Rating of
N/A
An American Tale
moraveca - wrote on 01/05/08
To say that "There Will Be Blood" is a great film is perhaps an exaggeration, but only perhaps. To say that "There Will Be Blood" is the most exciting, kinetic, and visually staggering film of the year is perhaps a given, but again, only perhaps. Daniel Day-Lewis brilliantly guides us through an entirely American tale of capitalism that explores fatherhood, veers through religion, and ends up in a pool of blood (as far too many films have done this "Oscar season"). Yet most importantly, this is the violent movie of the season that actually feels relevant, that gets close to capturing that always elusive zeitgeist. Unlike "No Country for Old Men" or "Sweeney Todd," "There Will Be Blood" presses us to question both how we've gotten where we are and where exactly we're headed tomorrow.
More importantly, perhaps, than all of this zeitgeist talk, is the excitement in the realization of P.T. Anderson as the next American auteur. He has dabbled with this title in "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia" (I have not yet seen his other two films yet), but never quite achieved something whole, instead he showed moments of brilliance and then moments of bewilderment. Here he has made a turn, crafting a sprawling tale of a terrible man.
And here we arrive, at that point of deciphering who exactly Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis) is, for, as I just mentioned, he truly is a terrible man, yet I'm not sure anyone could watch this movie and try and seek out ways in which he is not a terrible man. Perhaps it was an awful childhood, or a series of misfortunes which left an eternal black spot on humanity. We'll never really know, I think, and it's for the better. The only hint we get is when he states that he "see(s) the worst in people." Yet that line has little to do with his experience and more to do with ours, for that is exactly what "There Will Be Blood" exposes.
With so little to go on, we then look at his closest friends and enemies to determine the nature of Daniel Plainview. In the span of the movie, we see two friends (that do not stay friends) and one enemy, played by Paul Dano. Perhaps Dano is not an equal actor to Daniel Day-Lewis, but he holds his own. His character, Eli Sunday, is the local preacher who performs miracles and constantly seeks money to expand his church. Throughout the course of the movie, Eli and Daniel worship their own gods and run their own churches yet somehow become bracingly intertwined. While there is no question in the end who ends up defeating the other, there is also no question that both have ended up in the same exact place.
And so it is through the narrative that we discover the story of Daniel Plainview is not just that of a terrible man, somehow angry at the world and maddeningly seeking his own privacy, it is actually a cautionary, heartbreaking story about America. A story about how America has thrived in its capitalism, shone in its religion, been buried in family, and, most importantly, how each of these essential building blocks have brought and still bring about horribly tragic consequences.
