Thursday, January 03, 2008
There Will Be Blood
2007 is a weird year for film. Each top film seems to have its fair share of both champions and detractors. PT Anderson, no stranger to producing polarizing films (Magnolia), has put together another one with There Will Be Blood.
I just watched it last night and I’m still trying to process everything so this might be rambling.
I enjoyed the film and while I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, I would recommend it to film lovers. However, I didn’t connect with the film and love it as much as many critics do.
There is a lot to enjoy about the film. The first half is brilliant. Here the story is more focused and Daniel Day-Lewis gives the performance of a career. Throughout the film the photography is majestic and does justice to west Texas, filling in for Arizona and California. Paul Dano and Dillon Freasier give excellent performances throughout.
Now to the flaws in the films. Anderson has always referenced his film idols. This film seems to have Stanley Kubrick written all over it. In tone, composition and even music I was reminded of 2001, Barry Lyndon, and The Shining. His allusions to Scorsese and Altman in Boogie Nights and Magnolia seemed to enhance those films but here I was distracted. Especially when you add allusions to Citizen Kane and Chinatown.
My biggest problem is in the second half of the film. Here the films begins go all over the map and I began to wonder what its focus is. Is it a political film or an anti-oil industry film? It leans that way for much of the film. It is about a father-son oil team and the son has the initials H.W. But in the end, Daniel Plainview succeeds. He is a miserable human being but he makes money and defeats his rivals. The film even pulls back on the industry when the son and his wife, the only two sympathetic characters at all, leave to start an oil business in Mexico.
A bigger theme is man vs. religion. Here it succeeds a little better. However, Daniel and Eli are both totally unlikable characters so what does it accomplish when the businessman who calls God a superstition defeats the hypocritical faith healer. This brings up the final scene. It was so over-the-top it was almost laughable and by now Daniel Day-Lewis’ acting has also gone over-the-top in a number of scenes.
At the end, I was left with complete indifference. I think this was due to not having a single character to care about or slightly root for. As mentioned above, the son is the only half way decent character but he is tied to his father for most of the film so you can’t separate the two. Every character in the film is somewhat shady. This includes the wildcatters exploiting the people, people working for established oil companies, religious nuts, to the people being exploited themselves. Now films don’t have to be "Oprah inspiring" for me to enjoy them. But you have to give me something to latch onto. Even with crime films like The Godfather, I can live vicariously through the characters. But here I just wanted to get away from all of them.
Hot Chicks Born Today
Danica McKellar, 33, hot and smart, weird to think we've known her since she was 12
Victoria Principal, 58, she was one of the hottest around in the early 80s when she was Pam Ewing
I just watched it last night and I’m still trying to process everything so this might be rambling.
I enjoyed the film and while I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, I would recommend it to film lovers. However, I didn’t connect with the film and love it as much as many critics do.
There is a lot to enjoy about the film. The first half is brilliant. Here the story is more focused and Daniel Day-Lewis gives the performance of a career. Throughout the film the photography is majestic and does justice to west Texas, filling in for Arizona and California. Paul Dano and Dillon Freasier give excellent performances throughout.
Now to the flaws in the films. Anderson has always referenced his film idols. This film seems to have Stanley Kubrick written all over it. In tone, composition and even music I was reminded of 2001, Barry Lyndon, and The Shining. His allusions to Scorsese and Altman in Boogie Nights and Magnolia seemed to enhance those films but here I was distracted. Especially when you add allusions to Citizen Kane and Chinatown.
My biggest problem is in the second half of the film. Here the films begins go all over the map and I began to wonder what its focus is. Is it a political film or an anti-oil industry film? It leans that way for much of the film. It is about a father-son oil team and the son has the initials H.W. But in the end, Daniel Plainview succeeds. He is a miserable human being but he makes money and defeats his rivals. The film even pulls back on the industry when the son and his wife, the only two sympathetic characters at all, leave to start an oil business in Mexico.
A bigger theme is man vs. religion. Here it succeeds a little better. However, Daniel and Eli are both totally unlikable characters so what does it accomplish when the businessman who calls God a superstition defeats the hypocritical faith healer. This brings up the final scene. It was so over-the-top it was almost laughable and by now Daniel Day-Lewis’ acting has also gone over-the-top in a number of scenes.
At the end, I was left with complete indifference. I think this was due to not having a single character to care about or slightly root for. As mentioned above, the son is the only half way decent character but he is tied to his father for most of the film so you can’t separate the two. Every character in the film is somewhat shady. This includes the wildcatters exploiting the people, people working for established oil companies, religious nuts, to the people being exploited themselves. Now films don’t have to be "Oprah inspiring" for me to enjoy them. But you have to give me something to latch onto. Even with crime films like The Godfather, I can live vicariously through the characters. But here I just wanted to get away from all of them.
Hot Chicks Born Today
Danica McKellar, 33, hot and smart, weird to think we've known her since she was 12
Victoria Principal, 58, she was one of the hottest around in the early 80s when she was Pam Ewing
Labels: FilmReview
# posted by ChrisR @ 4:04 PM 
