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There's a section in the opening act of Paul Thomas Anderson 's perplexing and often brilliant 2012 film The Master where its protagonist Freddie Quell ( Joaquin Phoenix ) is working as a portrait photographer in the main foyer of a Marshall Fields-esque mall. It's the 1950s and the wardrobe donned by all the background extras is meticulously true to the time and the whole scenario feels very lived in; you can almost smell the apparel, the perfumes coming from the cosmetics department and the hot light bulbs burning at Quell's photography stand. I mention this particular section from The Master because Anderson's new film Phantom Thread takes those tangible atmospheric qualities and creates an entire film built around the convincing sensory experience of living and breathing during a historical time and place. This time Anderson has chosen the couture world of 1950s London and he reunites with the great Daniel Day-Lewis (the two previously collaborated on ...

"He's making all this up as he goes along." NOTE:  I was fortunate enough to attend a rare 70mm screening of Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master on Thursday August 16, 2012 at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. In attendance were writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson and one of the film's actors, Kevin J. O'Connor (both of whom are pictured with me here ). --   The key to the success of Paul Thomas Anderson 's The Master doesn't come in its mammoth achievement of being shot on 70mm film or its carefully constructed parallel origin story of L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology practices. Rather, that success is embedded in an intimate scene: a single shot close-up on alcoholic war veteran Freddie Sutton (an unforgettable Joaquin Phoenix ) during a "process of time" session with Lancaster Dodd ( Philip Seymour Hoffman in prime Hubbard form). Up until this scene, the character of Freddie dutifully performed the task of delive...