The following review contains spoilers and touches on topics and themes from the film, There Will Be Blood, which may prove unsettling for some readers. This review is long as hell because TWBB is long as hell, but it is also one of the best films ever made and the best film this decade.
The fact that Paul Thomas Anderson’s American epic, There Will Be Blood, did not win an Oscar for Best Picture or Best Director says nothing about the film’s quality and inarguable stature as a masterpiece, but much about how we deal with an artist who swims out to the mark of greatness and madness, leaving the rest of us behind.
When an artist, rarely a director, does this it overwhelms and scares us. We practically expect the Jaws theme to begin its maniacal cue and watch the unknown devour him. Anderson, who previously directed the cool but slightly manipulative and hyperactive Boogie Nights and Magnolia, does nothing to alleviate our concern for the unhinged artist; his ever-focused stare dances more and more with an alarming expanse and he brandishes a smirk that sort of says “Oh really? Fuck off.” Luckily, from afar, these traits make him that much more interesting after viewing his first masterpiece.
You have to wonder if Anderson, like the famous quarter featured in 2007’s lesser Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men, has been traveling our way, your way, my way with There Will Be Blood since birth. With this film, he shed his large Altman-esque ensemble cast, much of his former cineaste style, peeled his setting back a century or so. It’s said that Anderson shaves his head before directing a film, but with TWBB the cathartic journey of filmmaking is the means and the movie; he’s matured and transformed, shedding himself to attack God, religion, capitalism, man, men, women, fathers, sons and America with a steady, deliberate, assured hand. He’s literally gone for broke. I don’t think we’ve yet realized as moviegoers how far he’s gone, but it explains that fucked-up feeling when you walk out of this film.
It is my belief that Daniel Plainview serves as a sort of avatar for PTA’s deepest, bleakest thoughts on the aforementioned subjects, and when Plainview mutters “I’m finished,” the last line of the movie, this is really PTA speaking. He may not be done with the paternal subject matter, but PTA is friggin’ done with God and religion; and while PTA didn’t kill them in many eyes, he beat them to a bloody pulp and then had himself a loud laugh before the film’s ending cuts to black and the title ominously appears.
The Academy can have a pass for robbing Anderson. Do you reward a unique act of violence before you can thoroughly analyze what it means? Ostensibly, PTA’s new hook caught one scary-looking fucking fish. After three viewings, I still cannot decide whether his film is that rare break in the artistic sky signifying a New Dawn for cinematic ballisiness, or more akin to perfection teetering on a nervous breakdown.
To me, watching and rewatching TWBB has much in common with the strange, unsettling awe of coming home from school, quickly turning the TV to MTV and watching the ubiquitous video for “Heart Shaped Box,” in which Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain played guitar, confronting everyone and daring all that is life and death, as a Jesus Christ doppelganger hung from a cross behind him wearing a Santa Claus hat. “I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black,” screamed Cobain from murky, dissonant depths right in front of us, right at us. In hindsight, that was heavy shit for repetitive afternoons before homework and phone calls. “Heart Shaped Box” was so personal that its imagery and meaning weren’t blasphemous, but it made you wonder how the video bypassed certain censor-types, and what in the hell could ever come after it. It defined the time, and sort of broke through it, broke through the fourth wall with its tremendously angry existential (not “teenage”) angst.
There Will Be Blood is like Nirvana’s In Utero album for intellectuals; its paternal themes recall some of Ernest Hemingway’s best and darkest work about fathers, sons and being a man; and TWBB has an ambitious, though far nastier, scope on life’s absurdity, one filled with memorably eccentric characters, that is comparable to John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. Sans PTA, the men behind these works all share an unfortunate common bond that I hesitate to point out. They killed themselves. You see, there is no real parallel to TWBB in film. Its territory is fresh, vast and remarkable; that is not to say that There Will Be Blood is the best film ever made, but it is definitely one of them, and with time, we’ll have the debate.
There Will Be Blood: The Early Chapters
For all of its opening minutes, There Will Be Blood has no dialogue. We are shown men working the Earth for silver and then oil. We see Daniel Plainview, not so much played as owned by Daniel-Day Lewis, at work and there is no time for words, just hellish manual labor. Like the ape-men that symbolically kick-off 2001: A Space Odyssey, we see these men, these brute figures, moving silently against epic skies, and we see them literally bathed in a primordial ooze of darkness and sludge. This is the grueling, foreign foundation of modern life.
The juxtaposition of light and darkness here is profound with its eerie loneliness and cold machinations and underlying fear; comparable to riding a New York subway train for the first time late at night with a dude muttering craziness and another guy across from you who looks like he’ll stab you when you walk out, then get up and do it again tomorrow. Paul Thomas Anderson makes it so these scenes are imprinted on your mind like frozen flashlight trails. When Plainview crudely draws an oil derrick on graph paper, it’s no less than an illustration that will forever change America and mankind. And even though we get it, we’re not morons after all, Anderson is like you don’t get it, you fucking bastards!
Many have compared the film’s start to silent films, as they should, but Anderson uses them to blatantly rev up the intensity that will come to characterize his entire film long after dialogue is instated. He’s also leashing us to his new, fiery craft. So heavy-handed and quiet is the symbolism here that the scenes seem crafted while incredibly stoned; they are like a sinister moon walk. Such scenes shouldn’t work because this is the type of blatant tripe that desperately screams to the Academy, but Anderson knows this, and he is proving a point. When a hand aggressively marks the fresh face of an infant with oil above his eyes, the comparisons to the Catholic tradition of Ash Wednesday are grotesquely clear. Anderson is setting up the world in TWBB as a place where humans merely survive, a No Country for Old Gods: just men, the Earth and nothingness.
Plainview suffers a leg injury during his work in the field, and like a wounded animal, this only pushes his insatiable drive and instincts against the world. From here on, he memorably cuts a stark figure across the mountainous hard-scrabble California landscapes with a bum leg. He’s like the peculiar missing link between the Tall Man from Poltergeist 2 and Beavis or Butthead. Plainview seemingly came from nothing and is completely detached from his early life and family-we find out he’s, uh, from Wisconsin later-and the only thing that alleviates his pain and existential torment is success. In this time, his time, it is success…or salvation, which Plainview despises as a cover for defeat and a degrading means to watch lesser men ascend the lucrative ranks of a new, indifferent world. To him, salvation and religion are like the neutered dog that half-heartedly attempts to jump on a couch but cannot unless someone tells it to.
When an oil men dies a grisly death below ground, Plainview adopts his son, who comes to be known as H.W. Plainview. We see him and H.W. at rest one afternoon, and Plainview spikes his bottle with a little whisky. Charming. His worldview and lifestyle is shared with this new baby: for what it is and what it could become, companionship with limits.
Anderson places the two Plainviews on a train, and the movie already feels like it’s from a bygone era, as we bleed into a speech made later, in 1911, by Plainview to a group of meager townspeople. “Ladies and Gentlemen…” he says, now infamously in lieu of Day Lewis’s Best Actor Oscar.
From his tight-fitting suit, to his reddish workman skin, to the serious 9-year-old H.W. at his side, this man is economical like a steak knife. But the voice is what draws us, and the townspeople, inward, so maddeningly sober, strange and precise is his “plain speak.” Like a magician who deals only in reality, Plainview has perfected his powerfully eccentric language of verbal coattails and he’s not negotiating to drill these peoples’ land so much as informing them that he shall. There are criticisms from moviegoers and critics that no one spoke this like back then, but that is not Day Lewis’s nor Paul Thomas Anderson’s reasoning. This voice, however Day Lewis conjured it, from the late John Huston or otherwise, is the sound and temperament, and pentameter of unbridled, foreboding ambition and a masterplan; Plainview is not so much a character as a force that Anderson sics at God’s jugular.
And then religion rears its face like a faux-humble hyena after Plainview’s scraps. A young man not so subtly named Paul Sunday, played with mysterious innocence by Paul Dano, introduces himself to Plainview and offers to sell him a lead to land in Little Boston, California where the oil seeps up through the dirt. The land belongs to Sunday’s family and Paul is essentially selling them out and short. Off go Daniel and H.W. under the guise of quail hunters to Little Boston, where Daniel will face a showdown with religion and God that he spends the remainder of his life waging, and Anderson, only the remainder of the film.
In some of the film’s more endearing scenes, the father and adopted son, now hunting on the Sundays’ property, bond in sun-latticed woods, shooting down a fair number of fowl, before H.W. discovers oil on his shoe and runs, nearly gallops, after his dad in reserved joy. H.W. is a lil’ oil man. Dillon Freasier, a kid with no acting experience discovered in Texas, where the film was partially shot, really shines as H.W. in the scene that follows. His dad explains to him that “they” will pay the Sunday family “quail prices” instead of oil prices for the “find.” There is a quizzical, believable grace and precocious moral profundity about Freasier’s performance here that should not go unnoticed.
Daniel soon meets Eli Sunday, also played by Paul Dano, who is the unforeseen identical twin brother of Paul, and Daniel’s first encounter with Eli is one of bafflement, mirroring the audience’s. Is this a trick? Are Paul and Eli the same person? Paul Thomas Anderson never tells us, and there’s a bit of real unknown that cruises past the film’s and our reality that no doubt infuriates Plainview, like it does us. Eli’s ambiguity comes to represent God to Plainview (and Anderson) and, of course, he completely distrusts and loathes it, and is willing to play long, if applicable, so that he can beat it once and for all and obtain mass wealth and control.
Eli and Paul’s father is named Abel, their younger sister is named Mary, and after we meet the Sundays the film pummels into an anti-religious statement, so as to be the definitive one for the ages. This battle is the source of Jonny Greenwood’s neo-classical Kubrickian horror score, and his music serves to compose the paranoiac, epic striving of Plainview’s psyche and forever mesh it with Anderson’s similar, singular vision. What better way to taunt the heavens than with a cacophony of violins and needling dementia?
There is a telling lack of animals in the film (quail, a few horses, a Great Dane shown near the end like a piece of furniture), but these creatures still outnumber the women. When Daniel sits down with Eli and Abel and the rest of the Sundays, the women are coldly told to leave the room at once and do so. The scene almost plays like dark comedy. There is no room for females in Anderson’s tale, and the director has been criticized for this, but the flick’s tagline of “When Ambition Meets Faith” says it all. The empires of religion and greed were built by men seeking purpose, and women have as much purpose in this film as in a boxing ring in the early 20th Century.
Eli and Daniel cut a deal for the land and oil rights of Little Boston, with Plainview agreeing to give half the money to Eli’s church. Daniel stresses to the church people that “we’ll all share in the wealth together” and promises “education” with a humorous slyness befitting a politician: “These children are the future that we strive for and so they should have the very best of things,” he spouts. But Eli wants more and corners Daniel into an agreement to let him bless the oil derrick in the name of the church. At the last minute, Daniel chooses not to allow Eli the opportunity, and the plot’s feud to end all feuds is finally lit aflame. The central derrick in the film is turned into a work of art by Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit, who envisions it as a secular steeple that punctures the sky. It is always shown as far more grandiose compared to Eli’s church, while built from the same wood and with many of the same hands.
When we first see Eli preaching to his flock, it makes for one of the film’s more disturbing scenes. He is ridding a lady named Mrs. Hunter of her arthritis by repeatedly screaming, “Get OUT of here Ghost.” He marches towards the sun-infused door and throws out the specter. The absurdity and on-the-fly nature of this moment recalls some of the bizarre, primitive white trash voyeurism on display in Harmony Korine’s Gummo, and this is the scene where Anderson most clearly sides with Plainview. After Eli ridicules himself to moviegoers with this bogus act, Anderson cuts to Plainview’s face. This cutaway immediately received a big, uncomfortable laugh and applause from two of the three audiences I saw the film with. With the other audience, I was stoned, and I don’t recall. I was not laughing.
Plainview responds to Eli’s act by quipping, “That was one goddamn helluva show.” This is the first time that we see religion through Plainview’s eyes, and it is somewhat revelatory because no film has portrayed an atheist so clearly on film during this time period, or any time period. Plainview’s anger at this malarkey is outmatched by the group-think madness of Christianity, up until the third act where he conquers it.
For all of the critics who have referred to Daniel Plainview as a psychopath, the Blood in the film’s title is not sought out by him until the fitting end. There is a quote by Franz Kafka about life that is fitting to his situation: “Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for the unmasking. It can do no other. In extasy [sic] it will writhe at your feet.”
When another man dies working on the derrick, Plainview is passed out, asleep, on a nearby floor and awoken by his men with the tragic news. This is the first of two times that we see Plainview sleeping, and the blood is not on his hands, but on the hands of progress. He deals with the body hastily, but it is not a cover-up. When the dead man’s possessions are packed up, a Christian cross made of limp cloth is placed into a leather bound Bible and thrown without care into a large trunk of books. This man’s Bible looks exactly like all of the other books and is presented as such. From here on, the movie’s cross imagery is increased and wholeheartedly incensed.
Paul Thomas Anderson vs. God
Daniel Plainview as Psychopath, Pure Evil, Homosexual, Sterile Male, Bad Father
Many reviewers have proclaimed TWBB a masterpiece but just as many are surprisingly hands off when it comes to dissecting the direct anti-religious aspects of Paul Thomas Anderson’s film. When said aspects are this detailed, obvious, central to the plot and numerous, from the characters’ names to the film’s title to the bold marketing, which quietly placed the film’s title on The Bible for one of the main posters, it is a disservice to overlook the meanings behind them, or to simply refer to what is presented in the film as “bad religion” or “evangelical religion.” To me, this is like pitching a tent on Anderson’s balls-sorry, cojones, thanks Helen Mirren-and yelling “masterpiece” between them to hear an echo, like so many cowardly sand fleas.
While the timing is certainly right, this is not a film about oil as much as a man, and “Man” in general, surviving in a world plagued by the inexistent, mythic supernatural. The issues of religion and God slowly seep (”seepage!”) into this film and fully consume it by its end, and perhaps that explains why the ending is so off putting to many viewers (the film still has an 8.7 rating on IMDB, so maybe not that many). It’s a purposeful change in trajectory, and if you were paying attention, you’ll see it as the film’s ultimate, if not only, objective.
If you are wondering about my religious beliefs and how they play into this interpretation and review, that is fair, and somehow Wu-Tang Clan’s the RZA best sums them up with “purely philosophical, but you call him on your death bed when you layin’ in the hospital.”
In succession, H.W. goes deaf after a large explosion on the oil derrick, and then Plainview soon discovers that his brother, who turned up unannounced, is a fake and a con man. The scenes involving H.W. being injured on the derrick, which has run amok and burns to the ground, are among the most powerful, conflicted and emotional in film history.
We see Daniel’s humanity here as the derrick burns down, with H.W. layed out nearby; we see the glorious knot inside him, as he wrestles with a felled adopted son and his magnificent structure burning against the God-less night sky, drenched in this new black liquid money and at wit’s end.
“There’s a whole ocean of oil under our feet! No one can get at it except for me!”
Plainview yells this to everyone and no one with empowered exhilaration; he is turned inside out and it is the pinnacle, the literal phallic climax, to what life is depicted as in the film: a reciprocal dragon of hard-won prosperity and tragedy. He wins the lottery of life and yet his child is injured as the result, except it’s not his child but an act of goodwill. Plainview is not surprised that this has happened, and he can not blame nor pray to any “spirit.” In the end, these events drive him to kill that which proclaims what happened, trivially and maddeningly so, was an act of God. This is the test and Anderson swirls in it. Anderson is in love with man’s ambition winning against all odds and against God. Daniel passes his test, and Anderson rewards him in the end, but not before testing him even further and much harder. We cringe, and some of us vilify.
For those who say that Daniel Plainview exploits H.W.: seriously, what would have happened to this infant if Daniel didn’t take him under his wing? And does H.W. end up in such bad shape in the end? Naysayers seemingly wanted to hear Black Sabbath’s “Changes” pumped onto the screen like lard as Plainview rocks his baby to sleep, and that would entirely betray the character. The adoption of H.W. is Plainview’s one real streak of optimism in his quest for success, and it explodes in his face like a nightmare; and later, it explodes once again with an overdose of Christianity and paternal betrayal.
H.W.’s accident is not Plainview’s fault, and I am surprised at how much blame is placed on him in reviews thus far. H.W. was always more of a partner to Daniel than a son, sure, but can you blame Daniel for that?
As a man who believes in only what he sees, Plainview sees this tragedy occur to his son, on an oil derrick that helped finance a holy church. It is the last straw.
Though H.W. is now a liability to him, it’s not as if he ditches the kid immediately; he shows a rightful amount of concern in his own way, while realistically feeling a human/father’s amount of shame. When H.W. tries to murder Daniel’s brother by setting his bed afire while he’s asleep, Plainview puts H.W. on a train and sends him to a school for the hearing impaired. The scene is heartbreaking because we now realize how alone Daniel is once again, and we also literally bear witness to H.W.’s muffled fear of abandonment. Greenwood’s score only magnifies these feelings like a sonic telescope, like a doctor putting a light in your ear. But Daniel chooses logic over emotion for H.W., and this decision bothers many, but not Anderson, who only rackets up the intensity of Daniel’s trials of non-belief. It’s admittedly hard to swallow. It is the main reason why so many moviegoers incorrectly see Plainview as a villain from here on, but it is not a fault of the film.
We next turn towards the relationship of Daniel and his adult brother, Henry Plainview, and their familial bond is a step beyond what Daniel had with H.W. And yet, Daniel still quietly doubts this new blood-relation, because life, of all things, presented the guy to him.
In one of the film’s classic scenes, Daniel admits to Henry around a campfire that he “sees nothing worth liking” in people and wants “no one else to succeed.” Henry doesn’t share these sentiments and it bothers Daniel. When the brothers take a swim off a California beach, even in the water we see noticeable differences between these men. Unlike in Ernest Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream, Plainview observes no loving relation to his kin while in the ocean. In light of what has happened with H.W., Daniel wants to, and needs to, but his gut intuition calls. He must smoke him out.
Back on the beach, Plainview verbally expresses a heterosexual attraction to women for the first time in the film. He tells Henry that they should take some girls down to “The Peachtree Dance,” which is a festive event back in their Wisconsin hometown of Fond du Lac. When Henry responds with dull disinterest, Plainview is crushed. His brother is clearly a con artist who is out for his riches. Daniel immediately heads back into the ocean to cleanse himself of what, he feels, he must do that evening. This baptism of sorts is shown off-screen, foreshadowing the on-screen religious baptism of Daniel Plainview that is about to follow.
Later that night when Henry and Daniel pay a visit to whores, Daniel sits quietly while Henry borrows his money, gets drunk and enjoys the whores’ company. While it’s improbable that Daniel would have sex with a whore with murder on his mind, several viewers have shared the theory that Daniel Plainview is a closeted homosexual. This thought occurred to me during my second viewing (and stoned viewing) of the film and I thought it true, but on the third viewing it seemed far less likely.
On page 80 of the script, which is very loosely adapted by Anderson from Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, Daniel tells Henry that H.W. is not his son and the script goes:
[Daniel breaks down and holds his crotch]
“He’s not my son, my cock doesn’t even work. How am I gonna make a kid? Does yours work Henry?”
However, this part of the script is omitted from the film. Anderson clearly wished to leave it ambiguous as to whether Plainview is sterile, gay or asexual.
Based on what’s on screen, these are all valid explanations and all make Plainview a more sympathetic character while further shading in his hatred of religion and God. However, the “explanation” that Daniel is “evil personified” is simply fucking wrong. There is no devil in this film because the devil doesn’t even exist therein.
With a gun pointed at his head, Henry confesses that he is a fake and tells Daniel that his real brother died of tuberculosis; whether Daniel’s brother really died of this is unknown, and coming from this semi-slick liar’s mouth, it’s doubtful. Perhaps Henry killed Daniel’s brother, who knows? Daniel kills Henry, buries him and passes out in a depressed state of drunkenness. He’s awoken in the morning by a man named Bandy, and they make a deal: Daniel can peruse his land for oil if he agrees to be baptized at The Church of the Third Revelation. Bandy uses blackmail here because he is aware of Henry’s fresh grave and its location on his property. Daniel reluctantly agrees to be baptized, after his several monetary offers to Bandy are, somewhat humorously, turned down.
Daniel’s baptism in the church is the most important part of the film. Plainview simply cannot escape religion no matter what he does or how successful he becomes, and Anderson presents these amazing scenes with a psychotic, paranoid verve.
Plainview is the only sane person inside the church at the time of his baptism, and the churchgoers are presented here like the devilish characters that surround Rosemary near the end of Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby. This is the superlative conspiracy in Plainview’s eyes and he’s become a part of it, and so have we.
The pronounced cross in the church in these scenes is truly horrific. Large and cut into the rear wall, it burns with eerie white light as Plainview is called upon to get on his knees in front of it. The preacher, Eli Sunday, presides over the baptism and lurks over Daniel, forcing him to confess that he is a sinner over and over and over. We see Plainview wither away as he’s humiliated and vilified. As a man, Daniel is being raped in front of our eyes and the ceremony is everything he stands against and has fought so tirelessly in provocation of. Sunday then forces Daniel to vocalize that he has abandoned H.W. and Daniel says so repeatedly, before his mind breaks and he finally screams:
“I’ve abandoned my child!”
“I’ve abandoned my child!”
“I’ve abandoned my boy!”
Humiliated, he walks back to his seat. The Christians swarm Plainview as he does so like a cipher of zombies. He sits down and one lady touches him; never before have I seen a man so devastated from being touched on his shoulder in a film, absolutely shattered. These scenes recall how we march our presidential candidates up to the podium and force them to say that they believe in God and believe in The Bible “word for word.” If these candidates said they didn’t believe in the supernatural, they wouldn’t get elected. And Daniel would not get his contract to solidify his power in the world. Like Plainview, these candidates (sans Mike Huckabee) do not believe in any God. It is truly a travesty to make them say they do, but unlike Daniel Plainview, they go along with it for the reward instead of resisting and breaking.
Ambition vs. Faith: Faith is Killed with a Bowling Pin (the End)
H.W. soon returns from the school for the hearing impaired. He reunites with his father, and soon we see H.W. as an adult getting married in the year 1927. He exchanges vows in sign language with Mary Sunday, and Anderson closes in on the shining cross around Mary’s neck like it is a “666″ medallion. Plainview is not shown in attendance, because he is not there.
We next see Plainview’s mansion, the actual Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills formerly owned by oil maven Edward L. Doheny, and Anderson lingers on Plainview’s residence, framed with its lush, green foliage, with deliberate calm.
This home is the product of Plainview’s hard work, of no God, and of the blood of so many men who worked and died to see through America’s oil vision and his. This home is Plainview’s sanctuary. He wanted to get away from everyone, as Daniel so plainly told Henry, and he has, and quite luxuriously so. In a time where so many mens’ houses are built from ambiguity, Plainview’s mansion recalls the house of a modern day drug dealer or, more accurately, a pornographer. His business is a necessity. And, unlike, say, Tony Soprano, whose morals were tied to Mafia tropes, Plainview is a real deal self-made guy, but so many reviewers call him a sickening example of a man. Being your own boss is not easy.
Inside his mansion, Plainview’s lifestyle is shown in a hilarious state of disarray. Like Hunter S. Thompson in his “fortified compound” in Aspen or a more nihilistic Ty Webb in Caddyshack, we observe Plainview drunkenly shooting at objects for fun inside his almost vacant lair. Man as filthy legend. In the wicked light of a fireplace, we see messy stacks of books rammed inside cabinets on either side, as Daniel sits at a wide desk in the center.
He looks typically ornery here, smoking diligently from a cigarette holder, his eyes glazed over with strong drink. He’s sort of like a Western version of Esteban Vihaio in Kill Bill: Vol. 2. H.W. promptly comes in to tell his father that he’s going to Mexico to start his own oil company, and all of the father issues established during the last two hours boil up inside Plainview. At this point, we already comprehend that Plainview blames H.W.’s unfortunate turn to Christianity on personal inner weakness sustained from his injury, so the venom that is spewed forth is utterly depressing for the both of them.
Like all sons, H.W. is competing with his father here, so Daniel cuts him loose and calls him a “bastard in a basket,” a basket he randomly found and took in like so much charity. He aggressively signs the word for “drilling” with three massive stabs of his finger onto his desk and these stabs are comparable to three exclamation points made from lines of cocaine and periods of Adderall. Aha! This is the Paul Thomas Anderson we’ve come to know and love, and it’s intriguing how quickly the director pushes H.W. aside like foam in a carwash to get to the bigger questions and answers of TWBB. H.W.’s vocals make him sound emasculated and bring a glimmer to Plainview’s face, and possibly to ours. H.W.’s handicap and religious conversion is truly humorous in its tragedy. This is a fucked up movie, okay?
Literally sleeping in the gutter of his bowling alley, surrounded by bottles of alcohol and a plate of half-eaten steak, Plainview is shaken awake by Eli Sunday, who has suddenly appeared inside Daniel’s sanctuary to make a deal. It is here that we see Sunday as a mortal no longer. Eli Sunday is nothing except the alleged God himself.
Sunday’s face literally glows like a moon rock, and while Daniel has grown visibly older, stressed and frail, Sunday has purposely never aged. He’s inexplicably aged far less than H.W. who was but a boy when his father arrived in Little Boston. A huge silver cross hangs from his neck like a cheesy rapper’s and he speaks with humble, divine desperation. The world has done Eli wrong, so now he needs Daniel to right it. We see why Anderson wanted to originally cast a 13-year-old boy in the role of Eli. This virginal glow-child represents so many saints praying in front of so many real men of the world.
In the end, Anderson holds a possessed mirror up to the scenes of Daniel’s baptism. Plainview tells Eli to declare that he is a false prophet and that God is a superstition, and not only does Eli do it, but Anderson has Eli confront the audience with his confessions, with one foot over the fourth wall. Anderson forces his thoughts on God down our throat like Plainview forcing H.W. to drink a glass of alcohol. And yet, so many critics and moviegoers are quick to decide otherwise! Simply ridiculous, how much power religion has over us. This scene is like Ferris Bueller doing atheism, folks:
“I am a false prophet! God is a superstition!”
“I am a false prophet! God is a superstition!”
“I am a false prophet! God is a superstition!”
Anderson and Plainview have Eli say these lines three times apiece, as if proving that if the proclamations were untrue, God would strike Plainview down then and there, and perhaps the filmmakers themselves, as well the audience. If you don’t buy this explanation, you try saying those lines that many times in front of someone, and then try doing it in front of a couple thousand people.
Long driven mad by the madness that is religion and God, Daniel Plainview has finally won the showdown, and he is finally reassured that there is no God. God is only in the brain of the diseased, lonely and weak. So, he kills “God,” after throwing bowling balls at him and boasting about his victorious traits. He bludgeons God with a bowling pin like early man would do with a club, and this scene harkens back to the film’s beginning, where American men roamed the fields for silver and oil like a new, primitive species.
The last lines in the film come from Plainview, with his back tellingly turned to the screen, utterly faceless, and thus the lines come from Paul Thomas Anderson as well: “I’m finished.”
For both of these men, the madness of religion, past, present and future, is completely over, and when you walk out of the theater, you wish it was over in the real world as well. Daniel Plainview ventured, perhaps all the way, to where all men must go sooner or later, and if they don’t they simply aren’t men.
When I walked out of the theater, I remember throwing away my ticket later that night in mild irritation. When I returned to the home of a friend and checked my bank account, the last three numbers were 6.66. I am not a superstitious person, but fuck. I had already received a double-sided poster for the film, and yet I didn’t even want to frame and display it. But after my third viewing, I realized the undeniable greatness of this film and Anderson. It’s still not up.
Rating: 11/11
Citizen Kane has met his/its match: There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece of near impossible quality and magnitude. Paul Thomas Anderson has gone where few dare (No Country For Old Men, ahem), and when a director attacks that which is more than human, perfection is the only option. Here’s to the brilliance.
A special thanks to: Peter Sciretta, Andrew Unterman, Shawn Wines, Brittany Banta, Clay Irwin, Zach Stephenson, Sam Cowherd and Chris Daniel for many a TWBB discourse and email.
February 29th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Kubrick never won an Oscar either. Also, If you look at 1971’s oscar award season it bears a striking resemblance to 2007’s. Some of the most violent films of the decade (albeit ever) were made in 71 with the Oscar going to the more modern crime caper in the form of Freidkens “French Connection” rather than Kubricks character expose “A Clockwork Orange” which explores the moral arch of a single protagonist ala TWBB. Heres hoping we never have to wait 5 years for a PTA film.
By the way The academy owes Kubrick like 50 Oscars.
February 29th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
By the way this is hardly a good “review” its just long. He keeps stringing together metaphors about how the film affected him and stuff. There are way to many “as-if’s” and “like a school-boy coming home from school for the first time, reborn” for this to be serious literature about a film.
M. A. S. T. E. R. B. A. T. I. O. N.
He’s more concerned with himself than the movie.
Oh and I’m well aware that arch is arch and arc is arc its a typo alright. I’m only semi-immortal.
All that aside thanks for putting your time to good use Hunter any time spent thinking about There Will Be Blood is not wasted. Thanks for a very personal look at this flick through your eyes.
February 29th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Oh dear. No good can come of this.
February 29th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Great movie. Longest review ever.
February 29th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
referencing both gummo and the wu-tang clan? wow.
February 29th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Ii thought the Rambo review was an exception, but dude, you have to keep these things shorter. No way I’ll EVER read a review this long. I’ll spend less time watching the frikkin’ movie.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Hunter, first I applaud you on the considerable effort put into this review. Having only seen the film one time, I generally agree with you on your overall take - this is a profound piece of artwork that will not truly be recognized/appreciated for several years at least. I felt that seconds after leaving the theater, though I sat through the entire roll of credits, contemplating the film’s meaning and message before I got up to leave.
When watching it, one can’t help but think of Kubrick, so the comparisons are not only apt, they are pretty much necessary. Between the cinematography, score, frequent closeups of faces, and let’s face it, dehumanization of Plainview as the picture progresses, it is intentionally an homage to Kubrick.
There are certain leaps you have taken that I believe are certainly possible, but not necessarily clear. For instance, regarding HW, I felt that Plainview was using him from the very start and never truly cared for him as a son. I believe his comments at the end to HW are completely what was within his heart throughout their relationship. This is evidenced in the aftermath of the explosions of the drill. He runs to collect HW and takes him back to the shed. At that moment, we can not tell if he cherishes him like a son or an asset, but his excitement for the “ocean of oil” reveals his true feelings. One could point to the baptism scene as an admission of love, but I can not decide if he was merely playing up to show up Eli Sunday’s preaching style.
Also, his disdain for Sunday is not solely a disdain for religion, though Plainview certainly has that as well. It is more centrally his ravenous greed. That greed does not allow him to see success for anyone else, particularly someone how has challenged him. Sunday has great success in the town of Little Boston, and that success galls Plainview. If Sunday had a successful pet store or an amusement park or whatever, Plainview would still wish to “bury him in the ground.” It is difficult to say that Anderson is against all religion when the church he chooses in his film is such an indefensible one. Had Sunday been an honest and reasonable preacher, I would be more apt to agree with you on this point.
It seems you view Plainview as a reflection of PT Anderson himself, but the fact that (as you note) the film is a condemnation of capitalism and the oil industry’s use of it to exploit the populous indicates that he and Plainview are not entirely cut from the same stone. Plainview is not his conscience, and is painted as a flawed individual in the film, even if Anderson does agree with him with respect to religion.
So my main contention is that there is much here that is not as clearly defined as you make it. There are intentionally ambiguous aspects to the film, including of course, the final lines. In general, I agree with the big picture of everything you’ve written, and as I said at the outset, it’s an excellent review.
I had to ask myself, could Kubrick have made this movie where he still around. My answer was “yeah, maybe, probably,” which I feel is a compliment to both Kubrick and Anderson.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
tl;dr
Seriously though… I might not agree completely, but it was a great to get a feel for your perspective on the flick.
Really an essay, not a review.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
JFK said:
“M. A. S. T. E. R. B. A. T. I. O. N….Oh and I’m well aware that arch is arch and arc is arc its a typo alright. I’m only semi-immortal.”
Are you aware masterbation is a typo as well? (I’ll save you the time…it’s masturbation)
February 29th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Damn Hunter. The reviews I’ve read of yours (Cloverfield, Rambo, this one) all make their respective films seem like the most important movie of the year, and that takes some incredible writing talent. Some of your “leaps” are kind of ridiculous (i.e. claiming the current presidential candidates don’t believe in God), but I’m willing to put up with those if I can get any new input on the films you review. Nice job, once again.
(And yeah, you might want to cut back on the length if you want more people to read them. I didn’t mind it, personally, but - you know.)
February 29th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Alex, That was meant to be ironic. Hunters so good at it he’s almost Mastured it.
Could he cram one more reference about Nirvana being on MTV in there? How is this film actually related to any of this drivel he keeps going on about.
So you threw away your ticket and got a poster for free? so.. soo.. make it relevant Hunter. Jesus, your just blabbering.
:)
Anyways Ive seen plenty of typos in these articles I don’t know why I bother making recompense for mine.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Nice review; you clearly put a considerable amount of time and energy into writing it. While I was expecting NCFOM to take the Oscar, I still wanted Anderson to take home the best director award. He truly deserved it.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
@ Tim G.
I didn’t place “Must Read” in the original headline - that was the decision of Peter at Slashfilm. TWBB is a very important and highly complex film, and I feel it merits a review with a large word count. I don’t take offense if you just want to drop by and comment on the shockingly massive length. Whatevs.
@ Reed
Regarding H.W., I think it’s clear that H.W. gives Plainview an advantage in his business, similar to how a politician with a nice kid (and family) often has an advantage in politics. This is nothing new in the game of success/life. But does Plainview only take care of H.W. because of this advantage? Doubtful. He wants a companion, and perhaps he cannot have a child of his own. Plainview shows emotion and love towards H.W. on the train while his boy is still an infant, and thus wouldn’t remember it. And as I mentioned, I feel Daniel and H.W. really do bond like father and son during their hunting excursion for quail on the Sundays’ property.
We never see Plainview abuse the boy, and H.W. definitely gets an education on how the world works, and he seems to enjoy himself on their adventures. As for the film’s end, when H.W. hurts his father by telling him he wishes to “compete” with him, Daniel merely reciprocates the hurt he feels. If Daniel is in fact sterile or homosexual, those were/are tough emotions to grasp and contemplate, and obviously he didn’t tell H.W. that he was an orphan until this scene. As many have stated, perhaps this is a good thing for H.W. It’s an intimate and hurtful exchange of words, I agree with you there.
When H.W. goes deaf as a result of the accident on the oil derrick, Daniel runs to save him. He is clearly distraught. When he sees that H.W. has hearing loss, perhaps temporary, but is not otherwise hurt he leaves to join his men and watch the derrick burn. As I stated, this scene is incredibly climatic, tense and conflicted like an emotional knot. But Plainview is his own boss and does not have, nor want evidently, a proper second-man to see to his affairs (H.W. is sort of this second-man and successor). Also, some time passes in these scenes with the derrick incident, so it’s not exactly Burning Derrick vs H.W.: Where’s Daniel’s Love?
If you’re putting yourself in Daniel Plainview’s shoes, as I feel so many viewers understandably do, then sure, he’s a hardass and possibly mad. But I’m not sure it’s really possible to do that.
As for Anderson only going after Eli Sunday’s “bad religion,” which is clearly based on greed and ambition, perhaps more so than faith, rather than religion itself, I feel I argued this point rather well. The film’s cross imagery is blatantly negative, deliberate and cold, even when it’s separate from Eli, like with Mary’s necklace at the Christian wedding and the cloth cross that’s hastily placed into a Bible and thrown into a stack of generic books. This is not a movie about bad religion, though Eli practices it, whatever that really means.
As for your pet store analogy, that would mean the movie’s tagline would be “When Ambition Meets Ambition” rather than “When Ambition Meets Faith.” While I’d love to see Plainview save some beloved gerbils and kittens from a pet store fire (arson!), the Faith aspects presented in this film are nearly greater than the film’s comments on Ambition. Obviously, two competitive men and their long-lasting conflict make up the core of the story. Also, how do you explain why Eli Sunday has not aged a single year at the film’s end, while H.W. is fully grown and even looks older than him? Botox and HGH weren’t around in the 1920s.
I’m not sure I would call the film a “condemnation of capitalism” as you have. It’s showing capitalism, greed and the early oil industry for what they were at the time, and obviously how those things changed with time up until the present. Thanks for your comment, I do see where you’re coming from and you raise good points.
March 1st, 2008 at 12:03 am
He prefaced it, saying it was long. Don’t fucking read it if you’re gonna be perturbed by it being to long.
This is a GREAT take on the movie, Hunter. I enjoyed reading this. I’ve seen the movie twice. I’ve made some of these connections, perhaps not to the extent that you have. I don’t necessarily agree with everything, but it’s great to know that someone else is on the same track as I am. I enjoy all of your reviews, essays, what the fuck ever. AND your Nirvana reference. I just GET IT, dude. I could talk about this movie for hours. This kind of just adds fuel to my fire!
March 1st, 2008 at 12:04 am
*too long.
Just in case everyone is going to get pissy about typos tonight.
March 1st, 2008 at 12:37 am
“At no point in your rambling, did you even come close to an intelligent thought. I award you no points, may God have mercy on your soul.”
March 1st, 2008 at 6:56 am
“TWBB is a very important and highly complex film, and I feel it merits a review with a large word count.”
That may be true, but a lot of this was very tedious and you really need an editor, though it’s not to say that you haven’t put “energy” into it. I think a big problem is your need to plod along the story commenting on it, rather than writing an actual essay that is meant to make certain arguments for people who have already seen the film. A lot of it was really unnecessary and could have been pared down.
That said, I think you’ve missed something fundamental about H.W. and Daniel’s relationship, and therefore Daniel’s relationships in general. Daniel’s relationship with H.W. and Henry prove his desire for a human connection and not simply to move away from everybody. H.W. is absolutely terrified right after the accident and does not want his father to leave him. He begs and pleads with Daniel, yet his father leaves him in this very vulnerable and scary moment to check on the derricks. By doing so, and by leaving for a good amount of time (remember his scenes of dialogue with Fletcher Hamilton which indicates that he did not return right away to HW as promised and is now enthralled with the oil. It is Fletcher who asks about HW and then goes to check on him). Up until this point, we never see Daniel really having a problem with H.W. The boy is obedient and attentive, engaged with the process. Maybe Daniel is a bit odd with him, as opposed to other parents, but it is a generally positive relationship. After this though, we start to see H.W. acting out and Daniel loses grip on him and because he doesn’t know how to handle it, things start to fall apart (just think about how he hopes that maybe HW’s hearing will come back or the moments between the two before he eventually sends H.W. away). H.W. who feels abandoned and is angry about his hearing loss is now a much harder child to care for and to love. It confuses and taxes Daniel, who tries somewhat, but eventually shuts down, just like he shuts down to some degree after he finds out about Henry. And just to add that I feel like the Peachtree line is not the decisive moment. It certainly is what finally gets him to start thinking, but there are a number of other things like his conversation with Fletcher before that and then the whorehouse and after. I think it makes him finally begin to question it to the point where he has to confront Henry. And when he finds out, it really hurts him because he so rarely brings people in.
March 1st, 2008 at 7:41 am
This review has chapters AND credits!!……….
.
………
………………
While I have to give this the Oscar for Most Dramatic it was very epic in scale………. But I still want to read Hunter’s review on this great new film called Jaws. I hear its terrifying!!!
March 1st, 2008 at 9:42 am
I think I have a crush on you huntar. =p
March 1st, 2008 at 12:19 pm
You seem angry. This review was fun to read. No Country For Old Men was the better film, but this one was amazing, too. I wouldn’t consider Plainview the winner over God, as his life without God seemed empty and hollow, plus he will most likely now end up in prison for murder? Right? I see this as a hatred for fake religion, but not as a hatred for God. Perhaps Plainview finds God in jail? Sequel idea! There Will Be Redemption By The Lamb’s Blood? No? All in all, WONDERFUL review, even if people may disagree with some of your thoughts… don’t let that stop you. You are a gifted writer and clearly can dig deep into a film. Please keep the long reviews coming, and people don’t wont to read them, they can find one sentence reviews over at rotten tomatoes. I would be interested in your thoughts on No Country For Old Men, and preferably not a review comparing it to this film. Nirvana rulz.
March 1st, 2008 at 2:00 pm
That was the most pretentious, not only that I have read, but this might be the most pretentious piece of literature(if you can call it that,) ever.
First off, he just rambles for the sake of it. What was that Nirvana thing all about? that had nothing to do with anything. You over analyzed everything, honestly, you and I both know you’re whole “Paul Anderson hates God” thing is irrelevant. You just wanted to sound cool, admit it. That was such a poor, idiotic analogy that held no merit whatsoever. Eli Sunday represented God? hardly. That might of held some sort of merit if he wasn’t a FALSE PROPHET.
You go on to say that everyone should be striked dead if God exist, during the final scene. Well, notice how the false prophet died right after saying that? Doesn’t that kinda fit with scripture?
And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.
I don’t care if your atheist, it’s not that. It’s the fact that you’re making such stupid interpretations that make no sense whatsoever.
I understand this is a deep film, but you’re looking wayyyyyyyy to into it.
Oh, and by the way, I highly doubt anyone’s going to take this seriously, considering 5 things.
1. That whole Nirvana thing just kinda made us feel awkward, as if you just wanted to mention your favourite band for the sake of it.
2. You rambled, and went on more about yourself then the actual film.
3. You gave us a bit too much informatio on your life. “I still didn’t hang it up..” ugh.
4. None of presidential candidates don’t believe in God. Okay, I disagree, and think that statement is insane, but alright, if you wanna think that, that’s fine and dandy…BUT WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH TWBB? is this an review of a film, or an overly angsty take on Christianity?
5. You gave Rambo 10 stars. People aren’t gonna take you seriously, and for other reasons as well (see reason number 1, and also name dropping Wu Tang Clan outta nowhere.)
And one more just for laughs.
This is supposed to be a review of a film, not your take on religion, and your life story. “Oh, by the way, if you’re wondering what I believe…”
No, we don’t. And we don’t need a review of a film that’s been nominated for best film…AFTER THE OCSARS
We already seen it, and don’t need some weird, let me name-drop stuff-that-has-nothing-to-do-with-the-film, pretentious review.
It’s not that it was long, it was just that it was terrible.
But uh, it’s nothing against you as a person.
Peace out, man.
March 1st, 2008 at 2:38 pm
@ Mike
1. The Nirvana comparison is being blown way out of proportion. Haha. There is a palpable existential anger in TWBB that reminded me of seeing “Heart Shaped Box” for the first time. I haven’t seen such an angry, unsettling piece of work - a song, a book, a film, a play et al - in a very long time, since that video appeared even. I don’t feel the Nirvana comparison is totally out of left field, nor do I get off on referencing ’90s alternative bands in 2008 for the sake of it. Ewww.
Why do I feel like you’re the guy who would take a marker to a locker if a person didn’t like your favorite band?
Hmmmm….
It must be your email address, which is a Foo Fighters song! Haha. Angry Foo Fighter fan or what? Man, take it easy.
2/3. I honestly don’t feel this review is too personal or a result of egomania. And in no way does it contain my “life story.” Ha! This is not a review for Traditional Media, and I feel that one of the reasons why movie sites on the Internet have flourished is the passionate and personal takes of the writers. You don’t have to agree with me. I’m cool with that. You don’t have to read the reviwew, fine. Btw: the end of the review is just a way of saying the film knocked me flat on my ass and I believe it takes multiple viewings to really figure out it’s about and how you relate to it. And even then, I remain a little “wtf” about TWBB. That was my point.
4. What do current politics have to do with TWBB? Do I really need to address this question? Even PTA has stated that he had to be careful not to pile it on, but admits current parallels are there.
5. If you want to hold against me the fact that I think Rambo is a great action film and did everything a Rambo film is meant to accomplish, fine. I def grasp why you feel this way. I guess you don’t enjoy action films or comic book films at all? And I’m sure PTA just sits in a room watching Kubrick all day, hating Rambo. Okay. Stanley Kubrick once said that one of his fave movies was White Men Can’t Jump. Jus’ Sayin’.
@ Anonymous
What’s up Columbia Univ?
I get the criticism that I “simply restated the entire plot,” and, personally, I dislike when reviewers do this. It’s a crutch for stating the obvious.. However, in the case of TWBB, Daniel’s journey is the film and every scene is deliberately packed with meaning. It’s a character study, my goal with the review was to layout Daniel’s journey and sort of trace over it with thought-out interpretations that lead up to my final conclusion about what TWBB is saying. I also didn’t want to write a boring review, and feel that I did not.
As for what you say about H.W. and Daniel, I actually agree with you. I am a little perplexed that you seem to hold Daniel’s need to build a bond with family against him. While I think Daniel honestly wants to get away from “everyone,” he makes a clear exception for family, but both instances bite him in the end. As for whether The Peachtree Dance scene is the moment when Daniel decides to murder Henry, I see how you feel it’s not. I disagree, and feel this is why he heads back for the ocean, but it’s open to interpretation.
Thanks for your comments Lindsay and Ben.
March 1st, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Actually, Nirvana is my favourite band :-)
Oh, and I love, love action films. I’m even fond of Transformers, maybe I’ll be a big boy and retract my statement regarding Rambo, however, just take my criticism to consideration. Or not, it’s up to you. I felt I gave you some valid insight on what was wrong with your review, but whatevs.
Anyway, I think the film is anti false religion, certainly not anti conception of God.
Didn’t you think an actual God played a role in the film? Eli Sunday dying after denouncing God, Daniel’s son going deaf, it all seemed like the hand of God to me.
Oh wells, to each his own.
March 1st, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Oh, and I love comic book films. I just wish they woulda cast Josh Hartnett for Superman :(
March 1st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Hey Hunter, I heard a pretty interesting tip when it comes to writing that I think you may be able to benefit from. You may have heard the expression “you have to kill your babies.” I think this may certainly hold true in this review, where perhaps a shorter essay would have packed more of a punch.
In the end you have to recognize which metaphors fall flat and which rise to the top.
Sorry, creative writing and English lit major here…
March 1st, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Your article was well-written and insightful. Who gives a fuck if you needed to edit it down. Don’t let other people tell you how to write and take no heed when people tell you you’re wrong. PTA said something along these lines in an interview with Henry Rollins recorded sometime during pre-production. That outlook seems to have suited him well.
I’m assuming you were in your early teens or younger as I was when In Utero was released and its reference makes perfect sense to me. When you first heard/watched something so blasphemous and unexpected and were forced to grapple with larger existential issues…hearing meaningful music when you’re that age…it will never be that good for the rest of your life. So, in light of Heart Shaped Box’s reference to TWWB, I think the two experiences are similar enough. I walked out of There Will Be Blood the first time and couldn’t even think about it I was so overwhelmed/touched/broken. It wasn’t until my sister and I were halfway home that I realized how funny the film was. Yes, I thought it was hilarious.
The second time i saw it I was stoned too (ha!) and somewhere around the time Daniel and H.W. are tooling over the plains in their car, I realized that I’d never seen a film so brilliant during its initial theatrical release. I’m afraid I might not again and I’m also afraid in a different sense to try and tackle the idea that its greatness might extend beyond “theatrical run” parameters.
So bravo to you, Mr. Stephenson, for having the cajones to put your grand ideas out there, whether right or wrong, it makes no difference. What’s the point of needing absolute truth when you’re passionate?
Fuck these douchebag-english-major-know-it-alls (though, I am one of them) and keep writing!
March 1st, 2008 at 4:34 pm
A long review but worth it. Good reference to Nirvana. I can appreciate that.
March 1st, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Sorry TWBB, not TWWB. yeesh.
March 1st, 2008 at 5:21 pm
@ Alex
Wassup Purdue University!?
“Sorry, creative writing and English lit major here…”
Don’t apologize for your major! Man, in a few years you’ll realize that sentence is like saying, “I have a magic wand, somebody be nice to me.”
@ Caleb
Indeed. The Henry Rollins interview with PTA that you speak of was top notch. Rollins was even a little intimidated (how cute), and having met/interviewed the dude and seen him throw a script at a “creative writing / english major” because the kid’s email addy contained the words “big balls,” that is really friggin’ hard to do! I’d love to see PTA make a film about Black Flag as well.
March 1st, 2008 at 5:57 pm
It is a great movie. I enjoyed it very much. But it does not mark the end of religion. The easiest thing to do is set up a straw man and topple him over as it he represents all. This is the problem with all the atheist arguments against religion. They take the easiest to criticize and think they have done something remarkable. They haven’t. If you are going to kill God off, then you have to replace him with something equally powerful and beneficent. In this regard, Anderson’s film could be simply a story about the folly of ambition.
March 1st, 2008 at 10:16 pm
More of a long winded summary than an essay. Good effort I guess.
March 1st, 2008 at 10:46 pm
It is embarrassing!! So many people cannot make it through such a great review of a great movie and admit it!!! Hunter you are insane11 Could Ebert or Noles do a better review of TWBB? NO! Next time make it 20000 words and get fat.
Never thought of Eli as GOD but I am now convinced!!! Paul Thomas Anderson killed GOD. It is so clear. End of story, thank you thank you Hunter Stephenson.
Shutup haters. This review is great.
March 2nd, 2008 at 12:37 am
This isn’t an anti-religion film any more than it’s an anti-capitalist film. It’s a film about ambition, plain and simple.
“… it’s a slippery slope when you start thinking about something other than just a good battle between two guys that kind of see each other for what they are, just trying to work from that first and foremost and let everything that is there fall into place behind it. I would be wrong - it would be horrible to make a political film or anything like that. Tell a nasty story and let the rest take care of itself.
… at the core of the story was the drive and ambition not only from this independent oil men, but also from the people he was supposedly getting the better of in leasing their land. The ambition was on both sides, equally.” - Paul Thomas Anderson
http://thedeadbolt.com/news/102967/ptanderson_interview.php
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:35 am
this was a very heartfelt review, and it was fun to read. but i was troubled by the aggressive responses from those who would claim to have the ‘correct’ interpretation of twbb. i’ve always thought that the explanation of movies, like any art, lie in the hands of whomever is doing the analyzing. especially in the case of a film like twbb, where there are so many avenues to explore. i say try em all, and they’re all correct. every review should start, “here’s how I saw the film…”
one place where our view of this film differs, is that i felt the script and the film were very clear on explaining the fact that daniel was rendered impotent from some unknown event/ailment. i never got the impression that he was gay or asexual, but rather that it was a medical condition. again, that’s the way i saw it, so its the correct explanation for MY daniel plainview, and MY twbb - not anyone else’s.
compairing cobain and plainview was a nice touch. both men had a ferocious audacity that resonates with us long after both of their curtains have been called.
March 2nd, 2008 at 11:31 am
Awesome review. The emotion and reference put into the review supersedes the fact that it is long. And regardless, I would expect a two paragraph review of, say, an easily digestible action movie but there’s just too much to this movie not to warrant a little time and effort to understand it. I love Hunter’s writing style, very unique. Damn good read.
March 2nd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I LOVED the analysis made of this film in this review. Probably the most intense experience i’ve had going to the movies IN YEARS!
March 2nd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Hunter -
Definitely enjoyed the review, sir. Although I wasn’t a huge fan of this movie (indeed, I felt pretty disappointed by the end) I have only seen it once, and it has still stayed with me after more than two weeks of consideration. Couple of ideas/comments:
1) After Plainview kills his “brother,” the deal he struck with the old man was to build a pipeline across his land, not prospect for oil. That was part of the lynchpin of Eli Sunday’s downfall at the end - that the oil had been sucked dry from the land Eli was counting on to save him.
2) An alternate viewpoint on H.W. and his “entrance into Christianity” - it seemed to me one could also interpret the events of the film that H.W. and his wife are the next generation - beyond the grasp of ambition and religious fervor. His wife is shown, as a young girl, unsatisfied with religion (”Daddy beats us if we don’t pray”). Similarly, H.W. - through his accident - is driven away from his father’s business. But they don’t give up the core of it - ambition and religion come together in a happy union. It’s just the old fire-and-brimstone patriarchs of both sides that end in unhappiness.
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Jesus, what masturbation. No one gives a shit about your overblown review of a movie that came out 3 months ago.
March 2nd, 2008 at 4:15 pm
“No one gives a shit about your overblown review of a movie that came out 3 months ago.”
Clarification: YOU don’t give a shit.
March 2nd, 2008 at 5:24 pm
I question your taste in film, in that you exaggerate, in some ways, the quality of this film. Yes, it is very good. Best ever? What, out of a Top 200? It is beautiful and yet there have been hundreds of movies with equal to or better than scenes throughout. This is not a flawless film. Is is a masterpiece? For PTA it is, but in regards to the history of film? No.
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:04 pm
@ Tim
Trust me when I say that I poured over PTA’s interviews for TWBB. The man is also fond of saying he hates to explain what his films mean and that he will never ever do so. He said this about Magnolia and he’s still quite ambiguous with TWBB, and will forever be.
Why is this? Well, I feel that PTA could not be more friggin’ clear with what he’s saying with TWBB regarding religion, to a mass audience. I’ve already referenced the quote you posted in regards to the film’s political undertones in the comments here. PTA doesn’t need to say that Daniel Plainview toppled God, because he, uhh, doesn’t need to. It’s right there on the screen for nearly a three-hour runtime.
And, as I explained in the review, I feel that a lot of film critics simply lacked the balls to examine TWBB’s anti-religious message(s). I agree with Orange Cinema in that it is the job of reviewers to dive in and rip apart a film’s meaning(s), especially when the film is this great (and @ maharba, YES, TWBB is in the top 200 films ever made. Period).
Problem is, critics for Traditional Media simply cannot discuss religion, especially Christianity, when it is so controversially presented. “Liz and Owen” cannot do that at Entertainment Weekly. Nor can they write 6,000 words on a film.
We can do that here at Slashfilm. TWBB is made for a new generation, our generation, and it is our job to cover this film the way it needs to be and deserves to be. To review this film and NOT reveal your own feelings on the subject matter, when the film and director confront them so viciously, brilliantly and relentlessly, when the subject matter is this entwined with the human experience, says so much about the state of movie criticism today (as cprestond pointed out, thanks) that it hurts to laugh.
Masturbation? Maxim-type reviews are masturbation. Unfulfilling, quick, shallow and too lazy to remove the tissue when they’re finished. Like with Maxim’s recent music reviews. So sticky are those guys, they simply imagine the albums in their head and publish reviews on them.
@ Fred
In three months, it will be “too late” to review Semi-Pro and Step Up. In 50 years, there will be fresh reviews of There Will Be Blood. It’s never too late, and hopefully the Internet will be central to changing movie reviews from their current state as mere product tie-ins, to in-depth breakdowns. Of course, the readers will have a huge say in this. If you’re religious, put your hands together and make a difference. Otherwise, make it happen however you can.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:48 am
I just saw this last night, and I have to say I wasn’t really that impressed. I can see that it is crafted well, the cinematography, the editing, the acting (I love DDL). It just seemd more like a piece of art than an “enjoyable” movie. I got that there was a lot of symbolism, but it just didn’t “entertain”. There really wasn’t much of a story, and I have t osay, I do not understand why everyone keeps lauding the score. The music was actually rather irritating, and didn’t help to “Set the corect mood” in my opinion. You shouldn’t have “tense strings” building up in a scen where there is no payoff, it just makes the end of the seem feel dissapointing and empty.
March 6th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
this ain’t no review
April 28th, 2008 at 8:14 am
It would be interesting to see a companion film made from Sunday’s point of view.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Pretty entertaining take on the film. And your’re right, this film is the definition of BRILLIANCE. PTA made a definitive cinematic experience.
April 29th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Nice review. I’ve seen the film once yesterday. I thought I didn’t like it at all at first but it’s somehow growing on me now. I don’t totally agree with you on the antireligion part though… I think Daniel has abandoned love/god and Eli on the other has abandoned the material. Both greedy in they own ways. Both mad in they own way. Both on the opposite ends of the same line. I think you didn’t mention ,or did you, the fact that in the scene where Daniel tells H.W. that he is
‘a bastard from the basket’ and confirms himself that he never had love for H.W., images of Daniel with young H.W. are shown. I think these are Daniel’s own memories flashing in his head and shown to us while H.W. the only and last person he had in his life walks away. Daniel is suffering for his madness too, wants to but cannot oppose his own ego eventhough memories of love are flashing in his mind and therefore is doomed to solitude. What about the part where he cries after killing his fake brother?
April 29th, 2008 at 9:09 am
So what I’m trying to say in this foreign language is that Daniel didn’t end up too good either in his fight against god. He ended alone, hardened, sad and ugly. Maybe PTA is saying that a man who totally abandons god (or love) is not too much of a man either.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:48 am
A review on your review.
And be warned, as I tend to talk a lot, too. This is gonna get lengthy. But hey, this is for Hunter. So I hope he reads it if no one else. Apologies for blabbering too much where I do.
And I’m not a pro myself by the way. I’ve never written a pro movie review. In fact I’ve never written one longer than a paragraph. I’m not an avid review-reader either, just to put things in perspective. I do read one here, one there, more often than not when one is recommended to me, and yours was one of those.
I do seem to have a thing for good cinema though. I’d say I’m an avid good-movie-watcher.
This WAS a good review. And I actually revised my own review of the movie after reading it (now want to see this movie one or two more times) and I added half a star to my rating because of what was revealed to me. Again, to put things in perspective, here’s my original one-paragraph review on flixster:
“Great acting, great music, great symbolism… Definitely a one-time must-see!” - and I changed that to “multiple-time must-see” after reading your review!
However, a quick review on the review itself. The review is great, as a personal movie review. But I have to criticize a few things that made me think what the hell, did a teenager write this?
1. Despite the good vocabulary and grammar used, the literary value of the review is shattered into a thousand pieces every time you use the word “fuck” or a derivative of it. I mean come on, when you and a friend talk you say “fuck” and that’s okay, I do too. But a reviewer like this deserves to be read and receive attention, and I’m all FOR freedom of everything, not just speech but also WAY of speech. But come on, anyone would admit it: talking like this in a professional context harnesses your progress and your reputation.
2. Along the same line, You completely ruin it where you mention the bit on your account balance being 6.66, claiming that you’re not superstitious right away as if to clear yourself of charges you KNOW are going to be pressed upon you. Why say stuff like that in the first place? What good does it do for your review? For that matter I’m more assured you’re superstitious right now. 6.66 my butt… pssh!
3. This is a good review where you ANALYZE the movie. You even mention once that this is probably not the best movie ever made, good job, realistic, true. (For can anyone ever say one movie IS?) You totally ruin it where you start glorifying the movie without reason, saying it’s 11/11, effectively saying it IS “the best movie ever made”. This may be pushing it a bit too far, but you know what such fanaticism reminds me of? Religion! (Also the bit about 6.66) You do your own review (and the movie) injustice by inducing idolatry. Maybe I’m being too hard on you. After all, i can understand your enthusiasm! It IS an amazing movie, and I say this thanks to your review after all!
April 30th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
A review of the previous comment:
Farid, You really need to find better things to do on the internet.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I assure you, there are things.
June 1st, 2008 at 11:20 am
What about the most important religous aspects of the movie— The annointing of his child with oil and the rant “I am the third revelation” before he kills the preacher? Your lack of religious education betrays you as incapable of reviewing this movie.