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There Will Be Blood

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15 Jan 2008 16:39 #766 by Michael Barnes
Any of you guys see THERE WILL BE BLOOD yet? Interested to see what y'all thought about it.

I think some of the critical hyperbole is almost like reading AGRICOLA reviews...it's a very, very good picture but it seems so self-consciously aware of itself that it seems to bludgeon you with its intent to be one of the Great American Films that a lot of people, I think, miss some really disappointing elements in it.

Paul Dano is _amazing_ in it, I think it's a shame that Daniel Day-Lewis' also awesome performance is really overshadowing his more subtle achievment. Very complex performance.

Not very AT, I guess...it _could_ use a robot or an elf...

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16 Jan 2008 21:38 #887 by Kriz
Replied by Kriz on topic Re:There Will Be Blood
I read Upton Sinclair's "Jungle" last year and was amazed...a truly great book. When I heard this movie was based on Sinclair's book "Oil", I was hyped and looking forward to it.

Then I heard the movie:

A) removed all the political and social commentary

and

B) Is directed by the guy who to did Magnolia, which I consider the height of uber-pretentiousness.

I'll pass.

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17 Jan 2008 10:24 #928 by Michael Barnes
<i>A) removed all the political and social commentary</i>

Not at all...but it may be different from the novel. It's definitely about orthodox capitalism and religious fundamentalism and how both are equally racked with shenanigans and soul;essness.

<i>B) Is directed by the guy who to did Magnolia, which I consider the height of uber-pretentiousness.</i>

Heh...have you never seen a Guy Maddin film?

I'm with you on this count...I think PTA is anything but a great director. He imitates Scorcese pretty well, but this time he's imitating John Ford, Orson Welles, and the like. It's more down to earth and grittier than MAGNOLIA (a complete piece of shit to be sure).

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17 Jan 2008 11:03 #933 by Kriz
Replied by Kriz on topic Re:There Will Be Blood
Michael Barnes wrote:

Heh...have you never seen a Guy Maddin film?


I haven't seen any, but looking through his titles on IMDB though I think you may be right. "Nude Caboose", "The Saddest Music In the World", "Sissy Boy Slap Party"....

Sends shivers down my spine.
Maybe I should give "There Will Be Blood" a chance.

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29 Jan 2008 08:40 #1598 by bfkiller
Replied by bfkiller on topic Re:There Will Be Blood
I think PTA is anything but a great director. He imitates Scorcese pretty well, but this time he's imitating John Ford, Orson Welles, and the like.

And a shitload of Kubrick.

I liked the movie quite a bit, though it's transition into pitch black comedy wasn't what I was expecting or where I wanted it to go.

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29 Jan 2008 10:31 #1604 by Michael Barnes
That's kind of the problem with the movie...it _never_ goes where you want it to go. It's like PTA is saying "Wah! I'm the director and this is how I think it should be" so a lot of stuff seems totally leftfield- like the kid's injury, which really amounted to nothing. The relationship between Sunday and Plainview was _by far_ the most amazing and interesting thing in the film...yet PTA sees fit to almost completely abandon that in all those shenanigans with the errant Plainview brother and leaves a lot of space around the whole capitalist/fundamentalist dynamic, which to me sort of blunts the impact of the last act. Sadly, he just isn't a master filmmaker although he's definitely playing at it throughout the show. There's brilliance in the picture, no doubt, but there's also an awkwardness that the really great filmmakers tend to leave behind in their earliest works.

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29 Jan 2008 12:27 - 29 Jan 2008 12:28 #1618 by bfkiller
Replied by bfkiller on topic Re:There Will Be Blood
Michael Barnes wrote:

That's kind of the problem with the movie...it _never_ goes where you want it to go. It's like PTA is saying "Wah! I'm the director and this is how I think it should be" so a lot of stuff seems totally leftfield- like the kid's injury, which really amounted to nothing.


I think the kid's injury was significant.

Spoilers below:


For one, we see (in one of the best moments of the film) that Daniel cares a lot more about tapping the well than seeing to HW's welfare. For two, this is the point that we begin to understand that the kid was a tool for Daniel, not a son -- just convenient iconography for his sales pitch. It was also an effective turning point for Daniel's character: without the need to affect love for HW, Daniel is free to be the frustrated, angry prick that he is.
Last edit: 29 Jan 2008 12:28 by bfkiller.

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29 Jan 2008 12:55 #1619 by Michael Barnes
Spoilers below...




See, I think it's more complex than that. Did Daniel really not care about HW? When he mock-confessed at what point was he simply playing along and at what point did something "human" really click in him? It's really unresolved at the end if Daniel's "bastard in a basket" taunts were based in truth or not. I think the intent of the whole injury thing was to sell us on Daniel's character as a heartless, profit-driven monster but the story kind of reveals that he's more human than we think- even the episode with the brother shows that there is something of compassion, if only in the service of profiteering. When he's meeting with the oil company, I think it's significant that he flips out on the guy because he thinks he's being told how to raise his family.

I'm just not convinced that the injury business was really for that purpose...it seemed like there was going to be some real significance to it but there really wasn't- although it did create a pretty amazing sense of tension during his last conversation with his father (will he speak or won't he?).

Daniel's a really complex character...there's definitely the side that would use his kid as a cute face to sell his "family man" line but there's also the side where he's genuinely concerned about the little abused Sunday girl. And it is interesting that someone that hates humanity so much and is almost completely single-minded in pursuit of gain would exhibit a humanitarian, charitable streak for someone who represents a link to his almost entirely out-of-story past.

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29 Jan 2008 15:16 - 29 Jan 2008 15:17 #1622 by bfkiller
Replied by bfkiller on topic Re:There Will Be Blood
Spoilers:

I think Daniel was a conflicted character, but not quite in the same way that you do. I don't think he was torn by his emotions for HW. I don't think he ever had much affection for the boy before the injury, even though he did try and love him and not just for show (after his injury, however, he has little but disdain for HW and only brings him back home once he becomes a useful display to keep up his show of redemption for Bandy and the others). I think Daniel's inner-turmoil is that he hates himself because he's full of nothing but hate and anger and distrust. He wants to love HW as a son and he wants to trust this stranger as a brother, but, when HW is of little practical use to him and the stranger turns out to be a fraud, Daniel no longer expresses anything but hate and anger. He stops trying to go against his nature.

When he's meeting with the oil company, I think it's significant that he flips out on the guy because he thinks he's being told how to raise his family.

That's a good point, though I took it that Daniel became enraged more in that he was being instructed on how to run his business and his life. Daniel doesn't like answering questions about his personal background. He also became enraged and violent with Eli twice for his insistence that Daniel live up to his promise. I think he was primed to explode on that clean-cut financier. Questioning Daniel's family image lit the fuse.

... he's genuinely concerned about the little abused Sunday girl.

That's true, and lends itself to your interpretation more than mine.
Last edit: 29 Jan 2008 15:17 by bfkiller.

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31 Jan 2008 02:09 #1701 by PseudoIntellectual

Michael Barnes wrote:
...it seemed like there was going to be some real significance to it but there really wasn't...


That's a pretty sound evaluation of every suspenseful part in the film. I liked it anyway, especially the more atmospheric scenes, but still had a sense of "Was there really much of a point to any of that?".

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20 Feb 2008 12:00 #3057 by Kriz
Replied by Kriz on topic Re:There Will Be Blood
Ok, so "There Will Be Blood" finally came to my small town theater...and with our matinee prices $4.50 and the fact I don't have to drive 40 minutes to see a decent movie, I gave this film a chance...

Wow. I was amazed.... "There Will Be Blood" was great! There were 3 other people in the theater, including my Mom who I invited along...and none of them really liked it. But I did.

Its a great exploration of a few complex characters in some amazing situations. I saw meaning in all of the major suspenseful events in the film...but they are not explosive, earth shattering moments because ultimately the movie is about Daniel Day Lewis's character, and these suspenseful events affect that rather than any larger plot about oil drilling. The story of oil really just serves as a way to show how far the main character will go to get more and more money and profit, even if it means sacrificing everything else around him.

BIG SPOILERS ahead:

I like the fact that Daniel Day Lewis's character had a human side to him. He was a greedy capitalist who would sacrifice about anything in the world for more oil, but its obvious that he didn't think of himself that way...and he was a human after all. I'm very anti-capitalist in many ways, well really in most ways, but I don't agree with painting a picture of a hyper-capitalist as pure villain with no good qualities or admirable traits. Most people in this world are human and see themselves as such. I'm reminded of a documentary film I saw where a group of activists in the UK went to stage a protest on the yard of the CEO of Shell Oil. They were there with signs of murderer and destroying the environment and such...and he came out to talk with them. And said how he didn't want to make anywhere politically unstable or ruin the environment...he cared about these issues too. The activists didn't really know what to do and eventually just left. And I think he was sincere, and did not see himself directly contributing to the suffering his company causes.

In the movie its the same way...no Daniel Day Lewis isn't twirling his moustache, he has a more subtle evil that grows within his character. In the movie he's only directly responsible for 2 deaths, but this is only after he's seen many people killed and injured in avoidable ways. He's not directly responsible for them, but he could have taken actions that decreased his profits that prevented them from happening. And I think this is a far more realistic portrayal of greed and its effects on others.

About his son, HR....his condemnation at the end of him is left open to interpretation, and Ive changed my thoughts about it a couple times. At first when I thought about it, I thought he was lying, because there are other points in the film that show how much he cared for his son (and I think he genuinely did, early on at least), and he was just doing it to hurt him. But now I think he was telling the truth, and here's why. He sees betrayal and deceit wherever he goes in the movie...with the preacher he sees him as a fraud using ignorant people for his own personal gain. His "brother" he sees as an imposter, but is eventually convinced he's not. (then of course he admits he is) Why these people have such a strong effect on him, and why their murders are necessary to him, is because they hold a mirror up to his own deceit with his son. This suspiciousness and hate he feels for people is reflected right back at him, and it reveals him to be just as much as a fraud and opportunist as they are. When he gets mad at people for talking about his family, he overcompensates to try and prove to himself that he actually does care about his son and isn't just the same as everyone he hates around him.

And he does have a human side...its just that profits trump it. He does care about his son, but when it comes to choosing between him or oil its an agonizing choice for him, but he chooses oil.

I think the movie is a great example how capitalism and the profit motive feed the worst qualities in people, and that really anyone's humanity can succumb to it. Its the system that breeds the evil in people.

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20 Feb 2008 14:10 - 20 Feb 2008 14:12 #3059 by bfkiller
Replied by bfkiller on topic Re:There Will Be Blood
Kriz wrote:

He sees betrayal and deceit wherever he goes in the movie...with the preacher he sees him as a fraud using ignorant people for his own personal gain. His "brother" he sees as an imposter, but is eventually convinced he's not. (then of course he admits he is) Why these people have such a strong effect on him, and why their murders are necessary to him, is because they hold a mirror up to his own deceit with his son. This suspiciousness and hate he feels for people is reflected right back at him, and it reveals him to be just as much as a fraud and opportunist as they are. When he gets mad at people for talking about his family, he overcompensates to try and prove to himself that he actually does care about his son and isn't just the same as everyone he hates around him.

Hmmm... I think that any time he displayed the ferociousness of his anger, it was always directed towards someone who he considered to be his competition in some way or another: Daniel (even more so than the preacher) was trying to defraud the ignorant locals and Eli kept intruding on his schemes; he saw the conman as trying to hoard in on his money (though your interpretation that his anger is primarily over the conman's deceit is easier to defend than my slant which is admittedly a bit tenuous); he's very quick to anger at the wealthy oil tycoons; Daniel's disdain for HW isn't directly expressed to the audience until he views him as a (carefully enunciated) "competitor."
Last edit: 20 Feb 2008 14:12 by bfkiller.

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20 Feb 2008 14:27 #3060 by Kriz
Replied by Kriz on topic Re:There Will Be Blood
Well, I think he gets angry at them because they are competitors...initially. And thats what he tells himself is the reason for his anger. But I think he never addresses the real issues of his anger, which is why he turns to drink and insanity towards the end. And I think the real issue is he sees too much similarity in himself with the people he despises and hates.

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