Hard Eight (film)

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Hard Eight
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Paul Thomas Anderson
Produced by	Hans Brockmann, François Duplat, Keith Samples
Written by	Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring	Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson
Editing by	Barbara Tulliver
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	February 28, 1997
Running time	102 mins.
Country	United States
Language	English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Hard Eight is a 1996 film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, starring Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson. Robert Ridgely, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Melora Walters also appear.

The film, originally titled Sydney, was Anderson's first feature; Hall, Reilly, Ridgely, Hoffman and Walters have acted in Anderson's subsequent films.

[edit] Plot

Sydney, a gambler in his 60s, sees a young man, John, sitting outside a diner and offers to give him a cigarette and buy him a cup of coffee. When Sydney learns that John is trying to get enough money for his mother's burial, he offers to take him to Las Vegas and teach him how to survive. Though skeptical at first, John eventually agrees.

Two years later, John, having gotten the money for the burial from Sydney, has stayed in Reno and become Sydney's protégé, and is attracted to 23-year-old Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow), a casino cocktail waitress revealed to be an occasional prostitute. Shortly after John and Clementine get married, Sydney gets a frantic late-night phone call and arrives at a motel to find the newlyweds holding hostage a customer who refuses to pay for Clementine's services. Afterward, Sydney advises John and Clementine to leave town and head to Niagara Falls for their "honeymoon".

After the two leave, Sydney is confronted by Jimmy, a friend of John's who has worked security at various casinos in the past. Jimmy demands a large amount of money from Sydney, threatening to tell John the truth: that Sydney killed John's father. Sydney acquiesces, but sneaks into Jimmy's house later and shoots him.

[edit] Trivia

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The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

According to Anderson, Rysher Entertainment attempted to re-edit the film but changed its mind after disappointing focus tests. Anderson, with financial help from Paltrow and Jackson, was able to secure the film and release his version, which was retitled Hard Eight, per Rysher's request. Anderson notes in an interview that "Hard Eight" was supposed to sound like "Heartache"

The film was expanded from a short film, Cigarettes and Coffee. Anderson was invited to the Sundance Institute Filmmaker Lab, where he took his expanded short script (then Sydney) and developed it under the Sundance banner. Cigarettes and Coffee starred Philip Baker Hall; Anderson met the actor while working as a production assistant on a made-for-television movie.

In the 1988 movie Midnight Run, Philip Baker Hall has a small part as a man named Sidney who lives in Las Vegas and is part of the criminal underworld; all traits which happen to be shared with the man he plays in Hard Eight. This seems to suggest the two characters could be one and the same.

Jimmy mentions Floyd Gondolli and Jimmy Gator as people both he and Sydney know; Floyd Gondolli is the name of Hall's character in Boogie Nights, and Jimmy Gator is his character in Magnolia.

Michael Penn has said that Anderson was listening to his album Free-for-All while writing the script for Sydney, and that the director had spent months trying to get Penn to score the movie before he finally agreed to do it with producer, composer and songwriter Jon Brion. [1]

The song that plays over the end credits is sung by Aimee Mann, who would later inspire and provide most of the music for Anderson's film Magnolia, and who is married to the above-mentioned Michael Penn.