For fans of Paul Thomas Anderson and Jonny Greenwood, this is all very… personal. Paul Thomas Anderson and Jonny Greenwood are calling for the removal of Greenwood‘s score for “Phantom Thread” from the documentary about Melania Trump after they learned that it had not been cleared for use. According to a statement that Variety received, Universal Pictures is supposed to have cleared the use of the score with Greenwood, but they didn’t.
If you are a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson and Jonny Greenwood, this is totally understandable. The score for “Phantom Thread,” while beautiful and evocative, is not just any score. It is the emotional lifeblood of that film, and it is an exploration of an intimate, uneasy, romantic, and even terrifying relationship.
Demand removal of Phantom Thread music from Melania documentary
It is not surprising that many fans have weighed in online about this, stating that the score feels very specific to that film and that relationship, and that removing it from that context makes it meaningless and even diminishes it.
All of this is happening while the very documentary itself is under the microscope. Amazon MGM paid an eye-watering $40 million to acquire the film and docuseries, followed by another $35 million to market the film in theaters. While the film did bring in a decent box office of $13.35 million after two weekends, it’s nowhere near breaking even, and that’s brought about a lot of side-eye in the industry, wondering whether the true value of the project isn’t necessarily financial, but rather political.
For Greenwood, though, it seems less like a political statement and more like an artistic one. As anyone can tell you, his work, from “There Will Be Blood” to “Inherent Vice,” is very much rooted in tone and intention. Allowing one to drift into another, unrelated, and contentious work is crossing the line.
At the end of the day, it’s a tale that fans know all too well: that art, once it’s brought into the world of corporate ambition, the people behind it don’t always remain silent, particularly as the meaning of that art is lost along the way.
