From one form of madness to another, we stop to gape at one of the buzz-iest films of the last year.
There Will Be Blood is essentially the story of one man's entrepreneurial odyssey. In the opening sequence, Daniel Plainview drags his body - now limp from a nasty fall - out of a pit where he has discovered black gold...oil. The image of him crawling along the ground, his eyes monomaniacally intent on his oil-soaked finger, is a representative picture. Here is a man who is one part industrious and one part insane. He is focused, driven, savvy, and yet - as the shrill atonal strings of the orchestra hint at early on - a little bit on the crazy side.
Plainview capitalizes on the oil boom at the dawn of the twentieth century, and establishes a small camp of laborers to help him milk the land of this newfound treasure. He goes from town to town, with his small son H.W. at his side, trying to charm the local inhabitants into letting him plant his enterprise in their midst. He's a family man, he says. He has the same values and dreams as his audiences, and he assures them that if they let him at their oil, he can turn their town into gold.
A young man seeks out Plainview and tells him about the bounty of oil near his family farm. Plainview moves his team to this small town full of fervidly religious people and begins a lifelong interaction/enmity with the informant boy's brother, Eli. Plainview finds the town easily persuaded to sell oil-rich land, but the entire operation is contingent on satisfying Eli, who is as shrewd and corrupt as Plainview, and who wants a new church building for his congregation - the Church of the Third Revelation.
H.W. is injured in an oil eruption, and completely loses his hearing. Plainview struggles with loving his handicapped son, and eventually sends him away to a boy's home. A man claiming to be Plainview's half-brother shows up on his doorstep. Plainview seems to come to believe him and slowly open up to his brother...but never quite enough for us to really see inside his head. Plainview strikes it rich enough to retire by building an underground pipeline to the coast for transporting his oil. Everything seems to be going in his favor, and yet we see him lashing out sporadically in bursts of madness - one of which leaves his "brother" dead and buried.
In order to build the pipeline, Plainview must appease one of the crucial landowners by joining Eli's congregation, repenting of his sins and being baptized. In a scene both amusing and dramatically gripping, Plainview exhibits to what lengths he will go in order to get what he wants. All along we see glimpses of his humanity, a small hint of goodness within him; but the outcome is always self-serving mania.
The last part of the film finds an aged Plainview, much like Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane, all alone in a large mansion. Yet Plainview's madness far surpasses Kane's. He not only rejects his son's love and friendship near the end of his life; he belittles and mocks his son's very worth. And the story ends with what is for a Plainview a long-awaited and satisfied expression of vengeance against Eli the preacher. We leave Daniel Plainview a man surrounded by wealth, complicated, alone, and yet...amused by it all?
Warnings
There is a moderate amount of language sprinkled through the film.
A few of the film's characters meet unpleasant - accidental - demises. The biggest warning, though, is the graphic nature of the two intentional deaths. One involves a man's head being bludgeoned. Though we do not see the victim during the act, it could potentially be very unsettling to watch for many.
Redeeming Value?
Even within my small sphere, There Will Be Blood has elicited strong reactions on both ends of the spectrum. It could be argued that the despicable nature of the protagonist and the film's ambiguous moral stance effectually condone or even glorify evil. The two main characters are both selfish, corrupt, and truly wicked people. There is no justice at all meted out to the one, and to the other, justice comes in the form of savage vengeance.
I certainly do not condone or smile on the protagonist - neither his deeds nor his essence as a character. He is absolutely corrupt. But I do not believe that the film glorifies him. It tells his story, with him as the focal point, rendering him only technically the "protagonist." We see him in all his idiosyncrasies, his inconsistencies...his worst vices and his moments of fleeting redemption. There is no "moral at the end of the story;" things end purposefully vague. It is left up to the viewer to draw from this man's tale what they choose; and if nothing is taken away at all, it is at the very least a wild ride.
Daniel Plainview, played expertly by Daniel Day Lewis, does not deserve his own film because he is a hero or his story one of restitution. He deserves his own film because he is simply a figure larger than life, intensely engaging, full of all the quirks and contradictions that define humanity. He is not presented as a man to imitate or admire, but rather an epic force to behold.
If you want an evening filled with warm, bubbly, feel-good emotions - don't see There Will Be Blood. If you want to see a straightforward moral drama where the bad guy loses in the end, don't see There Will Be Blood. But if you want to see a period piece intelligent character study that features some of the finest direction and absorbing acting you'll ever find, I would heartily recommend There Will Be Blood. And bring a milkshake. Trust me, it'll be funny.
Plainview capitalizes on the oil boom at the dawn of the twentieth century, and establishes a small camp of laborers to help him milk the land of this newfound treasure. He goes from town to town, with his small son H.W. at his side, trying to charm the local inhabitants into letting him plant his enterprise in their midst. He's a family man, he says. He has the same values and dreams as his audiences, and he assures them that if they let him at their oil, he can turn their town into gold.
A young man seeks out Plainview and tells him about the bounty of oil near his family farm. Plainview moves his team to this small town full of fervidly religious people and begins a lifelong interaction/enmity with the informant boy's brother, Eli. Plainview finds the town easily persuaded to sell oil-rich land, but the entire operation is contingent on satisfying Eli, who is as shrewd and corrupt as Plainview, and who wants a new church building for his congregation - the Church of the Third Revelation.
H.W. is injured in an oil eruption, and completely loses his hearing. Plainview struggles with loving his handicapped son, and eventually sends him away to a boy's home. A man claiming to be Plainview's half-brother shows up on his doorstep. Plainview seems to come to believe him and slowly open up to his brother...but never quite enough for us to really see inside his head. Plainview strikes it rich enough to retire by building an underground pipeline to the coast for transporting his oil. Everything seems to be going in his favor, and yet we see him lashing out sporadically in bursts of madness - one of which leaves his "brother" dead and buried.
In order to build the pipeline, Plainview must appease one of the crucial landowners by joining Eli's congregation, repenting of his sins and being baptized. In a scene both amusing and dramatically gripping, Plainview exhibits to what lengths he will go in order to get what he wants. All along we see glimpses of his humanity, a small hint of goodness within him; but the outcome is always self-serving mania.
The last part of the film finds an aged Plainview, much like Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane, all alone in a large mansion. Yet Plainview's madness far surpasses Kane's. He not only rejects his son's love and friendship near the end of his life; he belittles and mocks his son's very worth. And the story ends with what is for a Plainview a long-awaited and satisfied expression of vengeance against Eli the preacher. We leave Daniel Plainview a man surrounded by wealth, complicated, alone, and yet...amused by it all?
Warnings
There is a moderate amount of language sprinkled through the film.
A few of the film's characters meet unpleasant - accidental - demises. The biggest warning, though, is the graphic nature of the two intentional deaths. One involves a man's head being bludgeoned. Though we do not see the victim during the act, it could potentially be very unsettling to watch for many.
Redeeming Value?
Even within my small sphere, There Will Be Blood has elicited strong reactions on both ends of the spectrum. It could be argued that the despicable nature of the protagonist and the film's ambiguous moral stance effectually condone or even glorify evil. The two main characters are both selfish, corrupt, and truly wicked people. There is no justice at all meted out to the one, and to the other, justice comes in the form of savage vengeance.
I certainly do not condone or smile on the protagonist - neither his deeds nor his essence as a character. He is absolutely corrupt. But I do not believe that the film glorifies him. It tells his story, with him as the focal point, rendering him only technically the "protagonist." We see him in all his idiosyncrasies, his inconsistencies...his worst vices and his moments of fleeting redemption. There is no "moral at the end of the story;" things end purposefully vague. It is left up to the viewer to draw from this man's tale what they choose; and if nothing is taken away at all, it is at the very least a wild ride.
Daniel Plainview, played expertly by Daniel Day Lewis, does not deserve his own film because he is a hero or his story one of restitution. He deserves his own film because he is simply a figure larger than life, intensely engaging, full of all the quirks and contradictions that define humanity. He is not presented as a man to imitate or admire, but rather an epic force to behold.
If you want an evening filled with warm, bubbly, feel-good emotions - don't see There Will Be Blood. If you want to see a straightforward moral drama where the bad guy loses in the end, don't see There Will Be Blood. But if you want to see a period piece intelligent character study that features some of the finest direction and absorbing acting you'll ever find, I would heartily recommend There Will Be Blood. And bring a milkshake. Trust me, it'll be funny.
2 comments:
I didn't read your entire review because I want to see this and I didn't want to ruin the plot. But now I want to see it even more, and after I do, I'll read your entire review.
Or if you want to understand the lovely nature of capitalism...
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