This is totally awesome. Don't listen to the haters. I realized maybe fifteen minutes into the movie that a sort of had to pee and there were over two hours left and I didn't mind at all because the movie's so utterly great. Daniel Day-Lewis is great. He goes over the top, then picks the top up and puts it on a higher shelf somewhere. Or something. The use of the dissonant score is stunning. The other performances are good. Even the bizarre ending, in context, works for me. Best film of 2007, hands down, if it counts as a 2007 film.
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There Will Be Blood
06 Jan 2008 11:05 am
Comments (34)
The stunning score, I remind you, is by Johnny Greenwood of your arch-nemesis, Radiohead.
It is very depressing to me that otherwise intelligent people allow themselves to be so crassly and obviously manipulated by movies like this and No Country for Old Men. I cannot imagine a safer movie than this one. Want to be lauded by critics and rack up awards? It used to be that you shot a period piece with fancy costumes and actors with British accents about emotional distance, or whatever. Now? Take a minimalist style, a misanthrope, heavy-handed symbolism, bouts of extreme violence, and an "unconventional" narrative arc that deliberately annoys people. Hey presto, you're a genius.
What a scam. What a transparent, empty scam.
It is an amazing movie.
How many times do you think "had to pee" made it into The Atlantic since 1857?
Second best. Best is: Diving Bell and The Butterfly. And you're right about JFK. Bizarre how few of your commenters appear to know 1: that the Bay of Pigs led to the placement of missiles in Cuba and 2: that it wasn't a Cold War triumph at least in terms of USSR backing down (no invasion of Cuba was part of the deal) and 3: it wasn't JFK who especially resisted military action; Krushchev gets at least half the credit. Also bizarre the extent of your commenters denial about how in love JFK was with CIA games, assassination attempts, killing Diem, and so and on. They also quote people like Ted Sorenson as if he were an objective observer of Kennedy. And on top of that they think you're naive because you're young while they recite history that's inaccurate. I guess being a prodigy is very very annoying to people. Anyway, THERE WILL BE BLOOD is excellent, but Diving Bell is a little more extraordinary.
"and an "unconventional" narrative arc that deliberately annoys people"
Has it occurred to you that perhaps others are not annoyed by narrative tricks? That some may even enjoy them?
If a movie works, it doesn't matter if it's a scam or not. It works.
I realized maybe fifteen minutes into the movie that a sort of had to pee and there were over two hours left and I didn't mind at all
Please let us know what theater and what seat you were in. Please.
"Second best. Best is: Diving Bell and The Butterfly. And you're right about JFK"
Disagree. I thought the whole subplot of the relationship between Kevin Costner and Sissy Spacek really weakened the movie.
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I'll sign up for being a hater. I don't think it has anything new or insightful to say about religion at all -- it has an off-the-rack attitude about it -- of course Paul Dano turns out to be a fraud.
I was riveted in the first half of this movie and was thinking that this would be a companion piece to Chinatown -- oil and water, the baptismal fluids of Southern California. But the story stayed internal to me -- a twisted misanthrope who never untwists, and whose effects on other people's lives is scarcely documented. (We're inside Evelyn Mulray's head a lot more than we are H.W.'s, for example.)
That said, "hater" is too strong -- there are many many great things in it, I just don't think it succeeds ultimately, or that it matches what has been said about it. But it's hardly a mediocre movie at all.
"That said, "hater" is too strong -- there are many many great things in it, I just don't think it succeeds ultimately, or that it matches what has been said about it. But it's hardly a mediocre movie at all."
I agree that it's not the best movie of the year, but it is an amazing movie.
PTA made one perfect movie, and it looks as if he's never going to make another one. But his energetic failures are still well worth one's time and money.
PTA made one perfect movie, and it looks as if he's never going to make another one. But his energetic failures are still well worth one's time and money.
I enjoy energetic failures. I didn't enjoy this movie, because I dislike it when filmmakers assume they can push my buttons in such a crass way. What really galls is the over the top, Dana Stevens, "This is Citizen Kane" press. But it's just my taste. YMMV.
"I dislike it when filmmakers assume they can push my buttons in such a crass way."
PTA is always walking the line of almost being annoying. I found Punch Drunk Love kinda annoying, and went back to see it again and thought it was fine.
Lots and lots of folks found Magnolia annoying, though I wasn't one of them.
And I actually hated Hard Eight, tho I'm not sure if I saw his cut or the studio butchered cut. So I don't know whether or not to blame it on him.
He's definitely interested in punishing the audience at times, but generally for reasons that seem aesthetically sound to me.
So I guess upon further reflection, I can sorta understand your distaste here. But then you had to muck it all up dragging the Coens into your rant. What kind of person doesn't like the Coens? On that one, the problem is with you.
He's definitely interested in punishing the audience at times, but generally for reasons that seem aesthetically sound to me.
He's sorta the American Lars von Trier.
"He's sorta the American Lars von Trier."
Bingo! (Though with only half the talent, which still adds up to enough.)
Now? Take a minimalist style, a misanthrope, heavy-handed symbolism, bouts of extreme violence, and an "unconventional" narrative arc that deliberately annoys people. Hey presto, you're a genius.
What a scam. What a transparent, empty scam.
You can dismiss almost any piece of art by describing it in broad, general, reductive terms. It's an easy trap to fall into, but it doesn't engage the specific experience of the particulars of that specific piece of art.
That said, I haven't seen this film yet, so I can't speak to the specific experience of it.
For me the experience of watching this film was diminished a little bit by seeing it at a sold-out theater in NYC. First there's the annoyance of having to coax people into admitting that the seat next to them, currently occupied by coats, is indeed not taken. (Someone should write a dissertation on the absence of altruism in NYC cinema seating behavior.) Then there's the goddamn laughter at all the wrong moments.
You could film DDL going grocery shopping for two hours and it would probably earn him an Oscar nod. He's that good. I think he tends to dominate so completely that a bad film can end up looking okay ("Gangs of New York") and a great film (this one) can end up overshadowed. No PTA film is perfect, but I don't see anyone doing any better these days. "Punch Drunk Love" was extraordinary and so is this.
It's pretty good. It is certainly interesting, even in the elements which don't work (and I'm not referring to the ending, which was almost exactly as it had to be), so certainly worth seeing regardless.
Certainly PTA's best and most original movie, but.
Put me down in the "hater" column with Freddie and Delicious Pundit, although as DP noted, "hater" is too strong a word--"disappointed-feeler" is more correct.
My main annoyance with There Will Be Blood is its predictability. It's a story ("man gains world and alienates everyone around him") that's been told onscreen many, many times before, from "The Power and The Glory" through "Citizen Kane" to "Chinatown" and "The Godfather." In There Will Be Blood, not only the "story as a whole", but every single scene just plays out the way anyone who's seen any of those films will easily anticipate.
What I loved most about "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia" was the unexpectedness of the story, and that was completely absent in the new film.
I enjoyed BLOOD, but I can't imagine I would bother to watch it ever again. The performances were great, but Anderson has an issue with pacing in some of his movies, and BLOOD has the same issues. It took far too long to get into the 'meat' of the movie, as Anderson was trying to establish the characters. Mind you, I was fascinated by the characters, so I didn't mind the slowness.
But movie of the year? I don't think so.
I would suggest Juno!
James nails the main problem (predictability) and points to a good reason to prefer Magnolia and Boogie Nights: surprise, narrative freshness.
And I particularly have to disagree with MY's enthusiasm about the score of Blood: it was soooo overdetermined, telling the audience what to feel even when the story or the imagery just didn't merit those feelings. The most annoying moment along these lines is when Plainview and his half-brother guy are scouting the CA hills for pipeline land; it's all pretty shots of two guys walking the golden grassy landscape, yet the music is all ominous and dissonent. Shouldn't these things, uh, match up somehow? Or rather, shouldn't the music be justified by the visual?
And I know I'm the only one on the planet to be a hater when it comes to DDL, but his accent was way, way off (this guy came from WISCONSIN!!??). As for the rest, he was just all scrunchy-eyed mean, old pirate guy. Was it really all that different from Bill the Butcher? Is there something in his contract that requires him to squint out of one eye these days?
Haven't seen the film, but watched the clips available online and I have to agree with pdp that DDL seems to be reviving Bill the Butcher from what little I saw. The tone and demeanor certainly felt the same.
I like the Coens a lot. Just didn't buy NCFOM.
totally agree with Matt. Best film of the year, no question. If it doesn't win Best Picture, the Oscars are going to look unforgivably irrelevant.
Fuck me.
I saw the title "There Will Be Blood" and thought you were talking about the next Hillary Clinton-John Edwards debate.
With all due respect to everyone here (and at risk of seeming contemptuous): In this commenter's opinion, cultural criticism is more interesting when the critic gives a reason for his opinion instead of merely stating it, however forcefully or hyperbolically.
To pick an example at random from this thread: "He goes over the top, then picks the top up and puts it on a higher shelf somewhere. Or something." Perhaps the writer intended to post that blurt of fanboyism on Ain't It Cool News rather than the Atlantic and got mixed up somewhere.
So, Matt liked the movie.
Okay, I'll pass.
He's saying it's better than "National Lampoon's Beach Party At The Threshold Of Hell" or "Revenge Of The Nerds 2007" or "Your Mommy Kills Animals" - say it isn't so.
totally agree with Matt. Best film of the year, no question. If it doesn't win Best Picture, the Oscars are going to look unforgivably irrelevant.
Irrelevant to whom? The movie I've loved since I first saw it was "Rescue Dawn". I doubt if 1/10th of the commenters here bothered with it at all. It's a lovely, sweet film in the way that David Lynch's "Elephant Man" was. A film about immigrants and the America of their imagination, war, terror, brutality, and the Icarus Myth. (Herzog loves Icarus.)
I had to pee once throughout the entire course of a root canal procedure. My abstention was in no way indicative of any enthusiasm for my dentist.
While we're all recounting Great Moments in Movie Bladder Control, I just want to say that I had a beer before I went to see "Jaws".
The movie I've loved since I first saw it was "Rescue Dawn".
THANK YOU. A great movie, but in a mellow, reflective, deeply adult way that doesn't try to overwhelm the viewer. Physically beautiful, both simple and profound.
Not loud and crude enough to make anyone's top ten lists...even our "art" critics need to be assaulted to appreciate anything.
Put me down in the "hater" column with Freddie and Delicious Pundit, although as DP noted, "hater" is too strong a word--"disappointed-feeler" is more correct.
I think the term should be "dissappointee."
Comments closed January 20, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
a sort of had to pee and there were over two hours left and I didn't mind at all because the movie's so utterly great
Ew.
Posted by right | January 6, 2008 11:24 AM