February 4, 2008

here Will Be Blood

Pat and Regan at the Movies

By Patrick MacKenzie and Regan Taylor

Powerful Performances
Tell a
Powerful Story

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I don’t like to explain myself,” says Daniel Day-
Lewis about halfway through There Will Be Blood, in
his stunning turn as ruthless oil baron Daniel Plainview.
“I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people,” he
continues, and—true to his word—offers no explanation as to why.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s big, brutal film about the early days of the

- American oil industry similarly doesn’t do much to explain itself or its main
character (I can’t say hero, as this story has none). Instead of getting to the root of
this particular evil, the film asks that we simply watch the man grow harder with
success over several decades.

It speaks to Day-Lewis’s considerable acting abilities that he’s made such
an unlikeable man so very watchable. Here is a character so cutthroat, he actually
threatens—in the middle of what is meant to be a civilized business meeting —to
hunt down a rival and literally cut his throat. He’s so nasty, he’ll drag the local
preacher, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), through the mud by his hair for daring to ask
for his family’s share of the profits. And he’s so manipulative he later submits to a
baptism in Sunday’s wacko church just to get his hands on a piece of land crucial to
the construction of a pipeline. He’s visibly humbled, but he still yells “Get me out
of here!” even as he declares himself to be a sinner. Despite the ugliness inherent
in the man, Day-Lewis makes him, if not sympathetic, understandable. There
is something perversely admirable in a figure so driven and quick to remove all
obstacles to his success. And it’s essential that we see him exhibit of moments of
true tenderness (toward his adoptive son, H.W.); he’s not all bad, just mostly bad—
and that’s so much fun to watch. Day-Lewis’ craggy face is perfect against the arid
California backdrop, and his eyes have a twinkle that would be almost jovial if not
for the predatory, mustachioed smile beneath them.

Day-Lewis’s performance certainly carries this film; the plot’s not the
point, which is good, because it meanders and yawns over two-and-a-half hours.
But supporting performances are noteworthy, too, especially from the younger
actors. Dillon Freasier is wonderfully creepy and inscrutable as the junior
Plainview, and in his over-the-top sermons, Paul Dano brings an intensity to the
young preacher that matches Day-Lewis’s scenery-chewing. Equally important
to the film’s success is Jonny Greenwood’s queasy score, which makes even the
extended scenes of land-surveying jangle the nerves.

The tension between oilman and preacher is, arguably, the crux of this
story. Ultimately, the point seems to be that even a man of God can be as guilty
of greed as an oilman. It’s chilling to consider that Big Oil and fundamental
Christianity have been bedfellows from the get-go.

Not much, it turns out, has changed.

 

—Regan Taylor

 

     

A Brilliant, Dark Epic

Piste: the light-hearted, yet dark — and
comparatively short — Punch Drunk Love, Paul ,

Thomas Anderson returns to epic movie making in

his latest film There Will be Blood. But whereas the
sprawling Boogie Nights and Magnolia seem to have
been concerned with the profane details of their all-
too-human characters, There Will be Blood takes:on
themes as grand and as stark as the southern California
desert where it takes place. As if echoing popular conceptions of the holy land

at the time of Christ, the story unfolds in a dry barren landscape populated with
poor farmers and their families who can barely scratch out an existence from its
unproductive ground. With the discovery of oil underneath their land by the likes of
prospector and subsequent “Oil Man” Daniel Plainview—played with both control
and an intensity bordering on the diabolical by Daniel Day-Lewis—the temptation
to sell overrides all other concerns, particularly that of the social bonds of family,
and specifically those between fathers and sons and brothers. It is through these
relationships, however tentative and contingent, that the film’s epic narrative is
propelled.

Although they aren’t blood relatives, the most significant relationship
in the movie (it seemed to me) was the recurring association between Plainview
and Eli Sunday. A civilization of sorts springs up around one of Plainview’s most
productive oil wells — complete with a tent city and a church. Boyish preacher Eli
Sunday, played with schizophrenic aplomb by Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine,
Fast-food Nation), leads the congregation of the Church of the Third Revelation.
Both Eli and Plainview, with varying degrees of enthusiasm take on the role of
father figure. But whereas the role of father is incidental to Plainview’s more
earthbound role as leader of men and captain of industry, Eli takes his own
leadership as something God-given and holy, and therefore above the rabble of men
who chase after wealth and power. But at the same time, no matter how much Eli
plays at moral and religious superiority, deep down he longs for power. In doing
so, he becomes a reflection of Plainview. In essence, Plainview and Eli are spiritual
father and son in their shared desire for the things to be gotten in this world. For
Plainview, however, power is a means to an end: Namely in his wish to “get away
from people.” Alternatively, power for Eli, in his willingness to lord it over others
for his own edification like a domineering father, is entirely attached to his ego and
is an end in itself.

Although both characters are ultimately despicable, in his honest
misanthropy, in his ability to see people like Eli Sunday for the dishonest beings
they really are, Plainview comes across as the moral center, if there can be one, of
the film. When he says to “half brother” Henry, “I see the worst in people,” it isn’t
just a flippant remark: Plainview means it, and carries out his mean perceptions of
the world to the bloody end.

There will be Blood is brilliant filmmaking. Check it out.

 

—Pat MacKenzie

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