@Jacinto Cupboard said:

The idea that a German waitress in rural England would have known or cared who made a dress for the Countess of Crapshire is a real stretch.

Which is why she did not know him when they first met.

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

This is referenced in the movie itself, where he falls out with his sister over the loss of a client. 'She pays for this house!' she screams at him. Clearly they are not wealthy.

If you don't think he is wealthy I don't even know if we watched the same film. His sister is the manager, she has a vested interest in keeping as many patrons as possible, especially when they are as rich as this particular one. She thought that Woodcock not going to the party he was extremely eagerly invited to (because of his celebrity status) was not enough of a reason to risk the patronship. This is fair. They don't have to be destitute in order to adequately incentivize her to say this line.

Btw, Woodcock probably did end the patronship by taking the dress back so hastily during the party. He doesn't care, he has other wealthy patrons.

He's not wealthy and yet he can afford a giant troop of tailors and a large house that the film makes a point to show? He designs for royalty and yet he is not wealthy?

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

Poisoning your pig husband so that one day you can have a child but leave it in a park with your sister in law is certainly a quirky, interesting idea: but it isn't sensible in the sense of coherence in storytelling. I get it that these people are damaged.

I have no idea what you are talking about, she explicitly does not intend to kill him. She wants to act as the caregiver. Woodcock won't allow her to do this under normal circumstances. This is shown during his behavior at the birthday surprise. Alma even says something along the lines of "I just want to take care of you" (can't remember exactly what she said) during the failed birthday dinner.

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

The reason PTA puts this on screen isn't the story. It's the form.

Maybe you are choosing to ignore the story in favor of the form. Who cares about the externalities of temporal context and film influences? It's fine to keep that in the back of your mind, but why are you focusing so much on that?

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

Nor do I find reasonable Woodcock's acquiescence to being poisoned. The guy is disgusted by an iced bun but will happily scoff poisoned mushrooms.

My mind is blown... Him eating the poisoned mushrooms willingly is not a theory I came up with, it's cannon, It happens in the film. Were you paying attention at all during this film? He likes being poisoned for the reasons I mentioned: He likes being taken care of and fully submitting his life to someone else. It breaks down his barriers. He is unable to do this normally.

I'm going to put a lot of your responses down to not reading carefully. I never, for example, said that Alma was trying to kill Woodcock. There are numerous misreadings in your reply and I really don't have the patience to deal with them. Perhaps if you put more effort in trying to explain why you believe you are right rather than trying to tell me I am wrong...

A mere description of events, whether verbal or visual is not a story. Nor is mere observation. If the latter were the case then Big Brother (the TV show, not the novel) and Survivor (the TV show not the song) would qualify as dramas. I believe this is important. We now have audiences who cannot follow a plot line and are happiest when there isn't one. This is the reality TV, sound bites, Instagram etc effect.

I am not so rigid that I require drama to have a protagonist, an antagonist, and some kind of obstacle to overcome. Nor do I demand a beginning, a middle and an end. But I do need a story to have a point. Clearly, thankfully, I am not alone in this sentiment. PT is a box office bomb.

Imagine you are a young screenwriter or author pitching this idea to a producer or publisher.

Well, this creepy old guy with a thing about his dead mother lives with his elderly sister. Neither are married or have normal relationships. He makes dresses for rich people. He gets rid of his current live in lover because she tries to speak to him at breakfast and because she offered him a sticky bun. He makes a minor aristocrat a dress that looks like a cross between something worn by Disney's Snow White and her wicked stepmother. Incredibly, no one seems to notice this and everyone thinks it is wonderful. Chuffed with this achievement and exhausted from watching his staff sew, he drives to the country. He stops at a service station. I don't know why this is important, but it does give you a cool shot of mid 20th century British bowsers. He stops at a hotel. He sees a clumsy waitress. He orders an absurd and large meal. He then takes the waitress's order pad. Trust me, you could do this in 1955 and girls loved it. He asks her on a date. Later he gets her to take her clothes off and uses her as a dress dummy. He insults her body. Then the creepy sister joins in. It doesn't matter why they are doing this. The girl moves in. Eventually she makes the same mistake as the last girl. Not sticky buns this time. Butter. In order to avoid being put out with the rubbish bins like the last girl she puts poison mushrooms in his tea. Because that is what any smart girl who is good at staring contests would do. He is a man of great taste but is oblivious to his tea being f()cked with. He gets really sick and falls over. He damages a dress that is due to be delivered to a Belgian Princess for her wedding the next day. It doesn't matter why the Belgian Royal Family is cool with this last minute delivery. Sure, they must be idiots. The girl nurses the creepy old man back to health. The bathroom is a real mess. He enjoys being poisoned so much he asks the girl to marry him. There's some other stuff about an American heiress on drugs marrying a South American who exploited Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. And some stuff about not being able to pay bills and hating fashion. Eventually he gets upset about breakfast conversation and her food choices again. In an act of rebellion she goes to a New Years Eve party without him. Enraged he follows her. They reconcile and he agrees to being poisoned again. Perhaps repeatedly. She tells someone interviewing her, the audience will have to guess if this is a psychiatrist, journalist or detective, that she had hoped to have a cool 1950s era big pram. The End.

I can guarantee you that security would be called and you would be escorted from the building. But wtf, Daniel is marvellous dahlinks, and the clothes are to die for.

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

A mere description of events, whether verbal or visual is not a story. Nor is mere observation. If the latter were the case then Big Brother (the TV show, not the novel) and Survivor (the TV show not the song) would qualify as dramas. I believe this is important. We now have audiences who cannot follow a plot line and are happiest when there isn't one. This is the reality TV, sound bites, Instagram etc effect.

I am not so rigid that I require drama to have a protagonist, an antagonist, and some kind of obstacle to overcome. Nor do I demand a beginning, a middle and an end. But I do need a story to have a point. Clearly, thankfully, I am not alone in this sentiment. PT is a box office bomb.

To each his own.

This painting(Robert Ryman- Bridge) sold for $20.6 million. Tell me, how much do you hate it?

Different people are different. To me, a film like Titanic or Avatar or Jurassic World are bad. This is because they are all plot. If there is a theme it's an incomplex shallow theme. An explicitly stated or obvious theme.

With some films the theme is hidden and must be found by the audience. The Waling and There Will be Blood are good examples of this. They can be appreciated just for the in-your-face voyeuristic plot. People who appreciate just the plot won't find them very satisfactory. The deeper theme is what's important. For The Wailing specifically, the theme is very well hidden and when found can be revelatory and exciting. There are two competing interpretations. People hold fast to their interpretation and debate over their interpretation and eventually come to the realization that the film is ultimately about the risk of holding too securely to an interpretation (or one group reliably does anyway, the other group might be stubborn and keep ranting about biblical references).

The film Cold Fish makes a mockery of "plot". It takes you through an drama full of intrigue and suspense then at the very end pulls the rug from under you and reveals that all of it is pointless, we are all pointless creatures on a sphere floating in space. The characters don't matter, the plot doesn't matter, none of it matters. You are a fool for caring, you have been punked. It is, in my opinion, the greatest absurdist comedy on film.

When you say "We now have audiences..." you sound as if this is some recent trend. It's not. Look any of David Lynch's work. Look at 'Gerry' which came out in 2002.

I don't 'hate' that painting and I don't hate Phantom Thread either. You are muddling three different things here. Art theory. Film criticism. The commodification of Art.

One can't complain that mainstream cinema is being commodified. It is, and always has been, a commercial enterprise with the objective of entertaining mass audiences. That doesn't exclude cinema being artful, but what counts above all else is popularity. If that sounds vulgar that is because the medium is vulgar, in the sense of being populist. Both DDL and PTA understand this. It has made them both millionaires many times over.

Art theory is a different beast to film criticism; and not just because the criteria for success I just mentioned is quite different. The value of a painting stands entirely distinct from its monetary value. The latter I have not the slightest interest in. The value of a painting is a complex thing. First there is its value to you as an observer. Then there is its value in the cultural landscape from which it originated. And then there is its value in the history of ideas and creative thought. It doesn't end there of course, but we are already a long way from judging the merit of the thing as being reducible to 'tickets sold'.

I am not saying that a movie has to have a coherent plot. The cinematic language allows directors to explore colour, shapes and movement, and such exploration has no necessary obligation to tell a story. To take up your example, while I do not agree that Lynch has abandoned plot, (quite the opposite in fact, his mainstream movie stories are byzantine complex) it needs to be said that few mainstream directors take such risks as Lynch. He is adventurous, bold and innovative. In other words he gives us something else, whether that be in addition to or in place of.

By contrast, PTA here gives us nothing new. Phantom Thread is hugely derivative in its cinematic language, and even its wafer thin plot borrows from films like Rebecca, My Fair Lady and numerous other movies. The language of the script is pedestrian. The cinematography is ponderous and laboured. It wallows. So the film draws focus to DDL. The performance is so structured we are no longer watching a story unfold: we are watching an actor doing a star turn. And so to the clothes and the sets; they are things to be savoured like the instagram pic of your restaurant meal.

Clearly a minority are happy with this. Good for them. But a 'masterpiece' needs a lot more than this. The OP is right. A few more efforts like this and PTA will end up the Michael Cimino of his day.

I got a chuckle out of your using Lynch as a 'non recent' director btw. Must be my age.