Jordan Peele at the The 33rd Santa Barbara International Film Festival at Arlington Theatre on February 6, 2018 in Santa Barbara, California.
Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for SBIFF
Jordan Peele was honored as one of five Outstanding Directors of the Year at the 33rd Santa Barbara International Film Festival, alongside Christopher Nolan, Greta Gerwig, Guillermo del Toro, and Paul Thomas Anderson. In there ceremony's Q&A, captured by Collider, Peele told the crowd that he particularly loves Anderson's 2018 work, saying that "Phantom Thread really fucked me up."
"There’s a scene in the movie where Woodcock is at the New Year’s Eve party," he explained, "and the emotion, the psychology and the visual beauty of that moment are working in harmony, in a way that is just a pure cinematic moment that you almost can’t describe."
But Peele also notes that he didn't exactly watch it as Anderson, who famously cherishes an old school viewing approach, intended.
"I should point out that when I met Paul about three weeks or a month ago, I was like, 'Dude, I loved Phantom Thread so much!'" Peel said. "And he was like, 'Really?! How did you see it?' I was like, 'On a screener!' And I just saw his face go, 'Ohh,' and I realized that I’d lost Paul, forever."
Elsewhere in the interview, the Oscar-nominated director discussed what he calls "this obsession with African American identity, with the representation of my perspective and the black perspective, and with the broadening of what that means and what is regarded as the African American perspective in pop culture," and how an old Key & Peele sketch influenced his ability to take risks. Read the whole thing here.