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This is one of the best, most thought out pieces I've seen on the film so far. Mookas makes the point I alluded to a couple pages back:

But the slant of Anderson's cuts in paring down Sinclair's novel is revealing. For the sake of intensifying the collusion between secular avarice and greed robed in sacred virtue, Anderson deletes Sinclair's major contest between capitalism and a viable red alternative personified in the romantic choice faced by the oilman's grown son, pitting Rachel Menzies, a sensitive, committed Socialist against Vee Tracy, a floozy starlet paid to keep him addled while pop smashes some labor unrest.

However inadvertent, the wholesale burial of Sinclair's vibrant Maypole - arguably the mast from which the tale is hung, as the oil scion Bunny Ross ends by endowing a labor college with his scandal-torn patrimony - abets the neoconservative myth that there never existed in our country a mass desire and popular movement toward a "collective commonwealth," toward an ordering of society beyond that which makes each person their fellow's competitor.

This seems like a critical observation for any real engagement with this material which extends beyond the solipsistic power struggles at the center. I await David Walsh's comments at WSWS.

Quite a good piece, but don't see how the film comes to the aide of "Conservative myth." It's about oil and it's called There Will Be Blood ie. Blood for Oil.

Makes me more eager to read the Sinclair novel than ever.

I've now seen the film three times and it impresses with each viewing. This is a very rich and complex piece of work.

On the Murnau side Dave re your comments about the connection between Ford & FW which I've been meaning to reply to--

I know that Ford was influenced by F.W (particularly owing to Sunrise, and the major riffing Ford did on the Murnau style in Four Brothers... appears that dupe sets were used between the films at times).

Except for the brief flirtation in the late twenties with Murnau's hi-art pictorialism combined with extremely rich and very "open" emotional intensity (a style that really marks F.W's post-German phase).. and roving camera too... I see Ford finally resolving his style into something far less stylistically self-conscious than Murnau, far less the "art" film. It's a mise en scene that just will not jibe with the direct & grizzly patter and American folksiness which comprised the bulk of his content. Even a deeply sensitive and mind-bendingly achieved film like Grapes, so full of incredible mise en scene (and such gorgeous rendering by Toland), never crosses a certain line of self-conscious "artsiness", the film never interrupts itself with itself, if you know what I mean.. it's that fantastic Fordian "inevitability" that is so often raised. You can never think of a better way to stage the unfolding set-ups because the set-ups, naturally beautiful via years of Fords expertise, never get in the way of the unfolding. That duly resolved, the lighting crew can then go on & create necessarily beautiful effects, create points of light in Carradine's twinkling half-mad eyes, etc. But at core, the mise-en scene moves...

The two men had a tendency to lapse into spangling "types" around their pictures, extremely rich and entertaining, livid and breathing, yet ultimately one-dimensional characters... but I see this as a very common storytelling device going back to--and before-- Griffith, who was a master of this kind of hot-kettle storyteling.

Again, though I see similarities between Ford and F.W., I don't see them as very significant. In fact I'd go so far as to say that the schluffing off of Murnau's influence on him, clearing away the cobwebs of awe, and getting back to the richly reductive means (which is to these eyeballs more reminiscent of silent era Niblo or Walsh than Murnau) was the definitive move of Fords artistic maturation. And the biggest reason is this: Murnau was a very sad and deeply sensitive man, his movies are filled with deep seated passionate groans about loss, the unfairness of the assault by evil on good, substantive and sensitive people minding their own business. Ford sensed after a couple pictures that for him, this "hi art temperament" was just not him. He was far too impatient with that kind of self-conscious mindset and the lack of self-refelxivity in the bulk of his films seem to reflect that impatience. He could be mean-spirited, enjoy the chutzpa of the mean spirited man (so long as he was 'one of us'). Murnau's whole canon on the other hand seems to be an unending plea to create an Emotional Police Dept to see to it that good, quiet, unoffending and sensitive people with no ill-will are left alone by the intrusive parasitic asshole Shits of the world.

I guess one could say, that in There Will Be Blood the "power" of the characters and the rare tones that they register are reminiscent of Murnaus unusual power-- I remember when I was younger, after getting Murnau's canon under my belt for the very first time that I thought to myself that the common denominator running through all of Murnaus films was this sense that I was watching something that was so real and so fiercely, dangerously private, so real, that the only decent thing to do was to turn the film off and let them work out these affairs in private as it was none of my business. I'd agree that this incredible, real-life sense of powerful unfolding is on display here to a degree. But there is an ambiguity, a lack of editorial comment, a lack of sentiment here and an easy style of incidental-looking cinematography that causes me to resist the Murnau (who is my favorite filmmaker and always has been) comparison.

I see a lot of influences, and on the other hand I see none at all. This is what I think is confusing a dude like Armond White, who thinks in terms of Known Do's And Don'ts ("The man cuts on dialog, what the fuck is that?"... I think just about every film in every S&S top ten has scenes cutting on dialog), and is looking for a Recognizably Footnoted Continuation of the Conversation About the Cinema That He Began In College... and if he doesn't get to chew recipes he's learned to enjoy masticating, he winds up with that not so fresh feeling....

Perhaps I should have been clearer. I see Murnau's influence on Ford chiefly in the 30's. As his style evolved in to 40's and 50's the Murnau influence recedes. Still I think a soupcon of it remains in figures of Fordian horror eg. "Scar" AND Ethan Edwards in The Searchers, Mike Mazurki's "Tunga Khan" in Seven Women.

More like the Murnau influence is subsumed more and more deeply.

Anyway, on the subject of "There Will Be Blood" and its thematic reverberations, I take objection to most of the florid claims that have been flying around, with the "Citizen Kane" comparisons being the least problematic.

Griffith and Ford? The former certainly not. Not even a remote resemblance, and nowhere near as good. And the latter? Again not as good, and aesthetically it's a stretch. I think an argument could be made that there are certain tonal similarities between this and "My Darling Clementine", but in the end Doc Holiday self-destructs in a manner decidedly different from Daniel Plainview. Holiday is no misanthrope, nor a competitor. He is not turning from or against humanity but bearing the cross for it. Certainly, I don't see the Murnau connection either. The characters here may loom, but they loom in a more self-conscious, theatrical manner than the 'scultpure in motion' that Tag Gallagher has described marks the blocking in Ford films, as taken over from Murnau. I acknowledge of course the strong motif of theater that runs through Ford's work, and especially in "My Darling Clementine" or "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", but the difference is that for Ford this motif is always linked to the tragedy of the character's predicaments, the tragedy of being a puppet in history's grand scheme, whereas for Anderson there seems to be little tragedy and a lot of empty histrionics imposed on the world by the individual tyrant. This is ultimately a less humanist vision than Ford's, even if more humanist than, say, Michael Haneke.

As for Huston, "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" does come to mind. I mean both films do operate at high temperatures, but the similarity ends there.

Of all that has been made of this film's film-historical merit and intertextuality, the Malick and Welles connections are the only two that work for me, and even then only superficially. As I said, "Citizen Kaneâ€

This is the greatest film of the year, and I also can't even believe it exists. I have been waiting for There Will Be Blood for five years (since Anderson's last film) and it's one of the rare films that managed to live up to my high expectations, but went about doing it so differently than I expected (not that I can say I really knew what I was expecting) that its thrown me for a loop. But it is certainly, undeniably a masterpiece. I love how it manages to fit our protagonist's madness into a progression that seems natural...not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. The ending was my favorite part. It was like a horrible epilogue to a nightmare.

All throughout the entire (nearly three-hour) running time I was interchangeably feeling like I was having a nervous breakdown and that at any moment I would suddenly implode. And this wasn't just me: this film had complete and utter physical and emotional control over the entire (packed!) theatre. There were moments where the intense audience reactions were so simultaneously collective that it seemed like we all being given electric shocks. I paid for it, too, when the film was over...I felt so terribly nervous and high that I needed to go for a run! And even that didn't cure it.

This is as moving a film as I've ever seen, just...in such an unpleasant, shaking, horrible, painful, disgusting and rotten way. And I loved every minute of it! I'm sure another viewing will yield a bountiful return, and I look forward to returning, but it will be a while.

Mesmerizing score, one of the greatest uses of music in film I can recall (at least up there with Kubrick). The juxtoposition of music and image is so wild and idiosyncratic that I simply can't understand the nitpicking of the score going on between a few members here. For me it's as breathtaking as the art of film music gets.

Paul Thomas Anderson now officially holds a monopoly on all of his contemporaries.

Totally agree with everything you said, especially the last one. As much as I loved Grindhouse, Tarantino is stuck with making left turns while Anderson has taken flight and is in orbit. I haven't seen Wes Anderson's latest film, but I'm sure the other Anderson isn't living up to his potential, not like PTA, who absolutely far surpassed my own high expectations. I love this film. I just saw his catalog the other day, and find PDL his most intimate, and Boogie his most... "fun" I guess you can say. Magnolia, though I love it so much (mainly for Cop Kurring), is really something else... like a meditation that he had to get out of his system regarding his father's death from cancer. I'm just saying PTA is far more confident, assured and singular as an artist, and though there are gestures of homage, they're not as stifling and jam-packed as his other films - not by a long shot. Here he's running at his own pace, and he's doing what he wants, how he wants. I was enraptured. Totally awed.

HerrSchreck wrote:I saw this tonight and imho it's one of the better films to come out of Hollywood over the past fifteen years. It really does flirt at times with being an all-cylinders turning masterpiece. If it falls a little short at times it's because DDL's accent begins a little confused, bleeding into his UK mannerism, then straightens itself out after a brief bit. But in a few early scenes the vocal concoction comes off as some weird Russel-Crowesque failed attempt at "american" (though in this case of course Vintage Powermonger Mythological HyperAmericana). An in a few early scenes I thought his delivery was just wooden, too concerned with the vocalizing to sound natural (similar to the way his performances lately have been extremely picketed into the grounds of Facial Mannerism/Manipulation).

Some might say that DDL is majorly feasting on every piece of scenery in every setup... and in a way that's true. But in this case his ambition in his part, the length he will go to craft a performance of blazing, raging intensity (he's really trying to grab DeNiro in his 70's - 80's prime by the hair and stick his fucking face in the toilet) interlocks in a mesmerizing way with the facts of life about the character he portrays. And here what often feels like Scene Eating is in reality Complete And Utter Nuclear Charisma....

I agree, forum member of the year...

All this gushing is getting out of hand. Let's not launch PTA into the stratosphere yet. He is first of all far behind the achievements of a triptych of more mature American auteurs still alive and very much kicking: Michael Mann, Charles Burnett, and Clint Eastwood. Each of these masters has loads more to say about American history I might add - in films from "Ali", to "To Sleep With Anger", and "Flags of Our Fathers"/"Letters from Iwo Jima" - than "There Will Be Blood" with its easy ideology of oilman/churchman, big fish / little fish. If Anderson has tapped into the American consciousness and what "There Will Be Blood" says about us is true, I certainly don't see it... perhaps because it has so little to say about society, focusing instead on the psychology of single individuals so alienated and withdrawn from it that their roots are damn near impossible to trace. As a window into Plainview's mind I see some value, but without also giving us a window into the world that made Plainview, the cosmos that spawned the beast, I can't help feeling that Anderson hasn't gone the last full measure here.

che-etienne wrote:"All this gushing is getting out of hand. Let's not launch PTA into the stratosphere yet."

No reason to. But a film this good is certainly worht getting excited about.

"He is first of all far behind the achievements of a triptych of more mature American auteurs still alive and very much kicking: Michael Mann, Charles Burnett, and Clint Eastwood. Each of these masters has loads more to say about American history I might add - in films from "Ali", to "To Sleep With Anger", and "Flags of Our Fathers"/"Letters from Iwo Jima" - than "There Will Be Blood" with its easy ideology of oilman/churchman, big fish / little fish. "

Wait a minute -- hold the phone! Mann is an intelligent commercial filmmaker but he has yet to deal with characters and situations as complex as those presented in Anderson's film. Ali is a standard-issue biopic. I like Charles Burnett quite a lot and he may well be superior to Anderson in the long run, but I'm still waiting to see what he can do. I just hope he gets the chance to do it. Clint is of course a whole 'nother story and Anderson has yet to come up to his level. But there's no "easy ideology" in There Will Be Blood that I can see.

"perhaps because it has so little to say about society, focusing instead on the psychology of single individuals so alienated and withdrawn from it that their roots are damn near impossible to trace."

Plainview and Sunday are archetypes -- much like figures in Wagnerian opera. They represent two sides of the same American coin with the same goal: Blood For Oil.

Chirpy interview with PTA from the Guardian.

che-etienne wrote: Let's not..

How about we all go our own way according to our individual tastes rather than as a group?

As far as the "stratosphere" goes, as Erich 'von' Stroheim never tired of reminding, Hollywood will very quickly forget one "very good" picture.

PS: I think Mann is next to nothing as an 'auteur' (to use your phrase). Miami Vice? Collateral? Heat? Ali? Not much more going on there than moving heaps of popcorn.

"Ali" is not a masterpiece. In fact, I understand it to be quite flawed in the last analysis, but it is far from a standard-issue biopic. I would urge you to go back and watch it again, if only for the first ten-minutes which say more about African American history for me than anything Spike Lee has EVER done. Though much is left unresolved and undercooked in "Ali", especially the political tensions of the period, its placing of Muhammad Ali in the context of his time, at once getting inside his own head space and inhabiting his larger world is above and beyond the call for a Hollywood biopic. Mann's sense of period and more generally of history goes far beyond the simple 'immersion in a bygone era' shit that most biopics go for. Also, the path of the hero in this one is less conventional. The film's dramaturgy is a mess, unsure as to which of Ali's many ties it wants to expose and resolve. So what you get is more like a mosaic portrait of the man, each tile a character, place, and influence in his life.

As for Burnett, "To Sleep With Anger" is for me one of the great American films, and I find "My Brother's Wedding", "Killer of Sheep", and "Nightjohn" are all masterpieces of varying degree. I would love to hear your thoughts on him more fully, since you seem to think he hasn't reached his full potential as of yet. I'm not saying he has, but I do think his body of work represents the best in contemporary American cinema.

I believe that "There Will Be Blood" is far more conventional in terms of its dramaturgy actually. The fall of Daniel Plainview into the abyss of oil is a schematically psychological one, and thus for me the archetype argument doesn't work. Eli Sunday's psychology is even more pat: jealously of his 'brother' and hatred of his father etc. These characters may have been conceived as archetypes perhaps, but I find Anderson's style too interior and in this sense ultimately too limited to present them as such. He sees them as psychotics rather than manifestations of natural forces. As I noted before, he lacks Ford's ability to conceive characters who are both possessed of their own inner conflicts and controlled by the eternal verities without. The identification of Plainview's hatred for, revenge against, and withdrawal from society with his quest for power, and then with the image of oil itself is too literal.

HerrSchreck wrote:

che-etienne wrote: Let's not..

How about we all go our own way according to our individual tastes rather than as a group?

As far as the "stratosphere" goes, as Erich 'von' Stroheim never tired of reminding, Hollywood will very quickly forget one "very good" picture.

PS: I think Mann is next to nothing as an 'auteur' (to use your phrase). Miami Vice? Collateral? Heat? Ali? Not much more going on there than moving heaps of popcorn.

Point taken on both counts.

I'd like to hear more about why you think so about Mann. I've tried to explain in the post above why I like "Ali". For what it's worth, I think "Miami Vice", "Collateral" and "Heat" are all great films, with the former two perhaps qualifying as minor masterpieces. Actually, the thought just struck me that "Collateral" might be a film that fulfills the qualities I see lacking in "There Will Be Blood", both formally and ideologically. I'll try to post on this later.

PT Anderson wrote:"We're still trying to figure out who the girlfriend is and who the boyfriend is in this relationship. When we first met I called him a few days later and I left a message saying: 'It's your girlfriend.' It feels like that. You are in a relationship with someone so intimate, every single day. I dare say there were moments when our spouses were jealous."

HAH!

che-etienne wrote:"He sees them as psychotics rather than manifestations of natural forces. "

Nothing is more natural than a psychotic. Or more American. We are nation of psychopaths.

I agreed, and I think Ford's cinema, especially "The Searchers", speak beautifully of this. But his formulation, and Michael Mann's also, by the way, as expressed in "Collateral" and "Heat", is much more complex than the levels at which Anderson's film is working.

che-etienne wrote: As a window into Plainview's mind I see some value, but without also giving us a window into the world that made Plainview, the cosmos that spawned the beast, I can't help feeling that Anderson hasn't gone the last full measure here.

Exactly. It's like the people who fling ceaseless invective at Wal-Mart without ever pausing to consider what social/cultural climate allows there to be a Wal-Mart at all. Note that I have yet to see TWBB so I have no idea whether the film deals with this aspect.

As to the other point, I think Mann is a genius and Vice is probably his greatest accomplishment. But I've written on that ad nauseum elsewhere so I won't bore you with details. Suffice it to say that Mann has total command of the marriage between form and content, and here I mean the tension between them, the way that their different intents and obligations inform one another and shape the whole.

Herr Schreck wrote:Not much more going on there than moving heaps of popcorn.

There must be a hell of a lot of nuance available in that much.

None of this, btw, is meant to denigrate PTA, whom I also cherish.

This is an impossible argument as you've just described in negative terms everything I see as positive and, more than that, valuable about Mann's cinema. C'est la vie.

HerrSchreck wrote:

che-etienne wrote:I agreed, and I think Ford's cinema, especially "The Searchers", speak beautifully of this. But his formulation, and Michael Mann's also, by the way, as expressed in "Collateral" and "Heat", is much more complex than the levels at which Anderson's film is working.

We could go here, especially if it gets too far off the track, but let's take Heat, because I know the film is well-loved around here by some.

I would agree that there is something very 'naive' about Mann's vision, an aspect I like in his cinema which I think makes him almost neoclassical (not in the traditional sense of the term but in relation to the romanticism of classic Hollywood cinema), but otherwise I find your comments rather pretentious and condescending. They amount to so many flamboyantly inflected dismissals, as masturbatory in their style as you accuse Mann of being in his, of the zeitgeist culture on display in "Heat" without any investigation of how Mann brings that culture under his formal scheme, or, in other words, how the film's (very rigorous) structure gives shape to this culture. It seems like you're only looking at what he's showing you instead of how he's showing it. The philosophy that informs all the histrionics and surfaces in his movies is a complex one, and it shows in how he treats the material.

I don't mean to suggest that he uses De Niro or Pacino's star personae in the same way that, say, Kubrick uses Cruise or Kidman in "Eyes Wide Shut". Mann is not so self-conscious. Again, he's rather naive, and "Heat" is probably the least complex if the most obvious and operatic formulation of the tensions in his films. But Mann is not so naive that he celebrates the lifestyle in "Heat". Mann is not Quentin Tarantino, whose films are basically block parties for the out-of-work and over-the-hill of Hollywood. On the other hand, Mann's naivete is more based in a view of the 'real' world as opposed to a view of the world of Hollywood. And that view of the 'real' world, which is to say of late capitalist, post-modern America, speaks to how the struggle to self-define oneself against incorporation, by building one's own virtual space (i.e. by building a sensibility of professionalism) and monk-like devotion to his/her philosophy, in fact leads to one's isolation rather than happiness or reintegration into community. I see Mann as some kind of tortured romantic post-modernist. That contradiction is what gives life to his films, at least for me.

che-etienne wrote:I agreed, and I think Ford's cinema, especially "The Searchers", speak beautifully of this. But his formulation, and Michael Mann's also, by the way, as expressed in "Collateral" and "Heat", is much more complex than the levels at which Anderson's film is working.

We could go here, especially if it gets too far off the track, but let's take Heat, because I know the film is well-loved around here by some.

Let's talk about that film because I see it as a perfect exemplification of Michael Mann's complete lack of sophistication: using a cast many directors would kill to have assembled for their film and flushing it straight down the outhouse pipe on a silly one dimensional music video for the Gangster Idea as shared by mindless middle American numbskulls.

This film was the true beginning of the end of not only DeNiro's but Pacino (who still at least tries) Serious Acting Career. This film is mood music for the most idiotic aspects of the American Zeitgeist, and the most dissapointing "momentous pairing" of Actors of any country in any time. For me the film lacked almost any redeeming qualities beyond that which could be gleaned from any decently drawn comic book.

It's Hollywood self-love of the cheesiest order, that genuine outlaws who reside in the shadows-- the ones who manage to stay OUT of jail-- must get a shitload of bellylaughs out of.. it's just that silly. On the other hand nitwits sporting douchebag tattoos sitting in jail popping shit with each other probably love this movie.

It's utterly cast-masturbatory, just a bunch of stars hanging around growing ponytails and playing their fantasy toughguys for their girlfriends to coo over, admiring what a Cool Group They Make onscreen ("hey actorboy-- can YOU chill with these peeps like me?"), and talking the way Real People never talk in their closeups. Those slow stoned Jon Voigt blinks and toughguy faces, DeNiro's face wrinkle, Pacino becoming his Hoo-Ahh stereotype for the very first time... it's all just the thinnest, most one-dimensional comicbook of a crime story (unlike the deliberate comicbooky fun of say Dick Tracy), that utterly wastes a cast on a director so tuned into the American fixation on Cool Tough Nonexistent Machismo (the kind of gangster lifestyle-affectation that will land you in jail pronto) that he cannot even see the lack of depth. Because he is in his element.

che-etienne wrote:I find your comments rather pretentious and condescending. They amount to so many flamboyantly inflected dismissals, as masturbatory in their style as you accuse Mann of being.

Now this is revelatory. You exhibit a tendency above-- a point you said was taken (however Well notwithstanding)-- to want or need the group to respond in concert with your own feelings on Blood. And now the sheer fact that I don't like Mann, and write about it in my own voice in a manner reflecting my feeling that Heat is poop, makes me "pretentious, condescending and flamboyant." I think we can safely say you really really really cherish your opinions & tastes and grow sour over variety.

We love Blood, you say Let's All Calm Down This Is Not A Good Movie Like Heat Is. I say I Don't like Heat, you say "You're pretentious, condescending, and masturbatory."

The difference, che, between my comments and Mann's movie (which you have equated in their masturbatory nature) is that nobody-- including myself-- is claiming my comments constitute a masterpiece, and they come for free, devoid of a million dollar manufacturing price tag.

Before the final paragraph below, I'll say one other thing, in response to:

It seems like you're only looking at what he's showing you instead of how he's showing it.

First I'll say, if you think there is a Sophistication of Means, or a subtlety of symbolic rendering, multiplicities of depth creating simultaneous operative Narrative Surfaces that are elusive in nature, etc, on display in Heat that you think are eluding me or the average viewer.. then all I can say at best (without insulting you) is our levels of enthusiasm with the material is causing us to see entirely different pictures. SOmetimes when you really love a picture and watch it many times you find all kinds of comment and metaphor most folks don't see. Sometimes including the writer/director himself. I have this experience from the most sophisticated (La Glace a trois Faces) to the most absurdl (Bride of the Gorilla, which I see as a ripsnorting metaphor for drug addiction or any form of forbidden vice pulling a soul away from home life).

A golden rule for me is that film is Entertainment. Saying

It seems like you're only looking at what he's showing you instead of how he's showing it.

is to me like saying "your not wanting to fuck that toothless hag is utterly unintelligent: look at how charmingly she beckons to you with Dickens sticking out of her purse and Never Mind The Bullocks, Here's The Sex Pistols on her iPod!". Heat is not a formalist picture whereby the means, like some rampant piece of silent Soviet propaganda, is the subject matter to be seen at this late date. Heat to me was a one-shot piece of pop corn entertainment, pure and simple.

And lastly-- My dear, I'm entitled to dislike a film all I want, and, so long as I stay on the subject of the flick... should be able to expect to not be called names in raging sophomoric style... (We're even now-- conversation over.)

I'm not saying you're not entitled to your opinion. I said I found your comments pretentious and condescending. I expressly did not mean that you yourself are pretentious or condescending. I also meant condescending specifically in relation to the zeitgeist Hollywood star culture you find present in "Heat", not condescending towards me or anyone else. What I was trying to point out is that the criticisms seem unsubstantiated. I felt like and do feel that there is a weakness in how you're approaching the film, which is not a blanket statement against how you look at films in general. I was trying to describe where I felt your criticisms were weak, not trying to call you names. Thus, I've tried to justify each of my comments with some discussion of each of the films they've been directed toward. You haven't responded at all in this comment to what I actually said about "Heat". I'm sorry if I've offended you. I didn't mean to, and I'd like to have this discussion in earnest.

For me, if "Heat" isn't a formalist picture, Mann is nonetheless a formalist filmmaker, if not in the Russian sense than in the Fred Camper sense. He creates a way of seeing, and if this is underdeveloped in "Heat" the ideological tensions are still all there.

Of course, I've taken us pretty far afield from the topic of discussion. So to bring us back to "There Will Be Blood", I find David's last comment to the effect that nothing is more natural than a psychotic very compelling. I still disagree I think, but the film definitely merits a second look. The problem I find is that Anderson's conception of the cosmos in "There Will Be Blood" is too internal. See my comments above on the relations of the film to Malick. I just don't see the film ever leaving the scope of Plainview's own world.

I'm on board with those two old out-of-touch codgers, Sarris and Ebert, in choosing Juno as the pic of the year. There Will Be Blood and No Country (not to mention Michael Mann movies), for all their cinematic razzle dazzle, are just too overloaded with male doom and gloom. I suppose if you view Americans as psychopaths these movies would strike you as masterpieces. I've never encountered a true psychopath in my entire life (except in fear inducing media coverage) but maybe the psycho idea is metaphoric, or a manifestation of self loathing. As I get older I far prefer comic visions to the gloomy ones. Twelfth Night over King Lear any night of the week.

Mr Sheldrake wrote:As I get older I far prefer comic visions to the gloomy ones. Twelfth Night over King Lear any night of the week.

At least there, you're choosing among two masterpieces by Shakespeare.

Juno is neo-fascist garbage.

I'd be very surprised if PTA ever makes a film as good as Miami Vice. Or Thief.

At least neither of them are afflicting us with "comic visions" at the moment.

Day-Lewis really fleshes out what could be a one-note character (see: No Country for Old Men's psychopath). Dano is great, but I would've liked even more of his character. And when the two of them conspire and collude, it shows how easily oil and religion can throw a Party.

It's a very interesting study on how the lust for oil got started. Forget capitalist vs socialist politics for a moment, especially since no pro-big government panacea is ever proposed by this film. Just, how did we get into this mess in the first place? The film does an excellent job of tracing the beginnings of our trade: blood for oil.

The character of Daniel Plainview, however, only resorts to violence when he feels personally affronted. The movie is not just, "I want your oil. Bang, you're dead." There are no easy answers, as Plainview and his oil bring food and education to the poor. Even in the final scenes, we see extravagance, modern technology, not possible if oil weren't around.

Plainview is a misanthrope though, and ultimately, when you combine that with the greed and the power, you have a lethal combination.

The music in the film is awful. An absolute distraction. It doesn't work as a counterpoint, and the mix is entirely too loud. Silence or just a good sound design would've served the movie better. Thankfully, the images and performances overcame this.

Oh, and can we please restore meaning to the word "fascist" on this board? I see it so overused that I've begun just reading it as "bad."

Nothing wrote:I'd be very surprised if PTA ever makes a film as good as Miami Vice.

I'd say Punch-Drunk Love is quite close to Miami Vice; maybe not quite as accomplished overall, but still formally and emotionally interesting, and very moving. Of course, MV is much more intellectually considered, but that's not really what Punch-Drunk Love, or love, is about.

"The character of Daniel Plainview, however, only resorts to violence when he feels personally affronted."

You make him sound like a dandified Tony Soprano.

"The music in the film is awful. An absolute distraction. It doesn't work as a counterpoint, and the mix is entirely too loud."

Well you're wrong.

Acutally "wrong" is too weak a term.