I confess: Paul Thomas Anderson???s There Will Be Blood has pretty much slain me. In three weeks of trying to nail down what makes this film tick, I haven???t been able to mold my thoughts into anything resembling a traditional movie review. I feel like the first step to defining what this film is, and why it’s had such an impact on me, is to figure out what it isn???t. So, I???ll now proceed to blatantly rip off Filmbrain, and review TWBB in more-or-less list form. What follows is my analysis of five common misconceptions about this film. We???ll have more on There Will Be Blood on next week???s podcast.
Misconception 1: “There Will Be Blood is a Monster Movie, and Daniel Plainview is the Monster.”
Espoused by: Peter Martin at Twitch, Richard Schickel at TIME, Fred Schurers at PORTFOLIO, among others.
We’ll begin with a misconception that I can sort of understand–in fact, I think it’s less a misconception than a missing of the point. Daniel Day Lewis’ presence in TWBB is terrifying, not least because of the booming sing-song in which he speaks. But if this voice calls to mind any sort of known movie villain at all, it’s the type of villains seen mainly in cartoons–he’s essentially a Snidely Whiplash that could kill you with his bare hands. But PTA never lets the characterization have the final word on the character. One of the most intriguing things about this film is its unwillingness to completely vilify anyone: both protagonists (Plainview as well as Paul Dano’s young preacher, Eli Sunday) are equally good and evil, antagonistic and sympathetic. Both are wrong and both are right. Plainview may behave monstrously, but with the final scene excepted, the victim of his terror is mostly himself.
It’s easy to see Plainview as the “bad” guy, if for no other reason because he spends so much time apparently antagonizing the “good” guys. But to do so is to misread. Plainview comes to Little Boston (the nothing Western town that serves as the site of the film’s main action; it might as well be called Manifest Destiny-ville) promising that the oil he excavates will pay the way towards The Future: schools, roads, freedom from hunger and virtually any other brand of want. He’s offering this promise to God-fearing people who may still be grappling with the present and the past, but it’s more than just a struggle between old and new, or even religion and blasphemy. Plainview’s real “gift” to the community is his introduction of cynicism, mistrust, and doubt. His presence represents the literal loss of faith. Scary, sure, but the horror movie dynamics are reductive, and they’ve been way overblown.
(more…)
Originally posted on:
SpoutBlog