Six films to watch before you see Phan­tom Thread

Paul Thomas Anderson’s ele­gant yet dis­turb­ing new film, Phan­tom Thread, is no fairy tale romance. Love between two peo­ple is more com­pli­cat­ed than hap­pi­ly ever after, often cur­dling into a pas de deux of wills, wits and deter­mi­na­tion that at its nadir is eclipsed by and sub­merged in pain, tox­i­c­i­ty and dys­func­tion. We hurt whom we love, after all. Here are six exam­ples of clas­sic films that exam­ine the mer­cu­r­ial push-and-pull of love and rela­tion­ships. Fair warn­ing: they are prob­a­bly best not watched on Valentine’s Day with your sig­nif­i­cant other.

At first glance, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebec­ca is essen­tial­ly a sec­ond wife’s worst night­mare come true. The new­ly wed Mrs De Win­ter (Joan Fontaine) appears doomed to for­ev­er live in the shad­ow of her hus­band Maxim’s (Lau­rence Olivi­er) first wife Rebec­ca, spurred on by the sub­tle and overt insults and dis­re­spect of house­keep­er Mrs Dan­vers (Judith Ander­son). How­ev­er, the dis­cov­ery of Rebecca’s body uncov­ers the dys­func­tion of Maxim’s first mar­riage as well as the cru­el­ty and mon­strous­ness of the seem­ing­ly per­fect first Mrs De Win­ter. For a char­ac­ter unseen and long dead, Rebecca’s influ­ence per­vades the film like a nox­ious gas and while at the end of film the new­ly rec­on­ciled De Win­ters have a chance to start over, Rebec­ca also has her revenge in the most destruc­tive man­ner imaginable.

While love tri­an­gles make for amaz­ing melo­dra­ma, nine times out of ten no one wins in the end. The Pas­sion­ate Friends cap­tures the ago­nis­ing push and pull of such a tri­an­gle where Mary (Ann Todd) who, despite being mar­ried to Howard (Claude Rains), can­not find it in her­self to end her rela­tion­ship with a for­mer pos­ses­sive beau, Steven (Trevor Howard). The tur­moil and pain caused by the tug of war between these three indi­vid­u­als through­out the film keeps the audi­ence on edge and beg­ging Mary to cut off all con­tact with Steven, for everyone’s sakes. Two mar­riages are near­ly ruined due to Mary’s inde­ci­sive­ness and it is only due to luck and fate that the entire ordeal does not end in tragedy.

Vin­cente Minnelli’s biopic of the tal­ent­ed and trag­ic painter Vin­cent Van Gogh (Kirk Dou­glas) takes a dif­fer­ent approach to the top­ic of poi­so­nous and obses­sive love. The unsta­ble painter’s most volatile rela­tion­ship was with the most fick­le mis­tress of all – art itself. His dis­ap­point­ment in his career and failed romance with his cousin Anna (Madge Kennedy) con­tributed to his men­tal insta­bil­i­ty, caus­ing him to push away and lash out at his sup­port­ers such as his broth­er Theo (James Don­ald) and friend Paul Gau­guin (Antho­ny Quinn). While Van Gogh loved art, it appeared not to love him (in his life­time at least). Trag­i­cal­ly his obses­sive devo­tion led to his demise.

Is poten­tial­ly blow­ing up one’s life and perus­ing roman­tic pas­sion a worth­while risk? Brief Encounter wres­tles with this dilem­ma through exam­in­ing how Lau­ra (Celia John­son) and Alec (Trent Howard), two peo­ple mar­ried with fam­i­lies, meet as strangers at a rail­way sta­tion and fall in love. This snap­shot of an affair that teeters on the knife’s edge of ignit­ing the lives of both par­tic­i­pants (although more so for Lau­ra) stands out for the love between Lau­ra and Alex not being a mali­cious force, but rather the cir­cum­stances and frame­work of their rela­tion­ship being the root of dys­func­tion. The film comes to the expect­ed con­clu­sion of the two par­tic­i­pants return­ing to their lives, but the sheer dra­ma and heart­break of the illic­it lovers’ final part­ing, com­pli­cat­ed by Laura’s friend Dol­ly (Ever­ley Gregg) who will not shut up, lead­ing to one of the most painful good­bye sequences ever seen on film.

Fun­ny Face could be pre­sent­ed as the lighter ver­sion of Phan­tom Thread, but even it still con­tains a vein of obses­sion and con­trol along­side its romance. In a way, the creator/​muse rela­tion­ship between fash­ion pho­tog­ra­ph­er Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) and shy, intel­lec­tu­al book­shop own­er Jo (Audrey Hep­burn) is a pre­cur­sor to Reynolds and Alma’s rela­tion­ship, albeit far less twist­ed and cru­el. Fun­ny Face is comedic and quirky, but the musi­cal pulls no punch­es in por­tray­ing how unequal Dick and Jo’s rela­tion­ship is and how the per­son­al­i­ty and iden­ti­ty of women in the fash­ion indus­try is twist­ed to suit male desire. Despite the tra­di­tion­al hap­py end­ing, one has to won­der if Dick real­ly loves Jo for who she is, or what she can inspires and represents.

A bat­tle of mar­i­tal wits and male inse­cu­ri­ty dis­guised as a rom-com set against the back­ground of the fash­ion indus­try, Design­ing Women is essen­tial an adver­tise­ment of down­sides to mar­ry­ing some­one you have only known for eight days. After nail­ing an assign­ment, blue-col­lar sports writer Mike Hagen (Gre­go­ry Peck) embarks on a whirl­wind romance and mar­riage with the beau­ti­ful Mar­il­la Bown (Lau­ren Bacall) only to dis­cov­er she is way out of his league. While the film is yet anoth­er screw­ball film that ends on a hap­py note, Mike’s frag­ile male ego and inse­cu­ri­ty over his wife’s career, social stand­ing and wealth is a note­wor­thy vein through­out the film and it what makes him try to ​“tame” Mar­il­la by under­min­ing her and mak­ing her sub­servient. While Mar­il­la lets some things slide, luck­i­ly for us she refus­es to turn into a wall­flower to make her hus­band feel bet­ter about himself.