Phantom Thread is a film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson about tenderness among difficult personalities and the ways love can be sadistic. The score, by Anderson’s long-term collaborator Jonny Greenwood matches and enhances the tone and themes of this film beautifully.
This is the first track in the Phantom Thread score and it mirrors some of the love and horror within it. It begins with very high-pitched strings, that likely have frequencies in the upper midrange to treble with very few frequencies in the lower, low bass/ upper bass range. These frequencies coupled with the dissonance in the composition create an unsettling but still beautiful sound. It is very crisp, sounding like it was recorded in a studio. This is different from the later tracks “Phantom Thread II and Phantom Thread III,” where the former sounds like it exists in the protagonists house, and the latter has a lot of dramatic bass as the story climaxes. Two minutes into “Phantom Thread I” there begins to be lower tones. The composition becomes a lot more full, with deeper, sustained strings that may be enhanced by reverb or layering. By the end of the track, the strings hold one note, which creates a very complete, satisfying finish after all of the anxiety-inducing dissonance.