About
Culture Lust is a blog about the latest ideas stirring in the creative world, hosted by Angela Carone. As arts and culture producer for KPBS Radio's These Days, she's constantly reading, watching, hearing and evaluating the books, movies, music, articles, performers, plays, and cultural phenomena that cross her desk.
Categories
There Will Be Blood
Filed under: Film
Director Paul Thomas Anderson with Daniel Day-Lewis
Last night I saw a screening for Paul Thomas Anderson's new movie There Will Be Blood (it opens in area theaters this weekend). During the first 15 minutes of the film, which were an exceptional 15 minutes, I was both thrilled and stunned.
Those 15 minutes have no dialogue. There are abrupt shots of stark desert landscapes, still and beckoning. Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood composed the score and it shocks the system when you first hear it - with it's loud, discordant strings. It lends tension and momentum throughout, but during the opening scene you come to understand its centrality to Anderson's creative vision.
Then there is the opening action. The experience of mining for silver in a deep cavernous hole with rickety wooden stairs as the only escape. We move quickly to rudimentary efforts at getting oil from even greater depths. The darkness and muck, the viscous slop covering our protagonist, who we only see in shafts of light. It's claustrophobic. Whatever goes up, can easily come barreling down this narrow depth and Anderson's camera makes sure we see it all fall in force. We are in a hole, covered in oil, trying to breathe, fearful to look up. It's an unnerving, wholly effective sequence. It's also strangely beautiful in its power.
But the energy of this opening is not in its style. There are no fancy tracking shots, something Anderson is certainly prone to (Boogie Nights). It's in the drama of the work, the danger of the place, and the focus and determination of a character who has yet to speak one word.
You soon realize Anderson has made an old-fashioned movie epic and he's done so with tremendous skill. The story is based on Upton Sinclair's muckraking novel Oil!, which Anderson is said to have picked up in a London bookstore. He loved it so much, he decided to adapt it for the screen. It's really an odd choice for him, a young filmmaker whose earlier works, Hard Eight, Boogie Nights and Magnolia, gave him a reputation as an edgy, very contemporary filmmaker. This is a period film with classic written all over it. He's conversing with the old masters here, not the young turks of the 90's or today.
It helped Anderson's project that Daniel Day-Lewis plays his protagonist, Daniel Plainview. Plainview is, as he notes often, "an oilman... a family man." He's also an entrepreneurial rogue determined to make his fortune without the help of burgeoning oil companies like Standard Oil.
Plainview is powerful and shrewd, but not without charisma. Daniel Day-Lewis is Daniel Plainview in every gesture and word. I kept thinking about how penetrating his eyes were - not the eyes of Daniel Day-Lewis, but those of Daniel Plainview. I was so completely lost in his portrayal. It is, as many critics have already noted, a performance that will be talked about for years.
Plainview is not a man to be liked, though you do at times. It's hard not to respect his determination, couched as it is in our mythology of the American dream. But Plainview can too easily access his brutality, like Charles Foster Kane or Michael Corleone before him, in order to achieve and sustain his dreams of power and money. Anderson's film fits nicely in a lineage of films about America -- the story of capitalism, of individualism, of taming and exploiting the land, and of our country's long and complicated relationship with religion.
I thought No Country for Old Men was my favorite film of the year, and I'll admit to enjoying it more for its facility with suspense and clever, funny dialogue. There Will Be Blood is not as enjoyable; it's more visceral and penetrating, raw and powerful. It is a real achievement and I don't think I'll forget what it was like to see it for a long time.
-
15 Comments |
Email this |
-
-
-
|
- Permalink:
Comments
I thought No Country For Old Men was exponentially better than There Will Be Blood, which is a bombastic and self-important movie.
Cinemoose.com
-----
All technical marvels and superb actings aside, the movie is not very enjoyable. It told of an old tale almost as old as humankind. You are right, Beth, that it was very old testament. It doesn’t make it a great movie, however. I very much wouldn’t want to spend another minute with any of those characters. As it was, it was already too much.
I much prefer Punch-Drunk Love to this and even Magnolia.
It’s beautiful and very well acted. However, the movie is way too bleak and the characters unpleasant. It was not the way I wanted to spend 2 and a half hours. It told of an old story and nothing new was presented.
It is almost as disappointing as Atonement. Given a choice between the three, I’d pick No Country For Old Men again.
Despite its beautiful settings and superb actings, the story is quite old and been told before. There is nothing new here. It’s way too long and unpleasant a way to spend with such unruly characters. Both Lewis and Dano are excellent. Too bad the movie is not enjoyable and it’s rather dull.
‘Blood’ is an amazing movie, incredibly well made and acted, but more importantly, thrust in the face of an America too self indulgent to see our over whelming greed engulf us....sure some, probably most, will not like this movie...if you care at all to comprehend it you must think about who we are and what we do, because this is a movie about America, and pt anderson’s story clearly shows we are not a kind and gentle culture...with ‘good’ literally combating ‘evil’ throughout this epic, we are left with the presentation that both are cut from the same green cloth, and that neither advances humanity on anything resembling a high road...by pure happenstance, one would think, it is pertinent that this film is cast for an academy award, against another equally bleak picture of americana (’no country...’), at a time when the actual awards may not take place because of labor unrest!!!!! that seems, to me, more than coincidence, and i can only hope that Americans can accept the reponsibility to acknowledge our brutality and greed in time to save human existence on our beautiful planet, that both Anderson and the Coens liberally dose us with in both of these great movies....peace j-rAy
Too long and unpleasant to spend that much time with these characters. Very ably acted and directed with grand vista but in the end the story is a very old one and nothing new is revealed. I’m sorely disappointed with the movie as a whole.
You probably shouldn’t give so many spoilers in your reviews. You told almost the whole story, including some things that should only be revealed on the screen, such as: (1) The true identity of his “son” and why he “adopted” him; (2) Describing the “blessing” scene at the well and the “conversion” scene in the church; (3) Explaining the ultimate motivations of Eli Sunday; and (4) Telling us about the ending in a mansion (now the audience knows that he lives to be a wealthy oil man, taking the wind out of some of the more dramatic scenes).
Overall, it was an excellent, well-thought-out, thorough, and eloquent review. It would probably be more appreciated, however, if you didn’t describe the movie in such detail as to give story spoilers to the audience that has not yet seen the film.
What I can’t understand about a basically great movie like There Will Be Blood is how it could descend into utterly campy humour toward the end, with a rotten, abrupt and unsatisfying ending.
Day-Lewis, of course, is superb. He is absolutely believable in his depiction of a hard-driving, win-at-all-costs turn of the century oilman, loved by nobody. His performance is larger-than-life in a way that few actors could ever hope to match. It is, as other reviewers have said, a towering performance. It’s also classic, even if bits and pieces of Day-Lewis’ Bill the Butcher character from Gangs of New York comes through from time to time.
One thing that this movie so fascinating is the way it so accurately portrays the tenor of the time and life in the small towns that dotted the Texas landscape then - lots of ‘hellfire-and-brimstone, gimme that ol’ time religion and pass me the whisky while you’re at it’.
The interplay between good and evil is powerfully represented and you can’t help but feel that Daniel Plainview resembles no one so much as the infamous Simon Legree, while Eli, the seemingly gentle preacher, tries to rescue his flock from what appears to be perdition.
Later, and most interestingly, we learn that Eli and Daniel are both birds of a feather and competitors - just grifters playing for different teams. The resulting friction leads to a fairly explosive ending.
This film was disturbing but also a masterpiece all around. It is not a film that needs to be liked, just appreciated for its craftsmanship. Art imitates life which is why a film like this can be so disturbing to watch, it replicates human emotion so well at times. The score alone will make your hair stand up (and my wife look away...). Watch it, it is worth the experience and you will find yourself questioning whether or not it was a good film. Days later you may stop and realize that you are still thinking about it....
My friends and I have different opinions concerning Eli and Paul. Were they twin brothers or actually one person with two personalities? I’d like some comments.
Ignore the above comment by Cinemoose, who obviously would not know cinematic greatness if it slapped him in the face. This film is a true masterpiece. His perception of it as “too pompous and self-important” reveals a lack of depth in him as a viewer. Cinemoose is also obviously a poor observer of the nuances of performance, as evidenced by his only seeing the voice and cadence aspects of it.
Anyone thinking of seeing this film---please disregard this guy Cinemoose and see it. It has many more levels it can be enjoyed on than what he saw with his simple eyes. And I’m mystified as to why anyone would check out his own review when he reveals his lack of sophistication in a mere four sentences above…
I think the last scene is Biblical with Daniel representing “our elder brother” the Jews, Paul representing the apostle Paul, who started a “false religion”, Eli representing the modern Christians who are seduced by show business lifestyles, and the last family with oil representing the Arabs/Muslims. Eli wants Daniel to help him steal “the Arabs” oil, but Daniel/Israel has already stolen it. Daniel exhibits the standard Israeli/Jewish viewpoint towards group competition. “I’m older than you, I’m smarter than you, and I can kill and laugh about it.”
I’m pretty sure the “discordant sounds and long sustained notes” and “insistant and driving music” were not Jonny Greenwood, but were the classical minimalist composer Arvo Part, who was credited at the end of the movie.
test
The movie is an admittedly effective effort at attacking two things Anderson seems to hate most; the rugged individualism which built this nation, and the religious faithful which kept it morally on the straight and narrow, each crucially contributing towards making America the most giving nation in the history of nations.
Anderson portrayed the independent, driven and self-made man as monstrously greedy, psychopathically hateful and murderously evil. He then portrayed a country pastor as not only a bit of a loon, but much worse, a hypocrite who would sell his faith for the promise of a few lousy bucks.
Obviously, Anderson hates who built America and those who pray in and for it. This movie is his political statement on it, and reveals how he feels about America today. Disgustingly insidious in its execution, it is hard not to imagine Anderson will one day have to answer for it while he begs the God he insulted so brilliantly for mercy.