Black gold
Can There Will Be Blood really be that good? Well, yes it can. You could call me biased, as I count myself as one of director Paul Thomas Anderson's biggest fans. I was knocked out by Boogie Nights, as I think most people were, but it was Magnolia that took my head off. I know people - people whose opinions I respect - who hated Magnolia. They thought it was self-indulgent, cacophonous, overlong, overwrought and downright silly when that thing happens about two thirds of the way through (you'll know what I'm talking about if you've seen it). I think the deciding moment in Magnolia is when the entire cast sings along to Aimee Mann's Wise Up ("it's not ... what you thought, when you first ... began it"), as if perhaps they are singing along to the film's soundtrack. I find this sequence almost unbearably poignant, especially as one of the characters singing is dying at the time. In fact, hang on, let's play it right now . . .(Warning: don't expect to get the full impact of this if you haven't seen the rest of the film. It's all about context, although the song is gorgeous on any day of the week.)
So anyway, I actually fell in love with Paul Thomas Anderson when I first saw that sequence, and it will take a lot to dissuade me of the notion that the man is a genius. I enjoyed his next film, the much shorter Punch Drunk Love, despite the fact that it had Adam Sandler in it, and when I found his first movie Hard Eight on cable, I congratulated myself that I could see promise in its downbeat style. And now this. There Will Be Blood is such an old-school epic it makes you think of Citizen Kane and Giant and The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, and it makes you think of Chinatown, because that, too, was set in California, albeit 30 or so years later, and concerned greed and corruption and utilities. It also makes you think of Chinatown because Daniel Day-Lewis seems to have based the voice of the central character, oilman Daniel Plainview, on Noah Cross, the tycoon played by John Huston in it. I don't know if this is literally true, but when I first saw Blood, it took me a while to work out the voice and I'm looking forward to seeing it again and not having to waste any brain-time thinking of it.
I need to see it again. Although it unfolds like any Hollywood movie about a man who rises to great power (we first see Plainview hacking away at some rock down a Godforsaken hole, digging for silver, on his todd; from here he builds his empire), it has a strangeness about it that marks it out from the herd. It's not exactly arthouse, but it swerves just when you think you know where it's heading, and its ending, which I won't go into, is not the ending you're waiting for. That's why I need to see it again. Jonny Greenwood's score, disallowed from the Oscars because he'd already written some of it beforehand, is dissonant and creepy and glorious, and Paul Dano, last seen almost mute in Little Miss Sunshine, really pulls one out of the hat at the preacher who must be bought off before Plainview can have his oilfield. It's an unsettling film, not especially violent, certainly not comedic, but thrilling and stimulating and, as I've said, odd. Those who find Day-Lewis's technique irritating should stay away (and I thought he was a bit much in Gangs Of New York, but he's never less than entertaining), and if the idea of yet another 158-minute ordeal is too much, wait for the DVD. You have to put the work in, but it pays back.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 5:18 PM
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9 Comments:
Saw this film a few weeks back, it is a masterpiece. Daniel Day Lewis deserves the Best Actor Oscar for a role that was made for him, he brings a darkness to a character that is eaten up by greed and power. Paul Dano is a revelation too as his nemesis.
Highly recommended.....and yes, Magnolia is wonderful too.
No-one is a bigger fan of Paul Thomas Anderson than me (Magnolia in particular for just the reasons you list), but I didn't like TWBB at all.
I can see why one might like it -- it is epic and looks fantastic, Paul Dano was terrifically creepy, the end is wonderful -- but, for me, the whole didn’t add up to the sum of the parts.
Daniel Day Lewis and his acting was distracting.
I don't know how to articulate this properly, because it WAS good acting... but he was ACTING, see him act, what a great actor he is. He rode roughshod over everybody and everything else with his bravura performance.
I think I am alone in not liking the score - certainly unsettling, definitely unusual, but also random and artwanky.
The lack of light relief from the INTENSITY in capital letters was bit hard to take, although it did make the couple of strange and darkly funny moments seem even more satisfying.
Maybe it's not that I didn't like it, I can definitely see that it's not rubbish -- I just didn't enjoy it. Does that make sense?
Maybe my expectations and hopes were up too high after the long wait after Magnolia??
Thank you for your comments, as ever. I hastily group-published this batch and an Anonymous comment got through. It does state quite clearly above where you leave the comments that anonymous posts will not be published. It would seem churlish to remove it now, but whoever sent it, please add a name next time. I will not stand for anonymity. I hate to go on about this, but my New Year's Resolution has been to put this blog in order, and without a simple set of rules, anarchy will once again reign! (If you left the anonymous comment, post back with a name.)
LJJ, I know what you mean about expectation (although Punch Dunk Love kept us going for a bit after Magnolia), and you don't have to be a published film critic to add to the hubbub of hype. I've done it myself here, as well as in print. I also hear where you're coming from about Day-Lewis. But his character is so dominant in the story and the screenplay, it would be weird if he didn't dominate the screen - also, Dano's character, the only one who has a chance against Plainview, is an extremely refreshing kind of nemesis: young, physically slight, seemingly meek and mild. It would have been so easy to create a typical Hollywood good guy to fight Plainview's venal capitalism, but no. I'm going to see the film again before I comment any further. I wonder how it will be the second time?
You longed for a break from the intensity, but Greenwood's "artwanky" score was pretty spare and low-key in most places. Imagine if it had had a traditional orchestral score, underpinning every moment of intensity. If anything, I think Greenwood underplayed the drama.
I actually had to study Magnolia very closely whilst writing my film dissertation the other year and the middle hour is astonishing. What PTA actually does is spread half an hour's worth of 'real' time across a whole hour so that he can give each of the different stories the attention they deserve. But -- and this is crucial -- he doesn't draw attention to it using on-screen captions or any of the stuff which bad filmmakers might be tempted to do.
You can tell that something isn't quite because of the gameshow -- the pauses between questions and answers and the credits taking a good four or five minutes to roll (which you can see as they scroll past on tv screens in the various stories).
I know the film had a tortuous editing process but I like to think that all of this was premeditated and not just PTA trying to make the thing work.
Yes, I can't argue with you Andrew, every point you make is well made, the scenery was chewed, but... it needed chewing, and DDL was the right masticator for the job.
I still hold that the score was artwanky - though, agreed, rather that than the typical swelling orchestral button-pusher
but I still didn't like it.
Must be me.
I forgot about Punch-Drunk Love, which I really liked, enough to buy the DVD.
But didn't it make you think of something like Kojak Variety or Pin-Ups, a quick trip down a side street used as a palate cleanser between big projects?
And as so often happens, because it wasn't so heavy with import, it turns out as good or better than the stuff laboured over.
Wonderful review as always; many thanks. I really must seek out Punch Drunk Love too, after hearing Kermode wax lyrical about it last week, and now your endorsement.
Ah, sorry it was me that left the anonymous note, new to this...
Thank you, David.
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