There Will Be Blood (2007)

Rated R for all kinds of reasons.  Besides being a movie fundamentally about cruelty and greed, the movie has on-screen brutal murder, language, blasphemy, child abuse, alcoholism, prostitution, and other such things.  It's one of those movies that just feels bleak, which is fine because it was never really intended for children.  R.

DIRECTOR:  Paul Thomas Anderson

I'm letting the grand experiment begin.  I'm back to writing the novel and --God forbid! --it's actually going well.  When I wrote the first draft of the book, I avoided movies so I wouldn't have to write blogs.  But I have enough study halls where I can be productive writing and still maintain the blog.  I won't lie.  I'm going to stick some longer films in here so I don't have to write blogs as often.  But I'm seeing if I can write a blog after spending multiple hours a day already writing.  It's a bit much; a bit extra.  But I also like the idea that I'm the most productive human alive.

There Will Be Blood might be one of those perfect movies.  I have this theory that there are a handful of perfect movies.  They might not be my favorite movies, but they might be perfect.  There Will Be Blood is really hard to criticize in my head.  It's not a surprise that I worship at the altar of Paul Thomas Anderson.  But There Will Be Blood might be the movie that got me into PTA.  (I did it.  I called him PTA.  I was wondering if I would ever be that guy and I just proved that I am.)  There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece that sits on the foundation of a movie that should be unsellable.  Honestly, if you summarized this movie to me, I would think that this is an incredibly boring idea.  Oddly enough, I own the book that the movie was based on and I haven't read it.  (It's on the list to be read soon.) There seems to be nothing fun about this movie.  In retrospect, it might not actually be fun at all.  But what should be an incredibly boring film is, scene-for-scene / shot-for-shot one of the most fascinating pieces of cinema ever created.  (Again, I tried to figure out how to get it on my Top 4 movies on Letterboxd and I can't move the other four.  I kinda / sorta want to move Seven Samurai off of that list, but each time I watch that movie, I love it more.) 

What makes There Will Be Blood is that it is the perfect storm of every element.  My gut wants to say that this is an engaging study of the human condition through Daniel Plainview, a man who is so aggressively flawed, juxtaposed by his bizarro mirror, who is also evil. That's absolutely true.  Daniel Plainview and Eli are the perfect two-hander.  Daniel is a monster of a human being who has snippets of humanity.  While the movie ends with Daniel telling H.W. the reality of his birth, claiming that the child was nothing but a mask for Daniel's demonic selfish nature, the flash implies that --for as much as that may have been the initial choice that Daniel made --H.W. was a loved child.  Yet, we see this kid hate Daniel the further that H.W. is plunged into silent isolation.  The pride that Daniel has at H.W.'s wrath seems genuine.  When H.W. returns home from San Francisco, he starts striking out at Daniel, he praises the child.  Daniel takes what is fundamentally immoral and finds value in the displays of the immoral.  One of the more quotable moments in the film is when he is being baptized by Eli.  It's the "I've abandoned my child" scene.  This moment is Eli's revenge.  It goes as far as Eli using this baptism to hit Daniel without chance of recompense.  Daniel's humiliated at the notion of having to wear the weakness of Christian virtue, despite knowing that Eli is a fraud.  But once Eli starts with the hits, there's a hint of a smile on Daniel's face.  There's a respect for the perversion of religion for the sake of revenge.  

Counter this with Eli.  Both Daniel and Eli are characters that wear masks.  With the case of Daniel's mask, it's a little straightforward.  He starts his presentations in every town saying, "I'm an oilman." Translated, "I'm a businessman" or "I'm a conman."  There's almost a tacit understanding that Daniel is there to roll out a product and present it in the best possible light.  But Eli inverses that.  Eli is a monster, much in the same way that Daniel is.  The odd thing is that he is in conflict with another monster.  (All these Godzilla movies are helping me with this blog!)  Eli wears the mask most of the time.  We see Daniel lose the facade while Eli stays as the character the entire time.  This is very much The Prestige.  Daniel calls Eli on his showmanship the first time that he visits the Church of the Third Revelation, but we don't really need that explicit observation to really pick up on that.  Eli's character is seductive for him.  It gives him importance.  He loves being a big fish in a small pond.  While Daniel may derive joy from the beating he receives, to Eli, that is the worst thing that can happen to him.  Being humiliated like that shows that he is untouchable.  For Eli, his position as God's representative on Earth is quite literal.  He wants to be treated as God.

As God, he humiliates those around him.  He is the wrathful God who will not stand for human weakness.  If we remove Eli's title as the pastor of the Church, Eli is a guy who beats his father for giving away land to Daniel Plainview.  That's pretty messed up, but that's what is happening in that scene.  He is mad at his own weakness and decides to shame those around him.  It is a grasp for gaining power back and it works.  These two characters, Daniel and Eli, drive each other into further misery for their own selfish needs.  But that dynamic isn't necessarily the same.  There's a specific power dynamic that we don't see very often.  Eli, from Daniel's perspective, is so beneath him.  He should be a bump in the road, at most.  But this is a kid that he ends up beating to death with a bowling pin, not because he embarrassed himself, but because he allowed himself to fail.  Eli highlights Daniel inherent flaw: his hatred for failure.  When H.W. goes off to form his own oil company in Mexico, Daniel hates H.W., but allows it to happen.  But Daniel gets violent when his competition drops the ball.  With Henry, that moment of vulnerability showing that the con man couldn't maintain the illusion causes Daniel to shoot Henry.  When the man from Standard Oil tells Daniel how to do something that he's not good at (raising his son), he makes an enemy for life.  But he only beats Eli to death when Eli comes begging for money.  He's hated Eli the entire time, but there's at least a weird respect between game-recognizing-game.  Eli becomes a reflection for Daniel's own failures, which mostly include leaving the game.  As greedy as Daniel is, the real failure is allowing himself to live a life of luxury.  It's probably why Standard Oil's offer of a million dollars is so insulting to him.  It's  offering him a life without purpose, much like Star Trek: The Motion Picture with Kirk.

But everything in this movie is so good.  It's minimalist plot coupled with amazing visuals is what makes Paul Thomas Anderson so darned impressive.  He does so much visual artistry with so little to work with.  Everything is visually stunning.  I was almost angry looking for photos of this movie because none of them were high res enough to really show off how good this movie looks.  (Scans were probably made in 2007 and not updated.)  

But then there are the performances.  I know that Daniel Day Lewis will always be praised as one of the greatest performers ever.  He's earned that reputation.  But this might be his best performance.  Daniel Plainview, a guy who wears his intentions on his sleeve, is somehow still a nuanced character.  There are levels to be extracted from every choice that Daniel Day Lewis makes that are teases and behind the eyes.  And this is the movie that introduced me to Paul Dano.  Up to today, I will still say that Paul Dano is one of the greatest actors.  I go to movies knowing that Paul Dano is in the movie and it's because of There Will Be Blood.  Eli has those intense, wrath of God scenes.  But he also is this guy who has evil behind the quiet moments.  Eli is terrifying.

One thing if I had to criticize the movie.  It is my job.  Asking Paul Dano to do double duty as both Paul and Eli is incredibly confusing.  I read the story about why they did that.  It needed to be addressed way before the end of the movie.  Even Daniel Plainview questions this moment when he meets Eli.  He thinks he's being played.  But Daniel has knowledge that we don't.  He knows what happened to Paul that we never got.  The fact that the family never really talks about Paul made me question whether or not Paul was real or simply a manipulation by Eli at the start of the film.  It's really confusing, but I'm glad there's resolution at the end.

Okay, I didn't write as much as I usually do.  Writing this much is exhausting.  That being said, I also have a hard time writing about movies that I adore.  I just need to remind myself that more doesn't always equal better.