There Will Be Blood

I've been sitting on this post for a while now, I saw There Will Be Blood back in January with Kaz and I've been thinking about it ever since. Blood was so good, so memorable on so many different levels its hard to know where to begin talking about it. But here goes...

Protagonist (the hero)
This brutal bio-pic of fictional oilman Daniel Plainview has no classical protagonist. To be sure Plainview is the driving force of the film and thus he is the protagonist, but there are no heroes in the classical sense, no "good" characters with the exception of H.W. who is visible in much of the film but has a mostly background role. Plainview's most notable nemesis, the pentecostal boy-preacher, Eli, is just as twisted a character as Daniel himself and Daniel's "brother" Henry Plainview/Brands we find is just a posing conman.

Unconventional story arc
While films like Eastern Promises and No Country for Old Men have raised the bar for unconventional story arcs this year, it's certainly true that Blood was unconventional in its own way. We begin with Plainview picking away at the earth deep in a hole in the desert and end with him as a wealthy oil tycoon. But what lies in between didn't feel as much like character development as it did character intensification. Daniel doesn't have any a-ha moment, any crisis that particularly changes his course. He is ambition embodied. He is drivenness in human form. Like many tracks from the score, Daniel's is not so much a tale of "beginning, middle and end," but rather of snowballing intensification. If there is a climax in the story it is Daniel's "conversion" moment but this changes nothing about where Daniel was headed or where he will end up. It is an emotional climax for us the viewer, but it is simply one more step along Daniel's ever intensifying journey of greed and conquest. The film ends, not after the story has been neatly tied up, but after one of the most shocking moments in the story.

Acting
Daniel Day-Lewis gives what has to be one of the best performances I have ever seen. His character will be burned in my memory forever. Paul Dano's (who played the older brother in Little Miss Sunshine) portrayal of the young preacher Eli Sunday was nuanced so well that it always keeps you guessing as to how much he buys into his own message, just terriffic.

Score
Jonny Greenwood's (from Radiohead) score provided the snowballing and ever-intensifying context that the film swam in. In scenes where visually there might not have been much to make you anxious the soundtrack kept thumping that theme home.

Poetic Justice?
During the film we come to really sit uneasy with both Daniel and Eli's characters. Both have moments where they are taken down a notch by the other (final tally Daniel 2, Eli 1). In all three cases I found myself taking some satisfaction in their being brought low by the other while never really rooting for the one doing the humiliating. Daniel does get the last laugh in a haunting scene where Eli is coaxed into making a dramatic pronouncement of unbelief with all the pentecostal flair he could muster to match exactly in the inverse the "getting saved" scene he made Daniel put on before the church.

I feel like I just scratched the surface on what was undoubtably one of the best films of the year. Oh and... "I. DRINK. YOUR. MILKSHAKE! ... I DRINK IT UP!" I couldn't resist.

Labels: Film