Well, I was going to post a one word review for There Will be Blood but the Killoggs told me my post was too short. So I'm basically babbling on trying to flesh this thing out enough so that the Killoggs administrator won't yell at me for making a post that's too short.
Okay, enough lollygagging.
Here's my general impression of the new Paul Thomas Anderson flick There Will Be Blood:
reggie [email] said at 9:15 PM 12-30-2007: Here's a bit more food for thought. Imagine the ambition of Citizen Kane mixed with the intensity of Raging Bull and directed by Stanley Kubrick and you pretty much get a sense for how epic this movie is.
Daniel Day Lewis is a god. Not only that, he is the best actor alive. Period. All due respect to cagey veterans such as Deniro, Pacino, Hoffman, Nicholson or Hackman they're all legends and have cemented their respective places in cinematic history. But right now, there isn't an actor on the PLANET who is better at not just breathing life into a character but fully investing every fiber of their being into a character than DDL. Johnny Depp is amazing at what he does, Sean Penn is great at what he does. Neither of them come close to Day Lewis. His performance as Daniel Plainview makes Javier Bardem's Chigurh in No Country for Old Men look like a freakin' boy scout. In fact, this movie makes No Country look like the feel good hit of the year, it makes Control look like a musical, makes Zodiac look like a buddy cop movie and makes The Assassination of Jesse James look like Blazing Saddles.
Oh, and the music. What a year for Jonny Greenwood, he contributes to not only the best album of the year (In Rainbows) but produces THE score of the year. I would be absolutely stunned if Jonny Greenwood doesn't add an Oscar to his mantle.
Jesus. This movie... And the final scene, just wait until the final scene!!! I will say nothing more than that.
There Will be Blood will make your soul beg for mercy.
reggie [email] said at 6:23 AM 02-08-2008: Agreed. I agree that both movies share Kane-like characteristics...they're still on opposite sides of the spectrum. Starting mainly from the aspect that Anderson is less interested in making Plainview sympathetic. He flat out says that he hates most people.
As I said above, I think a more accurate Scorsese comparison is Jake Lamotta. He may not be as smart as Plainview he is just as self-loathing, just as vindictive and just as misanthropic. Even Bill the Butcher had a clearly defined sense of honor.
sonny [email] said at 12:21 PM 02-07-2008: Because i was so excited that
No Country was THE best movie i had seen in a long time I thought wow "there will be blood" sign me up but I just thought it went on too lonnnnnnnng I was like "there will be boring" I just thought there was gonna be more Jonah Hex in this
josh [email] said at 1:42 PM 02-07-2008: jonah hex? what... why would you think that... its based on an upton sinclair book about the foundation of the oil industry in america!
brianbibbly [email] said at 2:22 PM 02-07-2008: My two cents: I have seen this movie twice. It is amazing. I put it right there with No Country, although, I believe that Day Lewis' acting is so over the top better than anyone from No Country that I would be appalled if he doesn't walk away with the Oscar.
Draaaaaaaaaaainage! Eli, you boy!!!!! (drool hanging off Day Lewis' mouth)
julie [email] said at 11:23 PM 02-07-2008: straw & milkshake in-jokes are abounding at my workplace right now.... also the new thing to say at the end of a meeting or conversation: "I'm finished."
reggie [email] said at 8:05 AM 02-08-2008: Since I now know that others have (finally) seen this movie now I can drop my very own theory revolving around the symbolism of liquid in this movie. Okay, it's not a fully fleshed out theory so this may come across as completely hairbrained but I'll give it a shot.
It's not that brilliant an insight that in a movie about oil with the word "blood" in the title that the film will contain more than one reference to some form of liquid. Yet there are five substances used throughout the movie that, to me, serve as kind of a blueprint to the film's themes as well as to the relationships of the characters. Since this is a movie that is less plot driven and almost entirely character driven, any sort of guidebook may prove useful. Or not.
So first let me point out the five liquids of prominence in TWBB. Oil, water, blood, milk, booze. The first three are obvious and have a little bigger role but I don't want to ignore the significance of the latter two. As I see it each liquid symbolizes the following:
Oil - greed, power, evil
Water - faith, purity, righteousness
Blood - family, love, hate
Milk - nourishment, strength, hope(?)
Alcohol/booze - self-destruction, poison, impurity (however it often functions as a truth serum)
Okay so let's look at how these are all used throughout the film. The easiest place to start is with oil and water. As we all know they don't mix and which two characters are linked explicitly with each substance? Daniel and Eli. Daniel, obviously, is tied directly to oil since that's what he lives for. Eli, a preacher, is linked to water since it's what is used to baptize people. In fact there are scenes in which each character "baptizes" the other in their respective liquids. The first is when Eli approaches Daniel about the money he's owed. Daniel beats the younger man down, drags him to a pool of oil and rubs it all over him including stuffing it down his throat. Eli later returns the favor in the "I've abandoned my child" scene referenced above. Additionally, in the final "milkshake" scene when Daniel awakens from his drunken slumber what does he do to sober? He chugs from a huge bottle of water. He uses the water to flush out the "poison" (booze) and regain his wits. Eli even tries to use alcohol to get Daniel to lower his guard, which Daniel refuses. Not only that but once Eli himself has consumed alcohol (in this scene alcohol serves as both poison and as truth serum as Eli succumbs to his own hypocrisy.) Daniel is able to both physically and mentally gain the upperhand and dominate him (leading, of course, to the spillage of the titular blood.)
Earlier, once Daniel and his "brother" Henry have laid the course for the pipeline they cleanse themselves by taking a dip in the ocean. Later THAT night after Henry weakens himself with alcohol at a saloon, Daniel murders him (again, spilling blood.) On top of that, there's water in the grave that Daniel digs for Henry -- the motion of which echoes his digging motion from early in the film, before oil is discovered. After THAT while he's looking through his real brother's diary (while consuming alcohol) is the only true sign of vulnerability we see from Daniel at all as he breaks down into tears (alcohol as truth serum again.)
Now here's where it gets interesting, well at least it does to me. Oil and water, again, are not only incompatible with each other but, as far as this weak little theory goes, they are largely one-dimensional. The third substance -- the one referenced in the film's title -- is much more flexible. Blood has a number of dual relationships, it is a symbol of both unification and conflict. It's a symbol of both love and hate. Healing and destruction. Passion and rage. Blood is spilled during fights or wars yet in times of emergency blood is needed to help heal. Also, family is linked by blood but more on that a little later.
Where oil and water don't mix, blood has no problem interacting with either one. In fact in this film blood directly links oil TO water as Daniel's son marries Eli's sister. Oil and blood seem to get along the easiest as they are tied directly to each other. There are two deaths that take place inside the oil well. When they first discover oil, H.W.'s natural father smears a bit on the baby's forehead (not merely resembling the symbol of Ash Wednesday but providing an early indicator of the film's central conflict of faith versus commerce.)
The final two substances, milk and alcohol, are linked in the film in a few different instances. The first of which involves Daniel's very first interaction with his newly adopted son H.W. The baby's father has just died in the oil well and is crying. Daniel gives the child alcohol in a baby bottle to silence him (outright subsituting nourishment with poison.) Later, not long before Daniel sends the newly-deafened child away to be taken proper care of he pours booze into a bottle of milk and forces the boy to consume ALL of it (foreshadowing the "milkshake" consumption of water) this time cross-contaminating hope with impurity and also foreshadowing the deceit he uses to abandon the boy. The final link of mik and alcohol is in a scene not long after H.W. has returned. Daniel and H.W. are in a restaurant in which Daniel orders whiskey for himself and milk for the boy. The scene kind of serves as a convergence of everything since there's a later confrontation between Daniel and a would-be former investor turned competitor and forming a loose connection between blood, oil, water, milk and alcohol. A connection that comes to head in the "milkshake" scene that is the film's finale.
neilbert said at 4:06 AM 02-09-2008: fantastic movie. PTA has finally shown that he's not a hack. DDL is most certainly a shoo-in for best actor. The only thing that I am still debating on whether I liked it or not was the music.
For me, the music timing was off for most of the movie; obviously for some purpose I have yet to figure out. The music sounded almost exactly like the music in the opening of "The Exorcist" when Father Merrin is in the desert.
julie [email] said at 1:03 PM 02-09-2008: Interesting Exorcist parallel... Personally, having recently seen the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre on the big screen, I felt like a lot of those buzzing blaring minor-key chords were really similar to stuff in TCM, where there's a shot of the bleak scrubby desert-like landscape, and tension builds, etc.
The music was DEFINITELY in line with classic horror film music.
kiche [email] said at 3:07 PM 02-10-2008: i liked the music and think it fit; but the timing was clearly off.
it definitely was horror movie music. i think it worked, though. the thing was, it would kick in too soon. like when the oil well blew up. they shouldn't immediately have started playing music. they should have let the chaos of the situation overwhelm people instead of turning it into a music video.
reggie [email] said at 9:37 PM 02-10-2008: No, it would not have worked. The song that they played during that scene was "Convergence" which is also on Greenwood's Bodysong soundtrack. The climax (or apex?) of the song is when all the different drum parts sync up and are pounding at once like a heartbeat. I think that's kind of the point of the song, imagine listening to a bunch of different heartbeats at the same time and then reaching that one point where all the hearts beat at the exact same time. You've got to build up to that.
reggie [email] said at 11:52 PM 02-09-2008: I'm sorry but Ben liked it. A Ben endorsement for ANY movie trumps any other endorsement from any other head on here.
kara [email] said at 1:41 PM 02-10-2008: I did appreciate the dudes monologues and of course "I look at people and I see nothing worth liking"
I liked the main character and overall it is a movie about him but it wasn't enough so.
I just think this movie failed to make a point to me.
julie [email] said at 2:52 PM 02-10-2008: So... Danial = Daniel, and Plainview rhymes with Day-Lewis. Do you think
PTA did this for DDL's benefit, so that it would be easier for him & his method-acting ass to turn himself into the character? I mean, they might as well have just called him Daniel Day-Lewis in the film. Or maybe this was PTA optimistically writing the whole film with DDL in mind for the main character, to prove that he wanted him and no one else to play Daniel?
Reggie, imagine if I was a director and handed you a script with a main character named Reggie Chariot. Would you be flattered, or would you roll your eyes?
julie [email] said at 9:48 PM 02-10-2008: Really I meant the main vowel sounds, I'm not saying it was a literal, perfect rhyme. It was more like... a pop music lyric rhyme.
