Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the most talented filmmakers in cinema. He is able to capture reality in a way that is unrivaled and move his narrative along with a rhythm that creates tension, need, and conflict. We watch as he uses long takes in this film to create an internal rhythm within the audience that matches the character's. We see this in the pool party scene where the Colonel arrives and the camera goes throughout the party to different characters until it reaches Eddie and Reed. It allows the audience to experience the multitude of realities within the world of the 1970s porn culture from the underage obsessed Colonel to, pornographic actors who've been in the business, to someone on the outside who desires to be in, the cronies and to the youth who have yet to be corrupted, this is Eddie.
Anderson uses the same long take style when Little Bill is at the 1979 New Years Eve party and catches his wife with another man. We follow him into the party, out to his car where he gets a gun, and back in where he kills them and himself. The suspense created from the take is immense as we know there is going to be horror coming and we must sit through the excruciating pain of watching this moment before be elongated.
Anderson's camera and directing style while based in reality is highly effective because the actors bring so much life and "character" to the screen. Anderson shows us real people in a heightened world, thus he does this by having incredibly high stakes in every scene. Anderson's mastery comes, in part, because he ensures the stakes in each scene are at the highest possible level. This allows the film to move in a specific rhythm, and for the characters to behave in a particular way.
