.gif)
Magnolia (film)
Encyclopedia
Magnolia is a 1999 American drama film
written, produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
, narrated by Ricky Jay
, and starring Tom Cruise
, Philip Baker Hall
, Philip Seymour Hoffman
, William H. Macy
, Julianne Moore
, John C. Reilly
, and Jason Robards
in his last feature film appearance. The film is a mosaic of interrelated characters in search of happiness, forgiveness, and meaning in the San Fernando Valley
.
Magnolia was a critical success. Of the ensemble cast
, Tom Cruise
was nominated for Best Supporting Actor
at the 72nd Academy Awards
, and won the award in the same category at the Golden Globes of 2000. Anderson has stated, "I really feel...that Magnolia is, for better or worse, the best movie I'll ever make."
s are described by the narrator:
Police officer Jim Kurring investigates a disturbance at a woman's home, finding a body in her closet. Other 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 game show host Jimmy Gator, who is dying of cancer. Claudia orders him to leave. One of the contestants of Jimmy's game show, 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 to be done at that time, but notes that Linda can renounce the will when it is read and refuse to receive any of Earl's estate. When Linda asks who the estate would go to in that case, Alan says it would pass to Earl's nearest living relative: his son Frank. Linda rejects this as equally unacceptable and leaves in a rage.
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.
Other characters
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 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". 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. Originally, Anderson had wanted to make a film that was "intimate and small-scale", something that he could shoot in 30 days. He had the title of "Magnolia" in his head before he wrote the script. 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". He wanted to "make the epic, the all-time great San Fernando Valley movie". Anderson started with lists of images, words and ideas that "start resolving themselves into sequences and shots and dialogue", actors, and music. The first image he had for the film was the smiling face of actress Melora Walters
. 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. Anderson also did research on the magnolia tree and discovered a concept that eating the tree's bark helped cure cancer.
's music. 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. 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. In addition, "Deathly" also inspired the character of Claudia.
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. 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?" Anderson also wanted to make Reilly a romantic lead because it was something different that the actor had not done before.
For Philip Seymour Hoffman
, Anderson wanted him to play a "really simple, uncomplicated, caring character". 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". 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". For William H. Macy, Anderson felt that the actor was scared of big, emotional parts and wrote for him, "a big tearful, emotional part".
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. 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
. 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".
was a fan of Anderson's previous film, Boogie Nights
, and contacted the filmmaker while he was working on Stanley Kubrick
's Eyes Wide Shut
(1999). 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. 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. 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. Anderson transcribed the tape and did a reading with Reilly and Chris Penn
. The director then incorporated this dialogue and his research on Jeffries and other self-help gurus into Mackey and his sex seminar. 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".
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. 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". According to Hall, much of the material with Partridge was based on Anderson watching his father die of cancer.
Several of the cast from Boogie Nights return in Magnolia. As well as the major characters played by Hall, Hoffman, 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.
" by The Beatles
, and "it kind of builds up, note by note, then drops or recedes, then builds again". 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. 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. 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.
Anderson and New Line reportedly had intense arguments about how to market Magnolia. 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, 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. 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." In a Rolling Stone
article, published around the time of Magnolias 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.
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. She gave Anderson rough mixes of songs and found that they both wrote about the same kinds of characters. He encouraged her to write songs for the film by sending her a copy of the script.
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; 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, 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. The song that plays at the opening of the film is Mann's cover of "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 2000 MTV 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 Mackey on stage.
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 eventually grossed $22,455,976 in North America and $25,995,827 in the rest of the world with a worldwide tally of $48,451,803, above its budget of $37 million.
While Magnolia struggled at the box office, it was well-received critically. As of 2011 it has an 83% rating at Rotten Tomatoes
, based on 114 "fresh" reviews out of 138; among the website's "Top Critics", 25 "fresh" reviews out of 32 results in a 78% rating. 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". 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 opera
tic ecstasy". 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". 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". 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". 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'."
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". 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
". Time
magazine'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".
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."
s in 2000, Cruise for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture and Mann for Best Original Song
for "Save Me". Cruise won. 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. Anderson's film won the Golden Bear at the 50th Berlin International Film Festival
.
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. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julianne Moore won Supporting Actor and Actress awards from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
.
2000 Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards
2001 Grammy Award
s
2000 Screen Actors Guild Awards
s and other writings have been composed on the theme
s in Magnolia. Some themes that are often associated with the film include regret, loneliness, the cost of failed relationships as a result of fathers that have failed their children, cruelty to children and its lasting effect, 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.
s rain from the sky. While this is unexpected, there have been real-life reports of frogs being sucked into waterspout
s and then raining to the ground miles inland.The number "82" is seen many times throughout the film, especially in its opening sequence. This alludes to the Book of Exodus 8:2 "And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs."
The film has an underlying theme of unexplained events, taken from the 1920s and 1930s works of Charles Fort
. Fortean author Loren Coleman
has written a chapter about the film, entitled "The Teleporting Animals and Magnolia," in one of his recent books. One of Charles Fort's books is visible on the table in the library and there is an end credit thanking Charles Fort.
The only character who seems to be unsurprised by the falling frogs is Stanley. He calmly observes the event, saying "This happens. This is something that happens." This has led to the speculation that Stanley is a prophet
, allegorically
akin to Moses
, and that the "slavery
" the movie alludes to is the exploitation of children by adults. These "father issues" persist throughout the movie, as seen in the abuse and neglect of Claudia, Frank, Donnie, Stanley, and Dixon.
release 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 effect
s. 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 as Ordinary 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.
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
written, produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He has written and directed five feature films: Hard Eight , Boogie Nights , Magnolia , Punch-Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood...
, narrated by Ricky Jay
Ricky Jay
Richard Jay Potash , better known by the stage name Ricky Jay, is an American stage magician, actor, and writer. He is a sleight-of-hand expert and is notable for his card tricks, card throwing, memory feats, and stage patter.-Life and career:...
, and starring Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
, Philip Baker Hall
Philip Baker Hall
-Early life:Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of a factory worker father who was from Montgomery, Alabama. He attended the University of Toledo. As a younger man, Hall served in the military, started a family, and became a high school English teacher. In 1961, he decided to become an actor...
, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
, William H. Macy
William H. Macy
William Hall Macy, Jr. is an American actor and writer. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo. He is also a teacher and director in theater, film and television. His film career has been built mostly on his appearances in small, independent films, though...
, Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore is an American actress and a children's book author. Throughout her career, she has been nominated for four Oscars, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards....
, John C. Reilly
John C. Reilly
John Christopher Reilly, Jr. is an American film and theater actor, singer, and comedian. Debuting in Casualties of War in 1989, he is one of several actors whose careers were launched by Brian De Palma. To date, he has appeared in more than fifty films, including three separate films in 2002...
, and Jason Robards
Jason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
in his last feature film appearance. The film is a mosaic of interrelated characters in search of happiness, forgiveness, and meaning in the San Fernando Valley
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
.
Magnolia was a critical success. Of the ensemble cast
Ensemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
, Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
was nominated for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
at the 72nd Academy Awards
72nd Academy Awards
The 72nd Academy Awards ceremony took place at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium, and was Billy Crystal's seventh time hosting the Awards. The ceremony attracted 46.53 million viewers, an audience 3.7% bigger than the previous ceremony.The Academy Awards ceremony was dominated by two films...
, and won the award in the same category at the Golden Globes of 2000. Anderson has stated, "I really feel...that Magnolia is, for better or worse, the best movie I'll ever make."
Plot
Three urban legendUrban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
s are described by the narrator:
- Sir Edmund William Godfrey, a resident of Greenberry Hill, LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, is murdered by vagrants named Joseph Green, Stanley Berry, and Daniel Hill. - BlackjackBlackjackBlackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...
dealer Delmer Darion, while scubaScuba setA scuba set is an independent breathing set that provides a scuba diver with the breathing gas necessary to breathe underwater during scuba diving. It is much used for sport diving and some sorts of work diving....
diving in a lake, is killed by a firefighting airplane 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 suicideSuicideSuicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. - 17-year-old Sydney Barringer attempts suicideSuicideSuicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
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 a 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 officers arrive but disregard his report. A young boy, Dixon, offers to help Jim by performing a rap
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
. Dixon claims that he told Jim who committed the murder, but Jim ignores him.
Former TV producer Earl Partridge is dying of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
, and is cared for by a nurse, Phil Parma, while Earl's trophy wife Linda collects prescriptions for morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
. Earl asks Phil to find his estranged son, Frank Mackey.
Cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
addict Claudia Wilson is visited by her father, child game show host Jimmy Gator, who is dying of cancer. Claudia orders him to leave. One of the contestants of Jimmy's game show, 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
Oral Surgery
Oral Surgery is a recognized international specialty in dentistry. It includes the diagnosis, surgical and related treatment of diseases, injuries and defects involving both the functional and esthetic aspects of the hard and soft tissues of the head, mouth, teeth, gums, jaws and neck.It involves,...
, 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
Will (law)
A will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...
. She married Earl for his money, but now loves him and wants none of his money. Alan says there is nothing to be done at that time, but notes that Linda can renounce the will when it is read and refuse to receive any of Earl's estate. When Linda asks who the estate would go to in that case, Alan says it would pass to Earl's nearest living relative: his son Frank. Linda rejects this as equally unacceptable and leaves in a rage.
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
Jaywalking
Jaywalking is an informal term commonly used in North America to refer to illegal or reckless pedestrian crossing of a roadway. Examples include a pedestrian crossing between intersections without yielding to drivers and starting to cross a crosswalk at a signalized intersection without waiting...
. 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
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
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
Raining animals
Raining animals is a rare meteorological phenomenon in which flightless animals "rain" from the sky. Such occurrences have been reported from many countries throughout history. One hypothesis offered to explain this phenomenon is that strong winds traveling over water sometimes pick up creatures...
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.
Cast
Main characters- Jeremy BlackmanJeremy BlackmanJeremy Blackman is an American actor. Blackman has starred in such films as Magnolia, Crown Heights, and Double Down, as well as the television series Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Melrose Place...
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 CruiseTom CruiseThomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
as Frank T.J. Mackey, author of Seduce and Destroy, a self-helpSelf-helpSelf-help, or self-improvement, is a self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. There are many different self-help movements and each has its own focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases, leaders...
system for men to "tame" women. Mackey's character was inspired by Ross JeffriesRoss JeffriesRoss Jeffries is a former comedy writer and the creator of "Speed Seduction," a set of personal development writings and seminars that draw on Neuro-linguistic Programming and hypnotic techniques...
. - Philip Baker HallPhilip Baker Hall-Early life:Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of a factory worker father who was from Montgomery, Alabama. He attended the University of Toledo. As a younger man, Hall served in the military, started a family, and became a high school English teacher. In 1961, he decided to become an actor...
as Jimmy Gator, host of What Do Kids Know?, who is dying of cancerCancerCancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
. He seeks reconciliation with his daughter, Claudia. - Philip Seymour HoffmanPhilip Seymour HoffmanPhilip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
as Phil Parma, a kind, sympathetic, and lonely nurse working for the terminally ill Earl Partridge. - William H. MacyWilliam H. MacyWilliam Hall Macy, Jr. is an American actor and writer. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo. He is also a teacher and director in theater, film and television. His film career has been built mostly on his appearances in small, independent films, though...
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 MooreJulianne MooreJulianne Moore is an American actress and a children's book author. Throughout her career, she has been nominated for four Oscars, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards....
as Linda Partridge, a woman dealing with her much older husband's terminal illnessTerminal illnessTerminal illness is a medical term popularized in the 20th century to describe a disease that cannot be cured or adequately treated and that is reasonably expected to result in the death of the patient within a short period of time. This term is more commonly used for progressive diseases such as...
and feelings of guilt for her infidelity. She is Mackey's stepmother. - John C. ReillyJohn C. ReillyJohn Christopher Reilly, Jr. is an American film and theater actor, singer, and comedian. Debuting in Casualties of War in 1989, he is one of several actors whose careers were launched by Brian De Palma. To date, he has appeared in more than fifty films, including three separate films in 2002...
as Officer Jim Kurring, a divorceDivorceDivorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
d, 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 COPSCOPS (TV series)Cops is an American documentary/reality television series that follows police officers, constables, and sheriff's deputies during patrols and other police activities...
. - Jason RobardsJason RobardsJason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
as Earl Partridge, a wealthy television producer with terminal lung cancerLung cancerLung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
. He is the estranged father of Frank T.J. Mackey and husband to Linda Partridge. - Melora WaltersMelora WaltersMelora Walters is an American actress.-Personal life:Walters was born in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia to American parents. She was partly raised there and in Holland. Walters attended high school at Lake Forest Academy-Ferry Hall in Lake Forest, Illinois...
as Claudia Wilson Gator, a young woman plagued by psychological problems and a cocaineCocaineCocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
addiction; daughter of Jimmy Gator. - Felicity HuffmanFelicity HuffmanFelicity Kendall Huffman is an American film, stage, and television actress. She is known for her role as executive producer Dana Whitaker on the ABC television show Sports Night , which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination, and as hectic supermom Lynette Scavo on the ABC show Desperate...
as Cynthia, part of the staff of "What Do Kids Know?." She is responsible for the child contestants. - Michael MurphyMichael Murphy (actor)Michael George Murphy is an American film and television actor.-Career:Murphy played Woody Allen's duplicitous friend Yale in the film Manhattan...
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 JayRicky JayRichard Jay Potash , better known by the stage name Ricky Jay, is an American stage magician, actor, and writer. He is a sleight-of-hand expert and is notable for his card tricks, card throwing, memory feats, and stage patter.-Life and career:...
as Burt Ramsey / Narrator
Other characters
- Melinda DillonMelinda DillonMelinda Rose Dillon is an American actress, perhaps best known for her roles in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the holiday classic A Christmas Story.-Early life and career:...
as Rose Gator - Michael BowenMichael Bowen (actor)Michael Bowen is an American actor. Films he has appeared in include Jackie Brown, Magnolia, and Less Than Zero. Bowen also had a recurring role as Danny Pickett on the ABC television series, Lost....
as Rick Spector - April GraceApril GraceApril Grace is an SAG Award-nominated American actress.In the early 1990s, Grace landed a recurring role as the transporter chief on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Interspersing acclaimed and award-winning stage work in Los Angeles with her film and TV roles, the actress slowly rose from bit parts...
as Gwenovier - Luis GuzmanLuis GuzmánLuis Guzmán is an actor from Puerto Rico. He is known for his character work. For much of his career, he has played roles largely as sidekicks, thugs, or policemen....
as Luis - Henry GibsonHenry GibsonHenry Gibson was an American actor and songwriter, best known as a cast member of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and for his recurring role as Judge Clark Brown on Boston Legal.-Early life:...
as Thurston Howell - Orlando JonesOrlando JonesOrlando Jones is an American comedian and film and television actor. He is notable for being one of the original cast members of the sketch comedy series MADtv and for his role as the 7 Up spokesman from 1999-2002.-Early life:...
as Worm - Neil FlynnNeil FlynnNeil Richard Flynn is an American actor and comedian, known for his role as Janitor in the medical comedy-drama Scrubs. He currently portrays Mike Heck in the ABC sitcom The Middle.-Early life:...
as Daniel Hill - Patton OswaltPatton OswaltPatton Oswalt is an American stand-up comedian, writer, actor and voice actor. He is best known for portraying Spencer Olchin in the popular sitcom The King of Queens, voicing Remy from the film Ratatouille and Thrasher from the Cartoon Network original series Robotomy.-Early life:Oswalt was born...
as Delmer Darion - Thomas JaneThomas JaneThomas Jane is an American actor known for his roles in the 1999 film Deep Blue Sea, the 2001 TV film 61*, the 2004 film The Punisher and the 2007 Stephen King adaptation The Mist...
as young Jimmy Gator - Craig Kvinsland as Brad the bartender
- Clark GreggClark GreggRobert Clark Gregg is an American actor, screenwriter and director. He co-starred as Christine Campbell's ex-husband Richard in the CBS sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine, which debuted in March 2006 and concluded in May 2010...
as WDKK Floor Director - Art Frankel as Pharmacist
- Mary Lynn RajskubMary Lynn RajskubMary Lynn Rajskub is an American actress and comedian, best known for her leading role as Chloe O'Brian on the Fox action-thriller 24.-Early life:...
as Voice of Janet, Frank's secretary - Jim BeaverJim BeaverJames Norman "Jim" Beaver, Jr. is an American stage, film, and television actor, playwright, screenwriter, and film historian...
, Ezra BuzzingtonEzra BuzzingtonEzra Buzzington is an American character actor for film and TV.With over 40 film credits to his name, Ezra Buzzington has been referred to as "the Dennis Hopper of underground cinema". He's played characters ranging from "Weird Al the Waiter" in GHOST WORLD to "Goggle" in THE HILLS HAVE EYES...
, and Denise Woolfork as Smiling peanut patrons - Bob Downey, Sr. 'A Prince' as WDKK Show Director
- William MapotherWilliam MapotherWilliam Reibert Mapother, Jr. is an American actor and former teacher, perhaps best known for his role as Ethan Rom on the television series Lost.-Personal life:...
as WDKK Show Director's assistant - Alfred MolinaAlfred MolinaAlfred Molina is a British-born American actor. He first came to public attention in the UK for his supporting role in the 1987 film Prick Up Your Ears...
as Solomon Solomon - Chris O'Hara as Sydney Barringer
- Miriam MargolyesMiriam MargolyesMiriam Margolyes, OBE is an English actress and voice artist. Her earliest roles were in theatre and after several supporting roles in film and television she won a BAFTA Award for her role in The Age of Innocence .-Early life:...
(uncredited) as Faye Barringer
Development
Paul Thomas AndersonPaul Thomas Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He has written and directed five feature films: Hard Eight , Boogie Nights , Magnolia , Punch-Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood...
started to get ideas for Magnolia during the long editing period of Boogie Nights
Boogie Nights
Boogie Nights is a 1997 drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Set in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley, the script focuses on a young nightclub dishwasher who becomes a popular star of pornographic films, and chronicles his rise and fall from the Golden Age of Porn of the 1970s...
(1997). As he got closer to finishing the film, he started writing down material for his new project After the critical and financial success of Boogie Nights, New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
, 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". 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. Originally, Anderson had wanted to make a film that was "intimate and small-scale", something that he could shoot in 30 days. He had the title of "Magnolia" in his head before he wrote the script. 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". He wanted to "make the epic, the all-time great San Fernando Valley movie". Anderson started with lists of images, words and ideas that "start resolving themselves into sequences and shots and dialogue", actors, and music. The first image he had for the film was the smiling face of actress Melora Walters
Melora Walters
Melora Walters is an American actress.-Personal life:Walters was born in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia to American parents. She was partly raised there and in Holland. Walters attended high school at Lake Forest Academy-Ferry Hall in Lake Forest, Illinois...
. The next image that came to him was of Philip Baker Hall
Philip Baker Hall
-Early life:Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of a factory worker father who was from Montgomery, Alabama. He attended the University of Toledo. As a younger man, Hall served in the military, started a family, and became a high school English teacher. In 1961, he decided to become an actor...
as her father. Anderson imagined Hall walking up the steps of Walters' apartment and having an intense confrontation with her. Anderson also did research on the magnolia tree and discovered a concept that eating the tree's bark helped cure cancer.
Screenplay
By the time he started writing the script he was listening to Aimee MannAimee Mann
Aimee Mann is an American rock singer-songwriter, guitarist and bassist.-Early life:Aimee Mann grew up in Bon Air, Virginia, graduated from Open High School in 1978 and attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but dropped out to sing with her first punk rock band, the Young Snakes...
's music. 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. 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. In addition, "Deathly" also inspired the character of Claudia.
The character of Jim Kurring originated in the summer of 1998 when actor John C. Reilly
John C. Reilly
John Christopher Reilly, Jr. is an American film and theater actor, singer, and comedian. Debuting in Casualties of War in 1989, he is one of several actors whose careers were launched by Brian De Palma. To date, he has appeared in more than fifty films, including three separate films in 2002...
grew a mustache out of interest and started putting together an unintelligent cop character. He and Anderson did a few parodies of COPS
COPS (TV series)
Cops is an American documentary/reality television series that follows police officers, constables, and sheriff's deputies during patrols and other police activities...
with the director chasing Reilly around the streets with a video camera. Actress Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh is an American film and stage actress, best known for her roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Georgia and Short Cuts...
made an appearance in one of these videos. Some of Kurring's dialogue came from these sessions. This time around, Reilly wanted to do something different and told Anderson that he was "always cast as these heavies or these semi-retarded
Mental retardation
Mental retardation is a generalized disorder appearing before adulthood, characterized by significantly impaired cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors...
child men. Can't you give me something I can relate to, like falling in love with a girl?" Anderson also wanted to make Reilly a romantic lead because it was something different that the actor had not done before.
For Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
, Anderson wanted him to play a "really simple, uncomplicated, caring character". 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". With Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore is an American actress and a children's book author. Throughout her career, she has been nominated for four Oscars, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards....
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". For William H. Macy, Anderson felt that the actor was scared of big, emotional parts and wrote for him, "a big tearful, emotional part".
While convincing Philip Baker Hall
Philip Baker Hall
-Early life:Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of a factory worker father who was from Montgomery, Alabama. He attended the University of Toledo. As a younger man, Hall served in the military, started a family, and became a high school English teacher. In 1961, he decided to become an actor...
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
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
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. According to an interview, Hall said that he based the character of Jimmy Gator on real-life TV personalities such as Bob Barker
Bob Barker
Robert William "Bob" Barker is a former American television game show host. He is best known for hosting CBS's The Price Is Right from 1972 to 2007, making it the longest-running daytime game show in North American television history, and for hosting Truth or Consequences from 1956 to 1975.Born...
, Alistair Beck, and Arthur Godfrey
Arthur Godfrey
Arthur Morton Godfrey was an American radio and television broadcaster and entertainer who was sometimes introduced by his nickname, The Old Redhead...
. The rain of frogs was inspired by the works of Charles Fort
Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...
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".
Casting
Tom CruiseTom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
was a fan of Anderson's previous film, Boogie Nights
Boogie Nights
Boogie Nights is a 1997 drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Set in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley, the script focuses on a young nightclub dishwasher who becomes a popular star of pornographic films, and chronicles his rise and fall from the Golden Age of Porn of the 1970s...
, and contacted the filmmaker while he was working on Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
's Eyes Wide Shut
Eyes Wide Shut
Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 drama film based upon Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Traumnovelle . The film was directed, produced and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, and was his last film. The story, set in and around New York City, follows the sexually-charged adventures of Dr...
(1999). 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. 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. It consisted of two men, "talking all this trash" about women and quoting a man named Ross Jeffries
Ross Jeffries
Ross Jeffries is a former comedy writer and the creator of "Speed Seduction," a set of personal development writings and seminars that draw on Neuro-linguistic Programming and hypnotic techniques...
, who was teaching a new version of the Eric Weber course, "How to Pick Up Women," but utilizing hypnotism and subliminal language techniques. Anderson transcribed the tape and did a reading with Reilly and Chris Penn
Chris Penn
Christopher Shannon "Chris" Penn was an American film and television actor known for his roles in such films as The Wild Life, Reservoir Dogs, Footloose, Rush Hour, True Romance, All the Right Moves and Pale Rider.-Early life:Penn was born in Los Angeles, California, the youngest son of Leo Penn,...
. The director then incorporated this dialogue and his research on Jeffries and other self-help gurus into Mackey and his sex seminar. 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".
Anderson wrote the role of Earl Partridge for Jason Robards
Jason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
but he was initially unable to do it because of a serious staph infection. Anderson approached George C. Scott
George C. Scott
George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...
, who turned him down. Eventually, Robards was able to do the film. 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". According to Hall, much of the material with Partridge was based on Anderson watching his father die of cancer.
Several of the cast from Boogie Nights return in Magnolia. As well as the major characters played by Hall, Hoffman, Macy, Moore, Reilly and Walters, there are cameo performances from Alfred Molina
Alfred Molina
Alfred Molina is a British-born American actor. He first came to public attention in the UK for his supporting role in the 1987 film Prick Up Your Ears...
as 'Quiz Kid' Donnie Smith's employer Solomon Solomon, Luis Guzmán
Luis Guzmán
Luis Guzmán is an actor from Puerto Rico. He is known for his character work. For much of his career, he has played roles largely as sidekicks, thugs, or policemen....
as Luis, one of the adult contestants on "What Do Kids Know?", and Ricky Jay
Ricky Jay
Richard Jay Potash , better known by the stage name Ricky Jay, is an American stage magician, actor, and writer. He is a sleight-of-hand expert and is notable for his card tricks, card throwing, memory feats, and stage patter.-Life and career:...
, who also doubles as narrator, as the television executive Burt Ramsey.
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. He also claimed in interviews that the film is structured somewhat like "A Day in the LifeA Day in the Life
"A Day in the Life" is a song by The Beatles, the final track on the group's 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Credited to Lennon–McCartney, the song comprises distinct segments written independently by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, with orchestral additions...
" by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, and "it kind of builds up, note by note, then drops or recedes, then builds again". 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. 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
Pathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...
camera that would have been used at the time. 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.
Anderson and New Line reportedly had intense arguments about how to market Magnolia. 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, 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. 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." In a Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
article, published around the time of Magnolias release, Anderson said that he walked out of Fight Club
Fight Club (film)
Fight Club is a 1999 American film based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. The film was directed by David Fincher and stars Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter. Norton plays the unnamed protagonist, an "everyman" who is discontented with his white-collar job...
after the first half hour and criticized its director, David Fincher
David Fincher
David Andrew Leo Fincher is an American film and music video director. Known for his dark and stylish thrillers, such as Seven , The Game , Fight Club , Panic Room , and Zodiac , Fincher received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and...
, 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.
Music and soundtracks
Anderson met Aimee MannAimee Mann
Aimee Mann is an American rock singer-songwriter, guitarist and bassist.-Early life:Aimee Mann grew up in Bon Air, Virginia, graduated from Open High School in 1978 and attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but dropped out to sing with her first punk rock band, the Young Snakes...
in 1996 when he asked her husband, Michael Penn
Michael Penn
Michael Penn is an American singer, songwriter and composer. He is the eldest son of actor/director Leo Penn and actress Eileen Ryan, and the brother of actors Sean Penn and the late Chris Penn.-Career:...
, to write songs for his film, Hard Eight
Hard Eight (film)
Hard Eight is a 1996 American crime thriller film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, starring Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson...
. Mann had songs on soundtracks before but never "utilized in such an integral way" she said in an interview. She gave Anderson rough mixes of songs and found that they both wrote about the same kinds of characters. He encouraged her to write songs for the film by sending her a copy of the script.
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; the latter was nominated in the 2000 Academy Awards and Golden Globes and in the 2001 Grammys
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
. 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, was originally written for the 1996 film Jerry Maguire
Jerry Maguire
Jerry Maguire is a 1996 American romantic comedy-drama film starring Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding, Jr. It was written, co-produced, and directed by Cameron Crowe...
. At the time Mann's record label had refused to release her songs on an album. The song that plays at the opening of the film is Mann's cover of "One"
One (Harry Nilsson song)
"One" is a song written by Harry Nilsson and made famous by Three Dog Night whose cover in 1969 reached number 5 on the Billboard chart. The song is known for its opening line "One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do." It appeared initially on Aerial Ballet, Nilsson's third album.Nilsson...
by Harry Nilsson
Harry Nilsson
Harry Edward Nilsson III was an American singer-songwriter who achieved the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. On all but his earliest recordings he is credited as 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
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
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 2000 MTV Video Music Awards
MTV Video Music Awards
An MTV Video Music Award , is an award presented by the cable channel MTV to honor the best in music videos...
and was nominated for Best Music Video from a Film.
The soundtrack album, released in December 1999 on Reprise Records
Reprise Records
Reprise Records is an American record label, founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operated through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:...
, features the Mann songs, as well as a section of Jon Brion's
Jon Brion
Jon Brion is an American rock and pop multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, composer and record producer.-Early life:...
score and tracks by Supertramp
Supertramp
Supertramp are a British rock band formed in 1969 under the name Daddy before renaming to Supertramp in early 1970. Though their music was initially categorised as progressive rock, they have since incorporated a combination of traditional rock and art rock into their music...
and Gabrielle
Gabrielle (singer)
Louisa Gabrielle Bobb is a multi-platinum selling, BRIT Award winning English singer, who records under the name Gabrielle. Gabrielle began her career temping during the day and singing for free in London clubs at night...
that were used in the film. Reprise released a full score album
Magnolia (score)
Magnolia is the score soundtrack to the Paul Thomas Anderson film of the same name. The score is composed by Jon Brion. A soundtrack release for the film with original music by Aimee Mann was previously issued in 1999...
in March 2000.
The film also features the famous Habanera from the opera Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
and the opening from Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Also sprach Zarathustra
Also sprach Zarathustra (Richard Strauss)
Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 is a tone poem by Richard Strauss, composed in 1896 and inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical treatise of the same name. The composer conducted its first performance on 27 November 1896 in Frankfurt...
, the latter of which plays over the deathbed of Earl Partridge and introduces his son Frank Mackey on stage.
Reception
Magnolia initially opened in a limited releaseLimited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
on December 17, 1999, in seven theaters grossing USD$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
193,604. The film was given a wide release
Wide release
Wide release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing nationally . Specifically, a movie is considered to be in wide release when it is on 600 screens or more in the United States and Canada.In the US, films holding an NC-17 rating almost never have a...
on January 7, 2000, in 1,034 theaters grossing $5.7 million on its opening weekend. It eventually grossed $22,455,976 in North America and $25,995,827 in the rest of the world with a worldwide tally of $48,451,803, above its budget of $37 million.
While Magnolia struggled at the box office, it was well-received critically. As of 2011 it has an 83% rating at Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, based on 114 "fresh" reviews out of 138; among the website's "Top Critics", 25 "fresh" reviews out of 32 results in a 78% rating. USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and called it "the most imperfect of the year's best movies". In the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
, Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
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 opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic ecstasy". Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the film a "B+" rating, praising Cruise's performance: "It's with Cruise as Frank T.J. Mackey, a slick televangelist of penis
Penis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...
power, that the filmmaker scores his biggest success, as the actor exorcises the uptight fastidiousness of Eyes Wide Shut ... Like John Travolta
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...
in Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction (film)
Pulp Fiction is a 1994 American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino, who co-wrote its screenplay with Roger Avary. The film is known for its rich, eclectic dialogue, ironic mix of humor and violence, nonlinear storyline, and host of cinematic allusions and pop culture references...
, this cautiously packaged movie star is liberated by risky business". The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
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". Kenneth Turan, in his review for the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, 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". In his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...
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'."
In her review for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
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". Philip French, in his review for The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, 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
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
". Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine's Richard Schickel
Richard Schickel
Richard Warren Schickel is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He is a film critic for Time magazine, having also written for Life magazine and the Los Angeles Times Book Review....
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".
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
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."
Awards
Magnolia was nominated for two Golden Globe AwardGolden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
s in 2000, Cruise for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture and Mann for Best Original Song
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song was awarded for the first time in 1962 and has been awarded annually since 1965 by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.-1960s:...
for "Save Me". Cruise won. The film was also nominated for three Academy Awards, including Cruise for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
, Anderson for Best Original Screenplay
Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay)
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best script not based upon previously published material. Before 1940, there was an Academy Award for Best Story for writing. For 1940, it and the award in this article were separated into two awards. Beginning with the...
, and Aimee Mann's "Save Me" for Best Original Song
Academy Award for Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...
. Magnolia did not win in any categories it was nominated for. Anderson's film won the Golden Bear at the 50th Berlin International Film Festival
Berlin International Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in West Berlin in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978...
.
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
Being John Malkovich
Being John Malkovich is a 1999 American black comedy-fantasy film written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze. It stars John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, and John Malkovich, who plays a fictional version of himself...
and American Beauty
American Beauty (film)
American Beauty is a 1999 American drama film directed by Sam Mendes and written by Alan Ball. Kevin Spacey stars as Lester Burnham, a middle-aged magazine writer who has a midlife crisis when he becomes infatuated with his teenage daughter's best friend, Angela...
as the best of the year. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julianne Moore won Supporting Actor and Actress awards from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures was founded in 1909 in New York City, just 13 years after the birth of cinema, to protest New York City Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr.'s revocation of moving-picture exhibition licenses on Christmas Eve 1908. The mayor believed that the new medium...
.
2000 Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards
- Nominated, Best Picture
2001 Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
s
- 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
Screen Actors Guild Awards
A Screen Actors Guild Award is an accolade given by the Screen Actors Guild to recognize outstanding performances by its members. The statuette given, a nude male figure holding both a mask of comedy and a mask of tragedy, is called "The Actor"...
- 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
Themes
Many essayEssay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s and other writings have been composed on the theme
Theme (literature)
A theme is a broad, message, or moral of a story. The message may be about life, society, or human nature. Themes often explore timeless and universal ideas and are almost always implied rather than stated explicitly. Along with plot, character,...
s in Magnolia. Some themes that are often associated with the film include regret, loneliness, the cost of failed relationships as a result of fathers that have failed their children, cruelty to children and its lasting effect, 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.
Raining frogs and Exodus references
At the end of the film, frogFrog
Frogs are amphibians in the order Anura , formerly referred to as Salientia . Most frogs are characterized by a short body, webbed digits , protruding eyes and the absence of a tail...
s rain from the sky. While this is unexpected, there have been real-life reports of frogs being sucked into waterspout
Waterspout
A waterspout is an intense columnar vortex that occurs over a body of water and is connected to a cumuliform cloud. In the common form, it is a non-supercell tornado over water. While it is often weaker than most of its land counterparts, stronger versions spawned by mesocyclones do occur...
s and then raining to the ground miles inland.The number "82" is seen many times throughout the film, especially in its opening sequence. This alludes to the Book of Exodus 8:2 "And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs."
The film has an underlying theme of unexplained events, taken from the 1920s and 1930s works of Charles Fort
Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...
. Fortean author Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is an author of books on a number of topics, including cryptozoology, who was born in 1947 in Norfolk, Virginia and grew up in Decatur, Illinois.-Education:...
has written a chapter about the film, entitled "The Teleporting Animals and Magnolia," in one of his recent books. One of Charles Fort's books is visible on the table in the library and there is an end credit thanking Charles Fort.
The only character who seems to be unsurprised by the falling frogs is Stanley. He calmly observes the event, saying "This happens. This is something that happens." This has led to the speculation that Stanley is a prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
, allegorically
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
akin to Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
, and that the "slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
" the movie alludes to is the exploitation of children by adults. These "father issues" persist throughout the movie, as seen in the abuse and neglect of Claudia, Frank, Donnie, Stanley, and Dixon.
Home media
The DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
release includes a lengthy behind-the-scenes documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, That Moment. It uses a fly-on-the-wall
Fly on the wall
Fly on the wall is a style of documentary-making used in filmmaking and television production. The name derived from the idea that events are seen candidly, as a fly on a wall might see them...
approach to cover nearly every aspect of production, from production management
Production management
Theatrical production management is a sub-division of stagecraft. The production management team is responsible for realizing the visions of the producer and the director or choreographer within constraints of technical possibility...
and scheduling to music direction to special effect
Special effect
The illusions used in the film, television, theatre, or entertainment industries to simulate the imagined events in a story are traditionally called special effects ....
s. 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
Network (film)
Network is a 1976 American satirical film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer about a fictional television network, Union Broadcasting System , and its struggle with poor ratings. The film was written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet...
(1976), as well as Ordinary People
Ordinary People
Ordinary People is a 1980 American drama film that marked the directorial debut of Robert Redford. It stars Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch and Timothy Hutton....
(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.