Bob Altman's Descendant, P.T. Anderson and Magnolia

I started watching Magnolia and had to stop it about thirty minutes in.  I remember liking the film more when I was a kid.  But maybe I’m just suffering from information overload.  I started watching a behind the scenes video diary P.T. Anderson did during the making of the film.  And he said that the film should be one continuous story when he was talking to his production designers.  I don’t feel like this project I’m writing (tentatively titled I Want It) is one story.  It’s ultimately one story because it’s a singular play I’m writing and all of these characters and stories affect each other.  But I do want the vignettes and various story lines to relate to each other, but they don’t have to be a part of the same story. I think that’s the point.  There’s segregation in our culture among race, gender, and class lines.  These stories are segregated, but when you start to put together the tapestry and put them along side each other, you realize that it is a part of the same story.  But I don’t want to make that connection before the audience makes that connection.  That’s not my connection to make.  It should feel very separate and it’s the audience that begins to put it together.  Of course, as the conductor, I help them along.  But I don’t want them to put it together they way I would.  The way I would put it together is based on my own experience with race, gender and class.

I stopped watching the behind the scenes stuff because even that is counterintuitive to what I’m trying to do.  But I’m glad I got the DVD to rent because now I know that.  I love Boogie Nights and I love The Master.   Boogie Nights has the same connection that Magnolia does and it’s even more of a grand soap opera on that level.  And I’m writing another soap next, so maybe that will be helpful when I get down to that.