidence, with ragged emotions, crimes and punishments, deathbed scenes, romantic dreams, generational turmoil and celestial intervention.ö He added that ôMagnoliaö was a rejection of the ôtimid post-modernism of the 1990s.ö Anderson called ôMagnoliaö his favorite film and in a preface to his screenplay he wrote: ôIÆd like to think that ômagnoliaö is written about what I know, who I am and what I want to be. This screenplay gives me the chance to say things that I want to be able to say in my own life. It gives me goals for my own relationships and feel
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Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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