Comparing Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love And Whig Nights
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Most film directors develop a characteristic style that can be recognized throughout all of their films. They use the power of authorship to create works exhibiting themes and meanings they want to communicate through their art. By learning to recognize recurring patterns and film techniques, audiences can discover underlying messages that film directors are attempting to convey. Paul Thomas Anderson’s unique utilization of color palettes, varrying of diagetic and nondiagetic sound, and common themes across films define his personal style of film authorship, as seen through an analysis of Punch-Drunk Love and Boogie Nights. Paul Thomas Anderson takes full artistic authorship for his films. He is the screenwriter, producer, and director for…show more content… Punch-Drunk Love features a heavy use of nondiagetic percussion music to generate a sense of urgency and suspense. Many of the scenes consist of Barry at his work, either talking on the phone or to co-workers. These scenes would not be nearly as interesting or suspenseful if they were not coupled with the fast-paced drumming and percussion. In Boogie Nights, Anderson uses sound to further dramatize selected scenes. During the scene when Eddy is at his all time low, getting into cars and jerking off for money, a low chiming bell is rung repeatedly as part of the nondiagetic sound track. The changes spatially as camera takes us from one situation of rising tension to another simultaneously where Jack and Rollergirl attack a young man for disrespecting both of them. As the action and intensity rises, the slow and methodical chimes are ever-present and unchanging. The function of this stylistic choice is to create an ominous feeling and make the two separate, yet temporally parallel, scenes even more dramatic. An instance of Anderson utilizing diagetic sound is during the donut shop robbery scene where Silent Night plays while a deadly shootout is taking place. The peaceful music playing softly in the background is ironic because the conflict taking place could not be any further from a silent