Spoiler Warning: This posting reveals several plot elements of “There Will Be Blood,” the new film written and directed by P.T. Anderson. Please go see the movie, then come back here. We’ll wait.

Thank you. Welcome back.

On New Year’s night, I invited a couple of friends, Mark and Trey, to join me in seeing an 11 p.m. showing of “There Will Be Blood” at the Arclight in Hollywood. 2007 was a good year; I want to make 2008 even better by spending more time with friends.

For the first two-thirds of “There Will Be Blood” I debated whether this was the best film I’d seen in years, or perhaps the best film I’d ever seen. The first twenty minutes in particular are an object lesson in strong visual storytelling, with nary a word of dialogue. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Daniel Plainview, a prospector in late 1800’s California whose prospects grow as he strikes first mineral deposits, then oil. Plainview and his little boy are visited by a young man who promises them the location of a rich underground oil field in exchange for $500. Most of the rest of the film details Plainview’s struggle to buy up the land necessary, convert the few people living on these barren lands to his cause, drill, erect derricks, and generally strike it rich, while staving off the predations of a tenderfoot preacher who is a charlatan determined to swindle the swindler. At various times, each outdoes the other or one-ups the other, the preacher winning converts and threatening Plainview’s enterprises, Plainview physically overpowering and bullying the evangelist, and so forth. At some point with these two, the movie seems to assure us, there will be blood.

All of this is set against a backdrop of immense physical exertion and danger. Drilling for oil was, apparently, not something to be taken lightly. There was most definitely blood there, and for sudden and horrifying reasons. The bold visuals are supported by music composed by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood that alternately evokes the time and place and sends shivers down your spine. One scene after another left me with my mouth open, completely enrapt and shocked by the story of people striving under the dirt at great personal risk and, often, at great personal sacrifice.

Then, unfortunately, the movie seems to end — before it has actually ended. The antagonist leaves town — we learn this in passing as Plainview overhears him telling a parishioner that he’s going off preaching around the country — and with him goes the movie. Suddenly, Plainview seems to have an overriding passion for family, something we’d never heard before and something that informs every action, right or wrong, he takes in the final act. Whereas the beginning of the movie was so charged it required no words, the last third languishes with long scenes of two people talking, especially one between Plainview and his brother. The movie then ends on what I can only call a camp note. The preacher returns after more than 10 years away because the Depression has hit and he seeks money from the fantastically wealthy Plainview. A besotted and bereft Plainview forces him to admit he is a charlatan in exchange for the money, acquires that confession, then bludgeons him to death with a bowling pin. When the butler returns to check on his master, Plainview looks up, the bloody bowling pin in his hand, the battered body at his side, and his now-empty serving plate on the floor, and says, “I’m done now.” This wan joke has the effect of transforming the film into a shaggy dog story.

As we three stood on the plaza, we wondered what it was all about. Trey ventured that it was about greed, but that didn’t strike me as right. We also wondered how a movie that had started with such promise could end so badly. Everyone had opening opinions, but I wanted to think further. And it was now 2 a.m. and I wanted to get home and write.

The next morning, Mark emailed me (which I’m posting here with his permission):

I thought it was interesting that all 3 of us had similar reactions/opinions about the film. How often does THAT happen?

Something that occurred to me later: While Daniel is sitting with his brother, he tells him that he doesn’t care for people. There isn’t really a lot of behavior in the film that puts this across. He doesn’t like Eli Sunday, that’s plain, and he doesn’t like that one guy from Standard Oil, but otherwise he doesn’t seem any more or a people hating grump than the next guy. This telling versus showing goes for his greed as well. He doesn’t finger his gold like Silas Marner (have I got that right?). He lives frugally ’til near the end of the film, but we don’t see him chuckling over his bank balance. The Hearst character in “Deadwood” seemed more obsessed with gold than Daniel does with oil. He obviously dotes on the boy, and he makes it a point to protect the little girl from her father in the slightly creepy scene at the picnic table, when it almost seemed as though he was sexually pawing the girl. Other than the creep factor, these are hardly the behaviors of someone who particularly hates everyone.

I think the principle problem with the film is a weak story line. It’s not that far from the sort of standard indie film “day in the life” type of story, where there really isn’t much plot, we just go along with the main character through the normal travails of their day.

Yet somehow, it’s still a really good movie. Weird.

I responded:

As I was driving home it hit me that I disagree with Trey’s thesis that the film is “about greed.” Daniel is not motivated by greed — as that scene you mention makes clear, and as his lack of interest in money makes clear. No, he’s motivated by an ambition, a seemingly self-destructive ambition. He wants to succeed — and he wants others to fail. What this has to do with his late-developing interest in family I have no idea.

The early part of the movie is about his rise to the top. That’s interesting and well-told. Complications arrive in the form of Eli — also good. It’s when Eli blithely leaves town (he’s “going on a mission,” we learn) that the movie ends: there’s no opposition. I first tipped off to this during those scenes with the fake brother, most of which work like this: two people sitting around talking. Bad storytelling. By the end, with our protagonist having bludgeoned the seemingly ageless Eli, we’ve descended into camp with the (un?)intentionally funny line “I’m done now.” I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie this promising end this badly.

Still, I had a great time. That’s because I got to go out on the spur of the moment with two good friends and just flat-out enjoy myself, uncomfortable seat and all.

(On a side note, I should mention that the Arclight is a premiere movie house with assigned seating, a restaurant and bar, stadium seating with expansive leg room, and a strict no-talking, no-child policy. Which made it all the more surprising that none of us could get comfortable in these seemingly ergonomic seats. I thought it was just me twisting and turning in my seat, but no, it was all of us.)

One of the reasons I’ve been friends with Mark for 15 years is that I appreciate his shrewd intelligence and his directness. You also have to love someone with enough security to respond that in retrospect perhaps he had fallen for the press releases:

I’m not sure it was Trey who said the film was about greed. It might have been me, and it would have been me mindlessly parroting something I read about the film. I think your notion that it’s about ambition, or at any rate it is ambition that is Daniel’s motivator, is correct. And this leads me to think that PT Anderson should have given us more information about what formed Daniel. If his prime focus is on succeeding, and equally important that others fail – what caused this? That should have been part of the story if this ambition is the central theme of Daniel’s life. I agree that Dano’s unagingness (ooo, I just invented a word) sticks out badly. And I agree that the early part of the film, covering his rise, is eminently watchable, and something like Welles’ Citizen Kane. Unlike Kane, however, there isn’t much more story after he gets there. If we’d learned more about his need not only to succeed but for others to fail, if we’d seen that come up a couple of times more, perhaps the scene with his grownup son announcing he’s setting up on his own, would have resonated better. I really like PT Anderson. And he’s an obviously gifted filmmaker. I hope he finds his way back to the quality of “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia.” Although I think I’ll get “Punchdrunk Love” and take another look at that.

So why spend all this time — in discussion, in those emails, posting it to this blog — to analyze why a wonderful movie winds up un-wonderful? Let me count the ways:

1. Because it was a wonderful movie for so very long and I’m glad for that and I’m disappointed how wrong it goes.
2. Because my friend and colleague Chris Meeks spent an evening last semester screening scenes that work and don’t work, and why the ones that work work and why the ones that don’t work don’t, and he wrapped up the evening with, appropriately, movies that end badly. For this semester, he should add this one.
3. Because there are lessons to learn. And the three lessons here for writers are:
   1. Don’t have the antagonist blithely leave — have him grow more powerful;
   2. Don’t introduce new elements too late (as with Plainview’s sudden interest in family) — it just seems desperate, and confuses the issues
   3. Remember your theme; identify it early and follow it through.

What was “There Will Be Blood” about? I don’t know. For much of the film, I thought it was about how a man’s ascension from the literal dirt to the echelon of success is driven by the same ambition that strips him bare. But maybe it was about family. Or greed. Or, unfortunately, nothing. But when it was good, it was great.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 4th, 2008 at 11:28 pm and is filed under On seeing, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.