- Born
- Nickname
- P.T.
- Height5′ 10½″ (1.79 m)
- Anderson was
born in 1970. He was one of the first of the "video store" generation
of film-makers. His father was the first man on his block to own a
V.C.R., and from a very early age Anderson had an infinite number of
titles available to him. While film-makers like Spielberg cut their
teeth making 8 mm films, Anderson cut his teeth shooting films on
video and editing them from V.C.R. to V.C.R.
Part of Anderson's artistic D.N.A. comes from his father, who hosted a
late night horror show in Cleveland. His father knew a number of
oddball celebrities such as
Robert Ridgely, an actor who often
appeared in Mel Brooks' films and
would later play "The Colonel" in Anderson's
Boogie Nights (1997). Anderson was
also very much shaped by growing up in "The Valley", specifically the
suburban San Fernando Valley of greater Los Angeles. The Valley may
have been immortalized in the 1980s for its mall-hopping "Valley
Girls", but for Anderson it was a slightly seedy part of suburban
America. You were close to Hollywood, yet you weren't there. Would-bes
and burn-outs populated the area. Anderson's experiences growing up in
"The Valley" have no doubt shaped his artistic self, especially since
three of his four theatrical features are set in the Valley.
Anderson got into film-making at a young age. His most significant
amateur film was
The Dirk Diggler Story (1988),
a sort of mock-documentary a la
This Is Spinal Tap (1984),
about a once-great pornography star named Dirk Diggler. After enrolling
in N.Y.U.'s film program for two days, Anderson got his tuition back
and made his own short film,
Cigarettes & Coffee (1993).
He also worked as a production assistant on numerous commercials and
music videos before he got the chance to make his first feature,
something he liked to call Sydney,
but would later become known to the public as Hard Eight (1996). The film
was developed and financed through The Sundance Lab, not unlike
Quentin Tarantino's
Reservoir Dogs (1992). Anderson
cast three actors whom he would continue working with in the future:
Altman veteran Philip Baker Hall, the
husky and lovable John C. Reilly
and, in a small part,
Philip Seymour Hoffman, who so
far has been featured in all four of Anderson's films. The film deals
with a guardian angel type (played by Hall) who takes down-on-his-luck
Reilly under his wing. The deliberately paced film featured a number of
Anderson trademarks: wonderful use of source light, long takes and
top-notch acting. Yet the film was reedited (and retitled) by Rysher
Entertainment against Anderson's wishes. It was admired by critics, but
didn't catch on at the box office. Still, it was enough for Anderson to
eventually get his next movie financed. "Boogie Nights" was, in a
sense, a remake of "The Dirk Diggler Story", but Anderson threw away
the satirical approach and instead painted a broad canvas about a
makeshift family of pornographers. The film was often joyous in its
look at the 1970s and the days when pornography was still shot on film,
still shown in theatres, and its actors could at least delude
themselves into believing that they were movie stars. Yet "Boogie
Nights" did not flinch at the dark side, showing a murder and suicide,
literally in one (almost) uninterrupted shot, and also showing the
lives of these people deteriorate, while also showing how their lives
recovered.
Anderson not only worked with Hall, Reilly and Hoffman again, he also
worked with Julianne Moore,
Melora Walters,
William H. Macy and
Luis Guzmán. Collectively, Anderson
had something that was rare in U.S. cinema: a stock company of
top-notch actors. Aside from the above mentioned, Anderson also drew
terrific performances from
Burt Reynolds and
Mark Wahlberg, two actors whose
careers were not exactly going full-blast at the time of "Boogie
Nights", but who found themselves to be that much more employable
afterwards.
The success of "Boogie Nights" gave Anderson the chance to really go
for broke in Magnolia (1999), a massive
mosaic that could dwarf Altman's
Nashville (1975) in its number of
characters.
Anderson was awarded a "Best Director" award at Cannes for Punch-Drunk Love (2002).- IMDb Mini Biography By: Nathan Cox and Brian McInnis
- ChildrenPearl Minnie AndersonLucille AndersonJack Anderson
- ParentsMinnie Ida Anderson
- [Camel cigarettes] All smoking characters in Anderson's early movies smoke Camel cigarettes - Philip Baker Hall smokes Camel Filters in Hard Eight (1996), William H. Macy smokes Camel Lights in Magnolia (1999).
- Frequently uses the Iris In/Out film technique. This technique has one part of the scene encircled, while the rest is black. Also used during the silent film era as a way of opening and closing shots.
- Frequently uses extended takes
- Most of his early films are set in the San Fernando Valley, California
- Most of his early films feature large ensemble casts, often featuring Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzmán, and/or Melora Walters.
- For the brief time he was at NYU film school, he handed in some of Pulitzer Prize-winner David Mamet's work as his own. When he got it back with a "C" grade he decided to leave.
- He dropped out of film school after the teacher in his first lecture claimed that anyone who wants to make a film like Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) should leave immediately.
- (As of 2018) The movie of his that he is the most proud of is The Master (2012).
- Tom Cruise got him on to the set of Eyes Wide Shut (1999). He spent the day there and
got to talk to Stanley Kubrick. - Despite the constant comparison between them amongst fans, he and fellow director Quentin Tarantino are great friends. Furthermore, Tarantino has praised Anderson's work, calling him a "filmmaking artist.".
- 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 (1999) is, for better or worse, the best movie I'll ever make. - My dad was one of the first guys on the block to have a VCR. So along
with all the videotapes that I would rummage through, I would find
porno movies. Not that it twisted me into some maniac or anything. I
was watching porno from age 10 to 17. I had an interest in it. - I had older brothers and sisters who were doing drugs and playing rock music and doing all those insane things. I was watching.
- You can really see a strong and distinctive line between '70s and '80s
porn, not just in the quality but in the spirit behind it. - Today's movie villains often remind us of James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart and that's as cool as it gets. There's something comforting if they're hip and cool. They're not entirely real, or not entirely threatening, so it might be a little easier to swallow if they remind us of traditional movie villains.
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