Viewed: In theatre
Release Date: January 11, 2008
writer: Paul Thomas Anderson
director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Upon seeing the trailer for There Will Be Blood for the first time, a haunting, screeching score backing a few glimpses of the oil baron and the evangelical minister, I wasn't interested until the directorial credit for Paul Thomas Anderson appeared. With every PT Anderson film, initial impressions can be deceiving. Though he only has five films under his belt, with Boogie Nights the most notorious of them, after Dirk Diggler became almost a household name, he became one of the must-watch directors of the '90's. With every film he's done since, something audacious, something unique has emerged, sometimes worth ceremony, sometimes just as curiosity.
With Magnolia, a 3-hour meditation on mood through multiple interweaving and independent storylines. It was a cinematic experiment tying themes, colours and music into the core conceit, and it's worthy of as much of its praise as it is its derision. It was a disappointment at the box office, a failure with many fans and critics cited as boring and pretentious, but just as much it's garnered its defenders who are willing to give it the patience and investment it requires to fully be understood. For Anderson to then turn to low-brow huckster Adam Sandler for redemption was an unexpected move and Punch-Drunk Love was Anderson's interpretation of the "Sandler formula" of film, and he made an honest-to-god actor out of the comedian, even if the film wasn't nearly as smart or funny as it could have been.
But here, almost six years later, Anderson has more than fulfilled the promise that Boogie Nights' champions wanted out of his follow-up works. In fact, Anderson has moved away from the layered textures of Magnolia and Boogie Nights into something more straightforward, something more iconic, perhaps not quite Citizen Kane territory, but certainly analogous to it. Fond of the big film, this one doesn't shy away from epic, as it spans decades and over two and a half hours, but it surprisingly never yields to dull. Much of it can be attributed to Thomas' direction, the editing, the cinematography, but most of all, it's Daniel Day Lewis who carries almost every frame of this film in another Oscar nominated (and had he a nude fighting scene, a sure-fire winner for best actor) performance.
Release Date: January 11, 2008
writer: Paul Thomas Anderson
director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Upon seeing the trailer for There Will Be Blood for the first time, a haunting, screeching score backing a few glimpses of the oil baron and the evangelical minister, I wasn't interested until the directorial credit for Paul Thomas Anderson appeared. With every PT Anderson film, initial impressions can be deceiving. Though he only has five films under his belt, with Boogie Nights the most notorious of them, after Dirk Diggler became almost a household name, he became one of the must-watch directors of the '90's. With every film he's done since, something audacious, something unique has emerged, sometimes worth ceremony, sometimes just as curiosity.
With Magnolia, a 3-hour meditation on mood through multiple interweaving and independent storylines. It was a cinematic experiment tying themes, colours and music into the core conceit, and it's worthy of as much of its praise as it is its derision. It was a disappointment at the box office, a failure with many fans and critics cited as boring and pretentious, but just as much it's garnered its defenders who are willing to give it the patience and investment it requires to fully be understood. For Anderson to then turn to low-brow huckster Adam Sandler for redemption was an unexpected move and Punch-Drunk Love was Anderson's interpretation of the "Sandler formula" of film, and he made an honest-to-god actor out of the comedian, even if the film wasn't nearly as smart or funny as it could have been.
But here, almost six years later, Anderson has more than fulfilled the promise that Boogie Nights' champions wanted out of his follow-up works. In fact, Anderson has moved away from the layered textures of Magnolia and Boogie Nights into something more straightforward, something more iconic, perhaps not quite Citizen Kane territory, but certainly analogous to it. Fond of the big film, this one doesn't shy away from epic, as it spans decades and over two and a half hours, but it surprisingly never yields to dull. Much of it can be attributed to Thomas' direction, the editing, the cinematography, but most of all, it's Daniel Day Lewis who carries almost every frame of this film in another Oscar nominated (and had he a nude fighting scene, a sure-fire winner for best actor) performance.
Lewis plays Daniel Plainview who we see from the first frame to the last, at first shrouded in darkness, nothing but a silhouette of black against black, a faint light from above, and the occasional spark as his pickaxe chips into stone. The first ten minutes are bravely dialogue-free, showcasing Plainview's isolated life as he mines for riches, for oil, suffering exhaustion and a fall, permanently damaging his leg. Eventually he finds what he seeks, black gold, and soon he has an operation and a crew. A baby is carried amongst the men, belonging to whom it's never truly said, the child's origin an unknown, until soon Plainview speaks, 13 years after we first saw him, and he introduces a boy as his son, H.W. Plainview. Before a candlelit hall crammed with people, Plainview seeks to dig for oil, his resources his own, his ability to pay back the community greater than any of his competitors. He's a businessman, and a shrewd one, able to exploit people and their weaknesses without giving the air of doing so.
Plainview's sharp sense of discovery and his knowledge of the oil mining process make him fierce, a man willing to jump at the easy option, but not above taking the harder route out of spite or determination. He has no qualms about hard work if it means making money and triumphing over his adversaries. Later he explains that he hates people and seeks only to have enough money to get as far away from them as possible. But were this his sole motivation he would have taken numerous opportunities to prosper quickly and get out. No, he's a man of spite, and spiting, and his actions are as much to earn him a living as it is to take one away from someone else who in some large (or small, or completely insignificant) manner has slighted him.
A young man by the name of Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) visits Plainview with information to sell, noting he has the location of a ranch where oil just sits on top of the ground. After a shrewd discussion between the two, Paul receives his fee and tells all, the next day Daniel and H.W. are in Little Boston, scouting the Sunday ranch, posing as pheasant hunters. The Sunday family, consisting of the elder parents, two young girls and another son, Eli (also Paul Dano), the spitting image of Paul, welcome the visitors to their land. Eli, it turns out, is the local minister, preaching in an evangelical fashion, high on the healing hands and "casting demons away" style of theatrics. When Plainview gives the elder Sunday his pitch to buy the land, it's Eli who steps in to bargain, finagling little money for the family, but instead for his church.
Tragedies strike as the new well is built, with one accidental death occurring, and HW losing his hearing when he's jarred by the eruption of oil. Despite the accidents, Little Boston prospers with the Well, as does Eli's church in parallel, but the tension between Eli Sunday and Daniel Plainview is one that refuses to die as Eli vies for equal footing with Plainview who refuses to yield anything. There's a tug of war between religion and commerce, but although Plainview is readily able to let go of faith, Eli can't help but be seduced and challenged by greed.
The film's core is not about the Sunday/Plainview feud though, Eli used as both a counter and like-minded character to put Daniel Plainview up against. It's a profile of this oil-slick, cold-hearted baron, and his contradictory ways. He's not a showman, but he knows performance, how to give one and when one's being given to him. But he has moments where his rare and raw emotions shine through. When a half-brother, Henry Brands, comes calling, Daniel finds he has family he barely knew about, and the clarity as to whether it's Henry or Daniel who was without their father in childhood isn't exactly made clear. With HW unable to hear or communicate and a new brother in place, Plainview ships his son off to a school for the deaf and replaces him with Henry at his side, ever the "family man" to his potential investors or business partners. Although HW and Henry are silent props, it's evident that Plainview desires a connection to these people, but seemingly one at a time. He can't seem to express emotion, and at times no doubt feigns it, but he seems to desire a family bond, but it conflicts with his hating-of-people worldview. In the scheme, though, Plainview becomes a drunk, and not beyond the threat of violence, or violence itself. Every encounter has the possibility of Plainview losing control.
The film ends nearly 30 years after it begins, in 1927, with Plainview still prosperous, living extravagantly in an opulent mansion. His son now accompanied by an interpreter seeks to get out from his father's dark shadow, while Eli returns, his condition far more dire, and Plainview handles both only as his character has shown, by inflicting the most amount of harm and insult there is, feeling completely justified, even family not beyond being his enemy and his worst enemy a mouse to his pouncing cat. The finale is black and Kubrick-ian, the final two words uttered - "I'm finished" - full of multiple meanings and interpretations.
Anderson has put together a masterpiece tracking a cold, calculating, unscrupulous individual devoid of most humanity, but in scant rare and frail moments there's a pathos to him which shakes up everything else that he says or does. Plainview is a character worth watching because he's enigmatic. For everything Anderson shows us, the years of his life, and for the way Lewis brilliantly portrays him - at times calm, collected, shrewd, conflicted, determined, violent, vindictive, fragile and more - it's what we're not privy to, that is the inner workings of Plainview's mind, that keeps us guessing as to his motivations in both speech and action. Lewis evokes such thoughtfulness, Plainview chewing on something, his brow furrowed, the camera holding still allowing the audience to tour his face... there's thoughts going on in there, but what? Where many an actor would take Plainview's moments of madness and violence, his aggressive business acumen and his familial incongruities to scenery-chewing, grandiose levels, Lewis keeps it reigned it except the very few moments where his character and not the actor needs to let go. Even when the character is out of it, Lewis is in full control.
The cinematography is brilliant, Anderson employing many stagnant wide shots where the central figures inhabit but a fraction of the scene, allowing the North Carolina vistas room to breathe. The composition of so many scenes invites a depth that most directors don't allow anymore. The view as the first Little Boston well burns from early evening through to morning, sunset and sunrise, allows the audience to not just take in the scene of the fire, but the way Plainview reacts to it, the way nameless, faceless workers react to it, the way it's smoke envelops the sky and the way the light illuminates so much and so little. Even in tracking shots, Anderson lets the focus walk away from the camera, moving from the for to the mid-ground, giving us a sense of looking on without invading, keeping us at a distance from Plainview or Sunday or H.W. while still within earshot.
If there's a detraction to the film it's the score by Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood. At times bombastic and abrasive, occasionally overbearing and overwhelming, and often out of synch with the actions on the screen, it's a challenging score and not altogether likeable. But it has its moments, especially when it's falls into rhythm, or hints at something softer. Greenwood evokes an overall sense of dread where dread is perhaps not the intended theme. Through the score we get the sense that Plainview is dangerous or there's a bad turn around every corner, but it doesn't do the character or the film justice to paint him as a dangerous force, especially when Anderson is trying to establish moments of redeeming characteristics.
Daniel Plainview, after one viewing, remains a mystery, and I'm not sure even repeated viewings would yield answers as to his full motivations. He's a dark man and not exactly someone you want to visit with regularity, but at the same time, he invites investigation, his contradictions too large to be left without exploring further. Not a delightful film, but an engrossing one from a disciplined director.
Rating: 5/5
Plainview's sharp sense of discovery and his knowledge of the oil mining process make him fierce, a man willing to jump at the easy option, but not above taking the harder route out of spite or determination. He has no qualms about hard work if it means making money and triumphing over his adversaries. Later he explains that he hates people and seeks only to have enough money to get as far away from them as possible. But were this his sole motivation he would have taken numerous opportunities to prosper quickly and get out. No, he's a man of spite, and spiting, and his actions are as much to earn him a living as it is to take one away from someone else who in some large (or small, or completely insignificant) manner has slighted him.
A young man by the name of Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) visits Plainview with information to sell, noting he has the location of a ranch where oil just sits on top of the ground. After a shrewd discussion between the two, Paul receives his fee and tells all, the next day Daniel and H.W. are in Little Boston, scouting the Sunday ranch, posing as pheasant hunters. The Sunday family, consisting of the elder parents, two young girls and another son, Eli (also Paul Dano), the spitting image of Paul, welcome the visitors to their land. Eli, it turns out, is the local minister, preaching in an evangelical fashion, high on the healing hands and "casting demons away" style of theatrics. When Plainview gives the elder Sunday his pitch to buy the land, it's Eli who steps in to bargain, finagling little money for the family, but instead for his church.
Tragedies strike as the new well is built, with one accidental death occurring, and HW losing his hearing when he's jarred by the eruption of oil. Despite the accidents, Little Boston prospers with the Well, as does Eli's church in parallel, but the tension between Eli Sunday and Daniel Plainview is one that refuses to die as Eli vies for equal footing with Plainview who refuses to yield anything. There's a tug of war between religion and commerce, but although Plainview is readily able to let go of faith, Eli can't help but be seduced and challenged by greed.
The film's core is not about the Sunday/Plainview feud though, Eli used as both a counter and like-minded character to put Daniel Plainview up against. It's a profile of this oil-slick, cold-hearted baron, and his contradictory ways. He's not a showman, but he knows performance, how to give one and when one's being given to him. But he has moments where his rare and raw emotions shine through. When a half-brother, Henry Brands, comes calling, Daniel finds he has family he barely knew about, and the clarity as to whether it's Henry or Daniel who was without their father in childhood isn't exactly made clear. With HW unable to hear or communicate and a new brother in place, Plainview ships his son off to a school for the deaf and replaces him with Henry at his side, ever the "family man" to his potential investors or business partners. Although HW and Henry are silent props, it's evident that Plainview desires a connection to these people, but seemingly one at a time. He can't seem to express emotion, and at times no doubt feigns it, but he seems to desire a family bond, but it conflicts with his hating-of-people worldview. In the scheme, though, Plainview becomes a drunk, and not beyond the threat of violence, or violence itself. Every encounter has the possibility of Plainview losing control.
The film ends nearly 30 years after it begins, in 1927, with Plainview still prosperous, living extravagantly in an opulent mansion. His son now accompanied by an interpreter seeks to get out from his father's dark shadow, while Eli returns, his condition far more dire, and Plainview handles both only as his character has shown, by inflicting the most amount of harm and insult there is, feeling completely justified, even family not beyond being his enemy and his worst enemy a mouse to his pouncing cat. The finale is black and Kubrick-ian, the final two words uttered - "I'm finished" - full of multiple meanings and interpretations.
Anderson has put together a masterpiece tracking a cold, calculating, unscrupulous individual devoid of most humanity, but in scant rare and frail moments there's a pathos to him which shakes up everything else that he says or does. Plainview is a character worth watching because he's enigmatic. For everything Anderson shows us, the years of his life, and for the way Lewis brilliantly portrays him - at times calm, collected, shrewd, conflicted, determined, violent, vindictive, fragile and more - it's what we're not privy to, that is the inner workings of Plainview's mind, that keeps us guessing as to his motivations in both speech and action. Lewis evokes such thoughtfulness, Plainview chewing on something, his brow furrowed, the camera holding still allowing the audience to tour his face... there's thoughts going on in there, but what? Where many an actor would take Plainview's moments of madness and violence, his aggressive business acumen and his familial incongruities to scenery-chewing, grandiose levels, Lewis keeps it reigned it except the very few moments where his character and not the actor needs to let go. Even when the character is out of it, Lewis is in full control.
The cinematography is brilliant, Anderson employing many stagnant wide shots where the central figures inhabit but a fraction of the scene, allowing the North Carolina vistas room to breathe. The composition of so many scenes invites a depth that most directors don't allow anymore. The view as the first Little Boston well burns from early evening through to morning, sunset and sunrise, allows the audience to not just take in the scene of the fire, but the way Plainview reacts to it, the way nameless, faceless workers react to it, the way it's smoke envelops the sky and the way the light illuminates so much and so little. Even in tracking shots, Anderson lets the focus walk away from the camera, moving from the for to the mid-ground, giving us a sense of looking on without invading, keeping us at a distance from Plainview or Sunday or H.W. while still within earshot.
If there's a detraction to the film it's the score by Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood. At times bombastic and abrasive, occasionally overbearing and overwhelming, and often out of synch with the actions on the screen, it's a challenging score and not altogether likeable. But it has its moments, especially when it's falls into rhythm, or hints at something softer. Greenwood evokes an overall sense of dread where dread is perhaps not the intended theme. Through the score we get the sense that Plainview is dangerous or there's a bad turn around every corner, but it doesn't do the character or the film justice to paint him as a dangerous force, especially when Anderson is trying to establish moments of redeeming characteristics.
Daniel Plainview, after one viewing, remains a mystery, and I'm not sure even repeated viewings would yield answers as to his full motivations. He's a dark man and not exactly someone you want to visit with regularity, but at the same time, he invites investigation, his contradictions too large to be left without exploring further. Not a delightful film, but an engrossing one from a disciplined director.
Rating: 5/5