Magnolia

Yesterday, after reading a post on Punch-Drunk Love, I had my love of Paul Thomas Anderson re-awoken and therefore got the desire to take a section out of an essay I wrote on him in university and post it. Reading over that section of the essay then made me want to take out the other two sections on Magnolia and Boogie Nights and post them to, because, well, what's the point in neglecting 2/3s of a perfectly good essay? So here is the section on Magnolia, with the section on Boogie Nights soon to follow.
And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that strange things happen all the time. And so it goes, and so it goes. And the book says, "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."- Narrator, Magnolia

It is these musing by the narrator of Magnolia, Anderson’s third, epic masterpiece of a film, that outline the very essence of both the dominant themes within the film’s narrative: that the sins of the past will be passed on to the recipients of the present, and that, as James Mottram explains, “The universe is made up of chance events. Human life is accidental- or…we live in a world where human actions have meaning and consequences, for better or worse” (261).

In order to explore the theme of a father passing on his misgivings to his son, Anderson, much like Altman in Short Cuts (1993) or Nashville (1975), creates a vast labyrinth of characters whose connections, in one way or another, all revolve around the television game show What do Kids Know?
The show, although a celebration of children and their knowledge, is also a front for the breakdown of the relationship between parent and child. The show’s producer is dying of cancer (a symbol used to represent the atonement of one’s sins as it isn’t until after contracting the disease that both Earl Partridge and Jimmy Gator attempt to reconcile with their estranged children) and hated by his alienated son who feels he was abandoned and forced to tend to his dying mother. The show’s host is also dying and is hated by his drug addicted daughter who accuses him of molesting her when she was younger; the former star of the show has refused to grow up and instead boozes uncontrollably, exploiting his minimal celebrity in order to make a living; and his mirror image, the current star of the show, whose father seems to care more about personal glory than the well being of his son.
This child character, Stanley, provides one of the film’s many key metaphors for the fractured relationship between parent and child as he wets his pants after being refused access to the bathroom during a commercial break, after which he becomes introverted and refuses to continue playing the game. Anderson cross cuts with images of Stanley’s father throwing a tantrum in the dressing room when Stanley misses questions he should know, as if to suggest that his son’s refusal to play the game acts as his own personal embarrassment. When the father approaches Stanley during a commercial break, he is unsympathetic in regards to the child’s urine soaked pants, warning him to get back in the game, as if his own personal pride depends on it. Stanley’s refusal to continue playing is Anderson’s way of showing the deteriorating of Stanley’s feeling of self worth; why after all, should he exist in a world where his simple needs, like going to the washroom, are placed below the pride of winning a petty game show?
This is an important image because it also works in comparison to Former Wiz Kid Donnie Smith’s grand emotional scene, in which he announces that it is “alright to confuse children with angels,” and ends with Smith vomiting into a toilet while uttering a barely audible biblical reference (Exodus 20:5) about how the sins of the father will be passed on to his children. The scene acts as a call for intervention; a summation of Anderson’s theme regarding how the actions of one person have consequences on another. The scene is a symbol of hope that Stanley will break the cycle and not go down the same path: to end up with his head in a toilet at a bar like the pathetic, miserable Donnie Smith, who was once in the exact same position as him. Anderson is once again showing us that the consequences of one person’s actions have a severe affect on another because we are all interconnected in some way. If Stanley’s dad continues to treat him so lowly, his future will not be much better than Donnie’s.
The central symbol in Magnolia however, is also its most infamous: the frogs. Anderson, much like Altman does with his earthquake in Short Cuts, has it rain frogs over all of the characters in order to provide them all with a religious cleansing. The incident happens without build up, (although Anderson sneakily litters hidden references to the plague of frogs from Exodus 8:2 throughout the entire film), and ends without explanation. Sharon Waxman, with the help of Anderson himself attempts to explain the significance of the frog rain: “When [Anderson] heard about the frogs, he thought they could represent a sign in the story, or a warning. ‘There are certain moments in your life when things are so fucked-up and so confused that someone can say to you, ‘it’s raining frogs’ and that makes sense,’ Anderson said” (195). Where the frogs act as a warning sign in the Bible, here they also function as a means to cleanse the characters of their sins and provide them with a new beginning, especially for naive cop Jim Kurring (the peacekeeper of the cast), whose lost gun also falls from the sky after the frogs stop, who thus gives Donnie Smith a second chance at life, after catching him breaking in to his former place of employment in order to steal money; showing once again how our own actions always effect those around us.



Another function of the frog sequence is to unite the entire cast through a common emotional thread. The second sequence to do this, it acts in combination with the first in which, in one of the most bold and beautiful uses of music ever committed to film, has all of the characters frozen in time, singing in unison the lyrics to Amiee Man’s “Wise Up” which also plays on the soundtrack. The chorus proclaims that “It’s not going to stop, until you wise up,” providing an insightful moment of self-reflection in which the characters realize that their lives have all begun to spin out of control and it is their job to reflect on their past sins in order to “wise up” and live better in the future. This provides Anderson with a bridge that leads right into the frog sequence, where the characters are all metaphorically anointed by the frogs, an act of God that allows them to step outside of themselves and be reminded that sometimes life becomes so tumultuous that we forget that there are greater forces working in the universe, which are beyond ourselves. It’s a reminder we all could use every once in a while.