There Will Be Blood

[ellen_datlow]

I saw it Saturday afternoon, and am very glad I got to see it before the Oscars. I enjoyed it very much: from the amazing non-verbal opening twenty minutes or so to the end(which I guess some people had problems with).

Daniel Day Lewis was brilliant. The other actors fine.The musical score was brilliant (I haven't yet seen some of the other movies whose scores were nominated--including that of Atonement which won). The directing was excellent and I had no problem with the storytelling and the passage of time in the last half an hour. If that missing gap of what 10-15 years hadn't been there, the movie would have been twice as long.

I understood everyone's motivation pretty well --except for Plainview perhaps--who I guess is "greedy" in some weird way--but what is he greedy for? He never has a woman as far as we can tell --Eli Sunday claims Plainview has been a "sinner" with women but you could have fooled me. His house at the end is nothing spectacular--he has done nothing with his power. This may be the one flaw in the movie that bothers me. Rick Bowes compares the character to Citizen Kane, but ...Kane's ambition is demonstrated time and time again. Plainview's never is. Plainview is never shown as seeking (or holding) office, he has no women, never seems like a spendthrift...

Anyone like to weigh in on this? Do you think it's a flaw? If not, then why not and what DO you think Plainview wanted?

Comments

[cinriter.livejournal.com]

I didn't see it as a flaw because I don't think Plainview is meant to be taken as a completely literal character; I see him as more of a metaphor for capitalism and corporate greed. In our era, amassing wealth (especially on the part of big companies) has come to seem almost like an end to itself, with no other real goal. In that respect, Plainview is very much of the 21st century!

Also, Plainview is often less about garnering wealth and more about crushing competition. When there's no wealth to be gained from destroying a rival, he'll resort to simply taking their lives instead.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I can go with that interpretation :-) He does talk about competition a few times and specifically destroys his relationship with his son over his perception of their competition, even though HW says he'll leave the country to start his own company.

[cinriter.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I actually thought HW got off pretty lucky being allowed to walk away!

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Yes. I think it showed that Plainview did indeed love his son, no matter that he disavowed their relationship quite angrily.

[mkhobson.livejournal.com]

My personal take is that Plainview was a man who spent his whole life trying to sublimate his sociopathic tendencies under a businessman/family man veneer. He was greedy for normality -- hence, his creepy relationship with his son and his especially brutal murder of the man who pretended to be his brother?

Of course, I need to watch it a few more times to really get confident in my interpretation, but at the core, I think the movie is about a monster trying to be a man, and failing miserably.

Citizen Kane, on the other hand, is about a boy who attempts to become a man and instead becomes a monster ... quite a different thing entirely.

M

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I like that interpretation too.

[(Anonymous)]

Plainview maybe is a sociopath who becomes a psychopath.

My comparison of Plainview and Kane was that thire stories are both about American success. Hearst was once described as a billionaire who became a multi-millionaire. He inherited the Comstock Lode and started rich. Most of his enterprises failed to make significant money. What he was looking for was personal success - importance.

Plainview has nothing and builds himself a fortune. But the wealth in non-mythic.

BTW I took the story he tells the kid about finding him in a basket in the desert as the truth.

Rick Bowes

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Interesting (about your belief about his boy)-so you didn't feel the guy caring for him at the beginning was his father? See, I did totally.

[jeff-h.livejournal.com]

So did I. So when he told HW he wasn't his real father, I thought he just added the "bastard in a basket" part because that's what Plainview does when he's been made a fool of--he takes things too far.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Yup.

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

I think Plainview hates people but needs them. That's the conflict that drives him to create and defend and breach and destroy his bonds with his son and his "brother" (in both senses). (I'm being oblique so as not to spoil the plot here.)

[m-soderstrom.livejournal.com]

::SPOILERS::

I thought Daniel Day-Lewis did a great job, as usual, but I didn't like the movie much at all. I kept waiting for something to happen beyond the expected, but it never did. I would have settled for a proper character piece, but this was disjointed and contrived. It may have been the result of trying to cram such a huge novel into a movie's play space, I dunno. I know what they were trying to do, but I don't think they succeeded.

That said, I think the title "There Will Be Blood" has, at first, nothing to do with Plainview's ruthlessness. I think it means blood as in family (notice that when he thinks he has a brother, he sends HW away, but brings him back when the truth is revealed). In the end, when family doesn't happen, he goes literal with the title. This is all just me speculating, but it may add extra meaning to his final "I'm done!". :)

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Unlike you, I had no expectations and thus was totally carried away by the movie happily enjoying the way it unfolded. As I didn't consciously realize at the time that it was based on a novel nor have I read that novel, I had no expectation of scope either...For me it did succeed at exactly what it was going.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Which is not to say that your disappointment is not valid. I just didn't see it that way.

Plainview

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

It seems as if Plainview is always trying to win. Whether that means intimidating a rival oil man or adopting a son in order to make people like him. By the third or fourth scene that need to win at something becomes his primary motive without much care for what exactly he's winning.

The son humanizes him to an extent as does the fake brother but in the end he's more burdened by these people than ennobled by them. The fact that his son is going to start his own oil business with his own fields should make him proud but it only angers him.

By the last scene he happily tortures and kills the preacher because that's the one person that ever could stand up to him and he's repaying an old grievance.

I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed.

[todd-vandy.livejournal.com]

SPOILERS!!!


Plainview's all about the competition, which isn't the same as greed. His soliloquy says as much. He competes with everyone including his own tortured self. He competes with the land, taking its life's blood (oil). He competes with oil companies. He completes with his "adopted" son. He competes with Eli. And he competes with God Himself (hence the biblical references).

And the final scene takes place where? In his bowling alley--a place of competition (against self and against opponents).

And how does he "win"? He beats Eli with a bowling pin, an object that's used to keep track of the score.

Plainview's final words: "I'm finished." The competition is over. Yes, he has "beaten" Eli (a false prophet). But he has lost his soul (and knows it-- a kind of victory in itself).

---
I think the film is flat out brilliant.

Re: I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

What a perfect analysis. Bravo!

[parttimedriver.livejournal.com]

SPOLIERS: Plainview wants to amass enough money and power so that he doesn't have to deal with other people, whom he for the most part despises. He pretty much says this in one of his conversations with his supposed half-brother. And by the end of the movie, that's exactly what he's done.

I wasn't sure about the status of his son, but Jeanne pointed out that the man at the beginning of the film who's caring for the baby in the oil field is clearly not Plainview. So I think the boy really isn't his biological offspring.

I was very impressed with the movie, and Daniel Day-Lewis' performance more than lived up to the hype.

[parttimedriver.livejournal.com]

SPOLIERS: Plainview wants to amass enough money and power so that he doesn't have to deal with other people, whom he for the most part despises. He pretty much says this in one of his conversations with his supposed half-brother. And by the end of the movie, that's exactly what he's done.

I wasn't sure about the status of his son, but Jeanne pointed out that the man at the beginning of the film who's caring for the baby in the oil field is clearly not Plainview. So I think the boy really isn't his biological offspring.

I was also struck by the near-total absence of women from the movie--except, interestingly enough, during the scenes where Plainview is making his pitch to various audiences of townspeople, many of whom are women.

A very impressive film, and Daniel Day-Lewis' performance more than lived up to the hype.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Hi Brett,
Oh, I never thought the child was Plainview's son--I also believe it was the child of the man who died in the accident. Read Todd Vandy's post above.

[clockwork-zero.livejournal.com]

In a note unrelated to your post...

Hi Ellen! I'm the steampunk jeweler from the Clockwork Zero blog. I thought I would say hello. I would like to add you to my friend's list on LJ. If you feel so inclined please feel free to friend me back. I'll be making some friends only posts regarding the jewelry as it becomes available.

many regards,
Zero

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Hi Zero,
You bet!