The Nonsense of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia
It’s not
What you thought
When you first began it
–Aimee Mann, “Wise Up”[1]
Ten years ago, Paul Thomas Anderson followed up Hard Eight and Boogie Nights with a three-hour plus powerhouse of a film. Interweaving the stories of nine main characters, Magnolia dealt with cancer, rejection, abuse, and reconciliation in a unique way.[2] While the interwoven and interconnected story line device had been used before (Magnolia owes a lot in this way to Robert Altman’s Short Cuts which also featured Julianne Moore), Anderson took the device to another level. Altman used the device to connect separate Raymond Carver stories with some aplomb, while Paul Haggis seemed to stumble over it in his poorly executed polemic Crash. Interwoven and connected stories can become so overly coincidental that it ruins any emotional connection. The story can become so unreal as to turn into farce. From the beginning of Magnolia, Anderson overcomes this potential pitfall by making it obvious that these overly-coincidental connections are not simply a device. They are a crucial component of his film.
And of course, there are the frogs. I suspect many viewers of Magnolia, if not turned off by the overly-coincidental interwoven story lines, were turned off by the deluge of frogs. Or at least perplexed. The first time I saw those frogs fall from the sky I was in love with this film. To this day, Magnolia remains one of my favorite movies of all time. For me, the frogs are also crucial to understanding the film.
The First Frog Drops
The frogs of Magnolia certainly will mean different things to different people. And there is no singular way to look at the frogs in order to appreciate and enjoy the film. In fact, my own interpretation has evolved over the years. But the immense talents of Paul Thomas Anderson surely necessitate a more thorough examination.
On the surface, one may look at the rain of frogs as Biblical allegory. There are countless “Easter eggs” throughout the film alluding to the Bible verse of Exodus 8:2. The verse states: And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs. And the next verses only suggest that frogs will come out of the river, not that they will rain down from the sky.[3] While the Exodus 8:2 references foreshadow the frogs, Magnolia is not simply a retelling of the book of Exodus.
Exodus 8:2 Easter Egg
Shane Hipps at Metaphilm offers a compelling interpretation of the Exodus parallels. He suggests that the adults of the film represent the oppressive Egyptian masters, while the children represent the slaves of Israel. Stanley Spector represents Moses, while Dixon (the rapping child) represents Aaron. The falling frogs, in a sense, represent God’s power and ultimately result in a liberation for the children.[4] While some parallels can be made between Magnolia and Exodus, Anderson’s film is much more than Biblical allegory.
The work of Charles Fort plays a much more significant role in the meaning of the frogs and in an analysis of Magnolia. Charles Fort was a collector of anomalous phenomena. He wrote of accounts of talking dogs and teleportation (a term he coined), and of course he popularized the idea of falling frogs. In his first book, The Book of the Damned, he devotes an entire chapter to the phenomena of frogs falling from the sky. But there are more Fortean connections than just frogs.
Throughout his works, Fort talks about an “underlying oneness of all things.” Everything is connected to everything else. This notion has a quasi-religious appeal to it. But the notion is so broad as to be practically meaningless. Still, one can also comprehend an “underlying oneness” in Magnolia given the interwoven and interconnected story lines. But perhaps even this oneness is meaningless.
The first scene of the movie comes right out of Fort’s book Wild Talents, a book later seen with Stanley Spector in the library:[5]
In the New York Herald, Nov. 26, 1911, there is an account of the hanging of three men, for the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, on Greenberry Hill, London. The names of the murderers were Green, Berry, and Hill. It does seem that this was only a matter of chance. Still, it may have been no coincidence, but a savage pun mixed with murder.[6]
Words similar to these are spoken by the narrator at the outset of the movie. It is no coincidence that the narrator is voiced by magician and fellow anomalist Ricky Jay. We can expect there to be trickery in his words (after all, he did play a con man in David Mamet’s House of Games). The rest of the prologue plays out with two more stories of a Fortean nature.
Of course, the raining frogs come straight out of the mind of Charles Fort. In The Book of the Damned, he catalogues dozens of accounts of frogs and fishes falling from the sky. He discounts the notions that they were either “on the ground, in the first place” or that they were brought “up from one place in a whirlwind, and down in another.” The accounts, he says, do not seem to support those explanations. Instead, Fort offers the explanation that there is some sort of “super-geographical pond” in the sky, some Super-Sargasso Sea, where the detritus of the universe resides and from where such detritus sometimes falls to Earth.[7]
Charles Fort was a skeptic of everything. A skeptic of science. A skeptic of organized religion. And, perhaps most importantly, a skeptic of himself. He filled his books with accounts of anomalous phenomena, but there is little indication that he believed either the accounts or his explanations. He seemed to care more about the entertainment value of his found anomalies than in finding and providing meaningful explanations for them. And if science could not immediately explain away everything, than any explanation had the possibility of being valid. This is, of course, absurd.
Martin Gardner, the mathematics and science writer, wrote about such Fortean thought in his book Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science:
It is true that no scientific theory is above doubt. It is true that all scientific “facts” are subject to endless revision as new “data” are uncovered. No scientist worthy of the name thinks otherwise. But it is also true that scientific theories can be given high or low degrees of confirmation. Fort was blind to this elementary fact–or pretended to be blind to it–and it is this blindness which is the spurious and unhealthy side of Forteanism.[8]
And still, paranormalists and Intelligent Design proponents seem incapable of understanding this notion. In fact, gullibility paired with a misunderstanding of science seems to be their lifeblood. Fort himself remains difficult to peg. He states in Wild Talents that “to this day it has not been decided whether I am a humorist or a scientist.”[9]
As for the veracity of Fortean claims in Magnolia, one should once again be very skeptical. The story of Greenberry Hill is not so coincidental upon further examination. The movie version differs from the account delivered by Charles Fort but that difference can be chalked up to creative license.[10] But more interesting is that it seems Fort’s account was also inaccurate. The murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey is an infamous one with multiple theories. Perhaps his murderer was Miles Prance, Philip Herbert, or Catholics angry with Godfrey’s role in the Popish Plot. At any rate, just about everyone seems to agree that Robert Green, Henry Berry, and Lawrence Hill were wrongly accused and hanged for the crime. And Godfrey was found dead on Primrose Hill, not Greenberry Hill. It seems a much more likely scenario that only subsequent to their wrongful hanging was the crime scene renamed Greenberry Hill. Looked this way, there is nothing at all coincidental about it. In direct opposition to Stanley Spector, this is not something that happened.[11]
When Stanley sees the raining frogs and utters the words “this is something that happens” he is not being quite accurate. Not even Fort suggests that mature frogs of the size and number seen in Magnolia have ever been reported to rain from the sky.[12] In fact, the only evidence that we have are eye-witness accounts. Anecdotes. And anecdotes are not evidence. Furthermore, the anecdotes are hearsay. They are little more than rumor. Stanley portrays a certain naiveté by stating that “this is something that happens.” But, of course, it does happen in movies.
In movies, anything is possible. The Greenberry Hill story can seem oddly coincidental. Frogs can fall from the sky. Love is found. Reconciliations are made. The narrator of Magnolia even teases us at the end of the movie by saying “…and we generally say, ‘Well, if that was in a movie I wouldn’t believe it.’” But we should remember that the narrator is a magician–an expert in deceit. We should also remember that a film director is also an expert of deceit. When Phil Parma says “I think they have those scenes in movies because they’re true, they really happen” he is also being honest. Drama does happen to people. Coincidences do occur. And, quite often people attribute special meanings to ordinary happenings. And, the only honest explanation for what happens in Magnolia is that it is only a movie. It is nonsense.
Paul Thomas Anderson cleverly clues us in on that message with the thrice recited line: “The book says, ‘We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.’” At first, it seems that “the book” may refer to the Bible. Perhaps all of the Exodus 8:2 references have conditioned us to think that way. In fact, the line is the first sentence of the first chapter of Bergen Evans’ book The Natural History of Nonsense.[13]
In the book, Evans rails against the credulous. He intends it as a “handbook for young recruits in the gay cause of common sense.” The “past” we hope to be through with is Stone Age thinking. The book stands as a celebration of rational thought. Most people do not “appreciate how few people think rationally, how very restricted knowledge is even yet, and, above all, how rare is skepticism, the life spirit of science.”[14]
Evans also addresses Fort directly, challenging his notion of falling fish and frogs. Evans suggests that Stone Age thinking prevents many people from seeking rational answers. Perhaps these people want so much to believe in the Biblical notion of waters “above the firmament” that they are willing to fall back on ridiculous ideas. He says “we are nearer the past than we know, and spooks and demons play leapfrog with dreams of plastics and television in our minds.”[15] So many people will want to believe that raining fish is something that happens.
It is not just the raining frogs that are nonsense. It is also placing inordinate significance on coincidences that is nonsense. It is Frank T. J. Mackey’s self-help spiel and fabricated biography that are nonsense. It is Jim Kurring’s faith and Stanley’s naiveté that are nonsense. The movie also features a number of references to Freemasonry, a fraternal organization about which a number of conspiracy theories have arisen. Those are nonsense. Donnie’s braces are nonsense. Claudia’s drug use is nonsense. Linda’s tardy recognition of genuine love is nonsense. Jimmy’s forgetfulness is nonsense. Earl’s regret is nonsense. Phil’s belief that he can facilitate reconciliation is nonsense. The frogs come to symbolize all of this nonsense.
All of this stuff, including faith, motivational dogma, conspiracy theories, and paranormal explanations become desperate rationalizations for some people. Such easy answers are nonsense. The raining frogs do not resolve anything. They do not make someone good. They do not create love or fix damaged relationships. They do not cure cancer. At best, they provide a wake-up call. A wake-up call that has already been preceded by one from Aimee Mann.
With the interconnected stories reaching an emotional climax, the main characters each begin singing lyrics from Mann’s “Wise Up.”[16] They sing:
It’s not going to stop
Until you wise up
It is part of the human condition to want to be able to take control of the situation. The lyrics suggest that if we can only “wise up,” then we can begin to take control. Otherwise, things will continue on. Stanley comes to represent a curiosity for the truth. His library books are an attempt to understand the world around him–to “wise up.” But, perhaps, the ability to “wise up” and take control is only an illusion and we need not bother:
No it’s not going to stop
So just give up
The fact is that life is difficult and complex. It is full of highs and lows. We all have to deal with them. Some of us will succeed. Some of us will stumble. But in the end, we all die. And, of course, all of life’s difficult answers are not to be found in a library book. And what we thought we once knew may no longer guide us. As Donnie says, “I used to be smart but now I’m just stupid.” Life is a lot like the weather, full of highs and lows, rough patches and smooth ones. It is difficult to predict with a high level of certainty. We just have to deal with whatever comes our way in the best way we can.
When Claudia smiles at the end of the film it is a sign of hope. But it is no guarantee that her life will be any better going forward. Sunny days are inevitably followed by cloudy ones. The best we can do, as Jim Kurring says, is to “move through this life…[and] try to do good…and not hurt anyone else.” We will not always do good. And we will sometimes hurt others. But, the best we can do is try.
Paul Thomas Anderson presents Magnolia as a sort of Fortean tale. It is a story full of wonder. For some, wonder is provided by the supernatural. For others, it is provided by nature. The credulous among us will believe that “this is something that happens” and be content to leave it at that. Their credulity will inspire awe and provide a basis for hope. But, the skeptics among us will look at the film as sheer entertainment crafted quite masterfully. We will be inspired simply by excellent storytelling and a common human experience. For all of us, Magnolia can be a wondrous experience, nonsense and all.
- Aimee Mann, “Wise Up,” Magnolia Soundtrack, (Warner, 1999).
- Paul Thomas Anderson, dir., Magnolia, (New Line Cinema, 1999).
- American Standard Version, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%208;&version=8
- Shane Phipps, “Magnolia: The Exodus for Kids,” Metaphilm, May 9, 2003, http://metaphilm.com/index.php/detail/magnolia/
- In addition to Fort’s Wild Talents, Stanley is also seen with the books: The History of Freemasonry by Albert Gallatin Mackey and Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women by Ricky Jay and others.
- Charles Fort, The Complete Books of Charles Fort, (New York: Dover Publications, 1975), 848. This compilation book includes The Book of the Damned, Lo!, Wild Talents, and New Lands. All page numbers refer to this compilation.
- Fort, 81-99. Another version of this sea in the sky was popularized by Jacques Vallée and called Magonia: Jacques, Vallée, Passport to Magonia, (Spearman, 1970).
- Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, (Courier Dover, 1957), 49.
- Fort, 850.
- The names of the principals and the occupation of Godfrey have been changed. Also, Godfrey was murdered in 1678, not 1911.
- For accounts of the mysterious death of Sir Godfrey see: John Dickson Carr, The Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey, (Harper & Brothers, 1936); John Richard Hall, Four Famous Mysteries, (Nisbet, 1922); and Andrew Lang, The Valet’s Tragedy, (London: Longmans, 1903).
- Quite recently, accounts of tadpoles raining from the sky have been reported in Japan: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5491846/Sky-rains-tadpoles-over-Japan.html and http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/17/japan-rain- tadpoles
- Bergen Evans, The Natural History of Nonsense, (New York: Knopf, 1946). While I could not make out Evans’ book among those Stanley is reading in the library prior to arriving at the TV studio, the Shooting Script indicates that it is indeed among his stack of books. Paul Thomas Anderson, Magnolia: The Shooting Script, (New York: New Market, 2000).
- Evans, 3-14.
- Evans, 28.
- Mann, “Wise Up.”
