Film Review:There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood is a film for people who love film. The strength of this epic lies in what is primary to the medium of film itself: the image. Nearly every shot could be captured and framed, as a still a perfect visual work of art. In fact, the first ten minutes of the film are devoid of dialogue, reflecting the historical beginnings of film, a time where the visuals carried the story, not the words. The opening sequence also demonstrates the essential theme of the film, a theme thoroughly American and vital to cinema reaching all the way back to Citizen Kane, and tapping into an American mythology that has circulated since its Westernized inception, that a man can come from nothing and through his own individual efforts and hard work achieve the American dream of accumulating vast wealth and as a result find true happiness. We see this theme distilled in the visual poem that is the beginning of the film as Daniel Plainview, having broken his leg falling down a mine shaft he built with his own two hands and a single bucket-full of rudimentary tools, pulls himself out of the earth by his own power. Plainview starts the film alone in the American wilderness, a stark and desolate place, feral and rife for exploitation, and these opening images forecast the development of the rest of the film, which will explore the terrain of alienation lurking in the underbelly of that old American myth and the horrific side-effects caused by the unfettered pursuit of wealth and the “gentle” reminder of how easily corruptible the human soul is.

If you need another reason to see this film other than the cinematography which is dazzling, beautiful and brilliant or the performance by Daniel Day Lewis which joins the ranks of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull and Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet as a performance that transcends any conventional category or label and captures something immutable, compelling and frightening, then I will argue that this film is also great for its realization and reinvention of illusory aspects of the great American myth that the individual is the supreme force in the universe, that the pursuit of wealth and happiness are the chief aims of human existence, and that self-reliance is the vehicle best suited to the human condition. These ideals and beliefs pushed to the end of their logical conclusions lead to a world fueled by greed and selfishness, where only the most ruthless and the “fittest” are able to survive and do so exploiting the vital fluids (blood and oil) of other people and the earth, caring little for the subsequent destruction it causes. If this story is not one of the sharpest and spot-on critiques of our modern Western civilization, then what is?

Roger Ebert’s initial review of the film also compared it to Citizen Kane (which for the record I read AFTER making the connection myself), but Ebert claims that “There Will Be Blood is no Kane however” because “Plainview lacks a ‘Rosebud’” (rogerebert.suntimes.com). I, however, respectfully disagree. Rosebud, Charles Foster Kane’s dying words and boyhood sled, function in Citizen Kane, as a MacGuffin in the sense that it sets the action of the film in motion and propels the narrative, but unlike a traditional MacGuffin, which may have little meaning outside of a simple plot vehicle device, Rosebud signifies a pivotal moment in Kane’s life where as a young boy he lost his childhood, something he would spend the rest of his life trying to compensate for in his relentless pursuit of materialism. In this sense Rosebud is more than a MacGuffin because it gives the viewer a glimpse into Kane’s psychology, which is something the other characters in the film are not afforded despite their efforts. While I will grant Ebert that TWBB has no apparent MacGuffin, and therefore no Rosebud in this sense, there are a few moments which give us similar insight into the vulnerability and fragility of Plainview, as Rosebud does for Kane, and as I would argue is the more important way in which Rosebud functions Citizen Kane. One such example is Plainview’s welcoming of his supposed half-brother Henry. The viewer is skeptical of Henry’s story, and it seems incredulous that Daniel wouldn’t see through it in an instant. However, Daniel awkwardly tells Henry, “I’d like to hear you say you want to stay” in what passes for this emotionally stunted social misfit as a petition for help and an invitation to companionship. It’s apparent in this scene that Plainview is hungry for human contact, for a blood relation, for someone to partner with and confide in, even if what he has to confide is that he hates all people and that he has a competition inside him that makes him want to destroy everyone and everything around him. Another insight into his overcompensation for his feelings of vulnerability is Plainview’s over-the-top reaction to Standard Oil’s representative’s suggestion he retire from the oil business and spend time with his son. Plainview takes the man’s casual remark, which is largely prompted by Plainview himself, as a slight on his duty as a father, and as a result Plainview says he will find the man asleep in his home and slit his throat. His reaction, so out of proportion to what’s actually said, indicates not only that Plainview is cracking up, but that what he’s lashing out against is not really this man but rather his own inner demons, his own guilt for having abandoned his boy because of his hearing impairment. Plainview can’t cope with his son’s hearing impairment because, as the apogee of the great Darwinian maxim, Plainview is unable to tolerate any flaw, weakness, or imperfection that may hinder his survival. Ironically, he is oblivious to his own tragic flaw, that ancient Greek hamartia of hubris, or pride, a flaw as old as evil itself that would become his own undoing. Nevertheless, while Plainview may have no childhood sled locked in a vault in his mansion, these scenes create the same glimpses of vulnerability in his character, as that of Kane, and make him not merely an unfathomable idea pushed to an extreme conclusion, but rather a human character who is fragile, defensive and hurting and an ultimately tragic figure of epic proportion.

Another common complaint of the film I’d like to address is the ending. It should be noted that Plainview’s last words “I’m finished” work on a number of levels, one of the more abstruse ones being a sort of mirroring of Jesus Christ’s final words “It is finished.” It may seem a stretch at first, until you consider other Christological images in the film, which reflect the idea that Eli Sunday sees Plainview as a sort of messiah. This is shown visually in the film when Sunday approaches Plainview right before Daniel dedicates his first oil derrick. Sunday wants Plainview to dedicate the derrick to him and make a speech about it, however, after assenting to do so Plainview instead dedicates the derrick to Eli’s sister and in doing so further establishes the animosity that festers in their relationship for the remainder of the film. In the scene Eli’s point-of-view shots show Daniel positioned in front of two supporting beams which make an obvious cross on which Daniel appears to hang. This image of the cross is then repeated in the famous “conversion” scene and then again in the conversion scene’s doppelganger in the cross that hangs around Eli’s neck in the final scene. So in this sense the ending ties together several of the film’s main concepts, the linkage of oil and blood as well as the messianic relationship gone awry that blossoms between Eli and Daniel.

To touch on the oil and blood theme very briefly, it’s fairly obvious how the two work together in the film, as the first two deaths occur in oil pits where blood and oil mix together becoming indistinguishable. In the third death, Daniel’s murder of Henry, Daniel digs a shallow grave and slides Henry’s body into a pool of oil, and finally Daniel’s murder of Eli which ends the feud fueled by oil. What’s interesting in the nature of Daniel’s character in relationship to the development of the motif of blood and oil is that his paternal instincts are able to transcend the bonds of blood, in that he cares for his son H. W. despite not being his biological father, but his affections are stilted by the bonds of oil, in that he disowns his son once H. W. becomes his competition in the oil business. In this way the blood and oil theme not only works as a scathing critique on modern capitalism but also as a development in the psychological trajectory of Daniel Plainview.

Finally, despite seeming like a sprawling and meandering tale TWBB is actually very tightly knit together. This becomes more obvious on repeated viewings. Anderson is a master of the visual details. In a scene late in the film that shows the development of H. W. and Mary’s relationship, H. W. leads Mary up some wooden steps to a platform from which they leap off. This shot of their literal leap off a platform as two children cuts immediately to their metaphorical matrimonial leap as adults. The scene is compact, communicates entirely on a visual level, and proves TWBB is great not only because of its stunning cinematography, its transcendent acting, and its epic theme, but because Anderson is a master of the details. It is a film I can’t wait to watch again, and will continue to watch as long as I have eyes to see.

Awesome Quote

"but sometimes when the poet paced back and forth across his lawn, or sat down for a moment on the bench at the end of it, or paused under his favorite hickory tree, I could distinguish the expression of passionate interest, rapture and reverence, with which he followed the images wording themselves in his mind, and I knew that whatever my agnostic friend might say in denial at that moment Our Lord was with him."

Vladimir Nabokov from Pale Fire

You will hate this post

Is capitalism a failure? If so, what’s the antidote? It doesn’t seem much of a stretch to say that capitalism is a failure when our market has crashed twice within the last 100 years. In both instances it seems to me the primary reason for the market failure lies in the fact that humans left to their own devices are selfish, greedy and opportunistic. I find it both ironic and sickening that big business put pressure on the government a decade or so ago to stay out of “their business affairs” moaning their mantra of deregulation, only to change their tune after deregulation had run its course leaving business to its own avarice. Now the new mantra is “bail me out benevolent government…save me from the consequences of my own sin for I know not what I do.” The last part of that mantra may seem apt as we see in the media top executives floating along the horizon on their golden parachutes, laughing maniacally as they hover over the rest of us, claiming in the press that they had no idea what was going on in their businesses, and seemingly not being held responsible on any level for the devastation they’ve caused. It makes me question whether “survival of the fittest” is the most humane and the best economic policy we can come up with. I mean, after so many thousands of years, can’t we do better than this?

The typical solution to the ills of capitalism is less business and more government. But is that really the solution? When it becomes status quo for congressmen to be engaged in illicit affairs, scandal, you-name-it how can we assume that these people are capable of making decisions “for the greater good” when they can’t make simple moral and just decisions in their personal lives, which is just another way of phrasing the heart of the problem of capitalism: that people are ultimately selfish, greedy and opportunistic. This is largely why I have remained aloof from politics. How can I have hope and faith in any person who is immersed in a system that is thoroughly corrupt?

There seems to me from what I’ve seen in the media to be a lot of good about Barak Obama. What I appreciate about this year’s election is that women and not-all-white men were contenders (and winners), and I think that’s something that’s been long over-due in our nation’s history. Put very simply, it’s about damn time. However, I have heard many people say that either 1) they voted for Obama because he was black and they thought it was finally time to elect a black President or 2) because Obama was elected it proves that racism is dead in America. Now the people who generally argue point #1 are usually democrats, and the people who argue point #2 are usually republicans, but despite how differently they each perceive their own points-of-view, they both fall prey to the same wrong-headed implicitly racists assumptions. The first argument does so by putting primary to Obama’s qualifications his skin color as justification for his election. The second argument by its very admission, speaks to the fact that race is an issue (methinks thou doest protest too much). I mean, by the very fact that the media makes such a big deal out of Obama being the first black President shows how entrenched race is on our collective consciousness. What is truly ironic about this is that Obama is only half black; he’s also half white. I mean, why the hell isn’t he touted as the first half-white President? It’s true that skin color has nothing to do with his qualifications, that’s not the point; the man is well-educated (Harvard), articulate, charismatic (all things our lame-duck President lacks), so it’s no wonder Obama was a shoe-in against McCain; any young, well-educated, articulate and charismatic Democratic nominee should have been, because ultimately what most Americans vote for is either a party or an image, and Obama did a spectacular job creating the perfect image and tapping into America’s dissatisfaction with the current administration. It was a real no-brainer, and McCain knew it and all honest Republicans knew it too (or should have). Really this is all beside the point. My question is that if Obama were a quarter black would he still be the first black President? What if he were an eighth? And ultimately if we as a culture have really transcended race then what the hell does it really matter?

What I do appreciate about Obama’s campaign is that he strove to be less party focused and more issue focused. I have never been a fan of either party, and what I find enormously funny is that what the elections seem to boil down to are issues that have nothing to do with the larger ideals of each party. I can’t understand why the Democrats aren’t pushing for fetal rights when they seem to be concerned with the underdog, the marginalized and those without a voice. And it’s equally crazy how the Republicans have tapped the Evangelical crowd and the gun-lovers who are generally middle class when the Republican economic policies are all favorable for the rich, not the middle class. It captures a whole voting block based on one or two issues about which nothing ever really gets accomplished, but it’s successful in getting those blocks to vote against their own economic interest and not even notice or care.

So what’s the point? I don’t really know. All I can say is that my “hope” is not in free market capitalism. My “hope” is not in a President or a political system. I find myself coming to the same conclusion Socrates figured out over 2,500 years ago when he said that anyone who wants to rule should not rule because by the very fact that they want that sort of power and authority means they’re egomaniacs who ultimately have their own interest at heart; at the end of the day they’re selfish, greedy and opportunistic. The people who should rule are those who flee from the lure of power and authority; the ones who are humble and honest. But there is no such place for people like that in politics. There never has been and there most likely never will be.
As an American, I wish Obama the best of luck. It may startle and amaze me that anyone thinks they have the power to save our country, to give us change and hope and all those things humans have desperately wanted from the dawn of civilization. I know that I would never want such a position nor would claim to be capable of handling such a position. I know myself too well. But I do “hope” now, as I had hoped for our lame-duck eight years ago, that our President does well, and I truly hope my cynicism is misguided.