Paul Thomas Anderson is considered by many today to be one of the premier filmmakers working in American cinema. However, only about 15 years ago, he was a young cinephile hoping to make his major break into directing due to the success of his short film, Cigarettes and Coffee. His debut as a feature-length director is Hard Eight, a strange and unique film that deconstructs the myth of film making to its basic core. There is very little action or over-dramatic scenes. Most of it consists of two or three actors in a close-up or medium shot just talking. For this to work, the dialogue must be good and the actors must deliver it convincingly.
Amazingly, Anderson pulls off both of these, particularly with the casting. Phillip Baker Hall is very good as Sydney, a world-weary gambling shark very knowledgeable of the Vegas/Reno universe. His knowledge comes in handy when he meets a down-on-his-luck gambler, John. He takes him under his wing and soon has him sitting comfortably. Yet, Anderson is not your typical director. He soon shifts the focus from gambling in the casino to the relationships and characters that occupy this neighborhood. We are soon introduced to a waitress named Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow) and a shifty security man named Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson).
Hardly anyone is who you think they are and by the time secrets and hidden agendas are revealed, there is a sense of intrigue and spectacle. We may not be completely sure of what it all means, but Anderson is more often interested in how people react to a secret than how or why the secret occurred. Though at times stiff in its pacing and some scenes stretching too long, this is still a very solid debut that has at times sections that foreshadow the type of filmmaker Anderson would become. And it took just one film more; by 1997 he had made Boogie Nights and the rest is history.
Amazingly, Anderson pulls off both of these, particularly with the casting. Phillip Baker Hall is very good as Sydney, a world-weary gambling shark very knowledgeable of the Vegas/Reno universe. His knowledge comes in handy when he meets a down-on-his-luck gambler, John. He takes him under his wing and soon has him sitting comfortably. Yet, Anderson is not your typical director. He soon shifts the focus from gambling in the casino to the relationships and characters that occupy this neighborhood. We are soon introduced to a waitress named Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow) and a shifty security man named Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson).
Hardly anyone is who you think they are and by the time secrets and hidden agendas are revealed, there is a sense of intrigue and spectacle. We may not be completely sure of what it all means, but Anderson is more often interested in how people react to a secret than how or why the secret occurred. Though at times stiff in its pacing and some scenes stretching too long, this is still a very solid debut that has at times sections that foreshadow the type of filmmaker Anderson would become. And it took just one film more; by 1997 he had made Boogie Nights and the rest is history.