Anderson is on record as stating that the Exodus 8:2 thing is intentional.

That said, the frogs started off as a reference to the ideas of Charles Fort.

Ryan, if you could find even the most tangential link of PTA and Exodus 8.2, I'd appreciate it.

As far as I know, when he first wrote the rain, he wasn't thinking about the bible thing. He later became acknowledged of it and used it as he went. I think that could match the theory.

Great post, great blog (I've been following it for a while now, but this is my first comment. I'm sorry for my english, I'm a foreigner).

@DiogoF: That fits the collective unconscious mode, whereby PTA tapped into a universal idea / archetype, then realized it as that, then delved into that narrative stuff and imbued his script with it.

Re "foreigner": Anyone who is interested in writing, creativity, stories, and movies is no foreigner here, all welcome. So welcome, DiogoF!

Ryan is right, Anderson was a Fortian and the rain of frogs comes directly from the work of Charles Fort, who collected clippings of arcane happenings around the world (the prologue is an example of something Fort would put into one of his books) and the idea that we're all connected in a way that we can't directly see from out POV ... it's brought to a head by the rain of frogs at the end.

I watched Magnolia for the first time with a friend who had already seen and loved it. When the rain of frogs came at first I was surprised by it but then it very quickly felt like it made sense. I took it to be direct, divine intervention yelling at the characters to drop their petty shit cause bigger things were at work. My friend was a little freaked out that my verbal response to it was "oh, actually that makes sense".

Hadn't noticed all the Exodus stuff until it was pointed out to me, but yeah, that was my initial reaction.

Even if Anderson had not gone on record saying that, I think you have to look at the sheer volume of 8s and 2s to see it's deliberate. One or two incidents might be coincidental, but the list just goes on and on. The fact that one of the characters is identified with an incredibly long string of numbers and they are 8s, 2s, and 0s was the kicker for me.

Thanks for all the comments. Makes me want to watch the movie again.

Once you know about the Exodus 8:2 references, you'll wonder how you ever missed them. Some are extremely blatant.

Others are correct that Anderson didn't originally think of the bible context, but was reminded of that and added the Exodus stuff, which I think is fun thematically -- these characters are all so self-involved and cloistered from the world around them they cannot see all the warnings of the coming rain of frogs until it's too late.

Ryan, Josh, Adam, Diogo et al: Could you point me in a direction (i.e., links) where I can read up on PTA and the whole Exodus / Charles Fort thing? Curious about it, thank.s

Well, thanks !

Try this interview about Magnolia with Charlie Rose, I think that's where I heard it - http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/3909

I was so let down by Magnolia. I love PT Anderson but the movie just ended up falling so flat.

He beautifully set ups the possibility of extreme coincidence with a bunch of fascinating real world examples. But then he decides to not bring any kind of interesting extreme coincidences into his story at all?

I don't count the frogs. That's not a coincidence, that's just a physical impossibility because we don't have cyclones in Los Angeles.

But even barring the impossibility of such a weather phenomenon occurring in Los Angeles what did it really add to the story? They didn't do anything except make one woman crash.

I think he just got fixated on one interesting little strange fact and just become hell bent on it's conclusion even if nothing else in the story warranted it at all.

There's an interview with PTA at the back of the Magnolia script book. I don't know if it's online. It doesn't touch on the Exodus 8:2 references, but he does talk about Charles Fort.

Here's the relevant passage:

Q: Of all things, why frogs?
A: It truly came from a slightly gimmicky and exciting place. I'd read about rains of frogs in the works of Charles Fort, who was a a turn-of-the-century writer who wrote mainly about odd phenomena. Michael Penn was the one who turned me on to Fort, and who, when I went to one of Michael's shows in New York once, made reference on stage to "rains of frogs." At that moment I just went, Wow! How cool and scary and fun to do would that be - and what does it mean?!
So I started writing it into the script. it wasn't until after I got through with the writing that I began to discover what it might mean, which was this: You get to a point in your life, and shit is happening, and everything's out of your control, and suddenly, a rain of frogs just makes sense. You're staring at a doctor who's telling you something is wrong, and while we know what it is, we have no way of fixing it. And you just go, so what you're telling me, basically, is that it's raining frogs from the sky.
I'm not someone who's ever had a special fascination with UFOs or supernatural phenomena or anything, but I guess I just found myself at a point in my life where I was going through some shitty stuff and I was ready for some sort of weird religion experience, or as close as I could get to one.
So then I began to decipher things about frogs and history, things like this famous notion that, as far back as the Romans, people have been able to judge the health of a society by the health of its frogs. The health of a frog, the vibe of a frog, the texture of a frog, its looks, how much wetness is on it, everything. The frogs are a barometer for who we are as a people. We're polluting ourselves, we're killing ourselves, and the frogs are telling us so, because they're all getting sick and deformed. And I didn't even know it was in the Bible until Henry Gibson gave me a copy of the Bible, bookmarked to the appropriate frog passage.

Let's not forget one of the main themes of the film is that "the sins of the father are visited on the sons." Seems all the main characters are screwed up by their parents. The frog plague underscores that nicely.

Also, the phone # on the TV infomercial in the bar scene has 82 in it

I personally think that the movie is based around the concept of what goes around comes around. It is also pointing us out to the decision we make some time we may find trouble to stick with them, but what ever we do good or bad we will be takers if we are givers earlier and vice versa. also the exodus 8:2 dont know about that but the raining frogs as per my understanding is due to the fact that greater number of people have lost their course due to which people who are innocent are also punished, the guy who robs his boss although went back to put the cash is doing right thing but is punished