there has been blood (and now QT's review of CMBB)

[cine]

AND the time before the fucking RED PIRACY DOTS were especially annoying.  i saw them about 7 times in the span of 5 minutes during the lighter scenes when Daniel arrives at the Sunday Ranch.

can you blame them though? stefens been having people record it for him way more times than that!

[Stefen]

So, last night, I went to see Atonement with two other dudes, after deciding between that, There Will Be Blood (which we had all seen, and wanted to see again, but were weary of the saturday night Berkeley crowd), and Persepolis.  Afterwards we came out from Atonement, got into the car, and we all decided that none of us was feeling the movie.  I took out my mp3 player and said, "hey guys, lets pretend we came out of a better movie."  Then, on cue, my buddy said "I'm finished!" and we played Braham's violin concerto on the drive home.

haha, what a bunch of nerds!

[Stefen]

AND the time before the fucking RED PIRACY DOTS were especially annoying.  i saw them about 7 times in the span of 5 minutes during the lighter scenes when Daniel arrives at the Sunday Ranch.

can you blame them though? stefens been having people record it for him way more times than that!

haha, hey, I got standards! Theres been a cam floating around for awhile that I will not touch. Maybe if didn't like sucking Elswit's dick so hard I could lower my standards.

[Pas]

So, last night, I went to see Atonement with two other dudes, after deciding between that, There Will Be Blood (which we had all seen, and wanted to see again, but were weary of the saturday night Berkeley crowd), and Persepolis.  Afterwards we came out from Atonement, got into the car, and we all decided that none of us was feeling the movie.  I took out my mp3 player and said, "hey guys, lets pretend we came out of a better movie."  Then, on cue, my buddy said "I'm finished!" and we played Braham's violin concerto on the drive home.

haha, what a bunch of nerds!

I hope this is a version of what you hope had happened and not what really happened, for your own nerd sake.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Just had my second viewing this afternoon. Wow, what a difference. Instead of worrying about the lack of obvious PTA visual stylings or being concerned with the story, I was able to focus on the important things, like DDL, who is amazing in more ways that my feeble mind can process. His physicality, the way he moves his body and his hands, the way his eyes fight with each other, the voice. It really blew me away this time.

Words can't describe how skillfully made this film is. I love how much meaning the camera can extract from the scenes with its small movements. Watch how, at that first sales pitch, the camera moves slowly and its focus changes from Plainview, to HW, and back to Plainview again. Just beautiful. The film actually looks a lot like Magnolia at times, with the sweeping tracking shots and the slow dolly-in scenes. It's so perfect. It was much easier to appreciate TWWB on the second viewing.

I noticed a ton of other detail this time that I missed last week. Here we go...

Paul is actually the more clean-cut brother. He has a business-like appearance. Eli, by contrast, has a dirty, ungroomed head of hair, at least in the beginning. They both have a sort of gentle manner of speaking. But Eli has that holier-than-thou grin and stands up straighter than Paul.

After Henry has arrived, HW finds that book with the picture and figures out that Henry is a fake. He sets the fire to destroy Henry or at least send a message to Plainview. It's only after the murder on Bandy's property that Plainview figures it out. The pages with singed edges help him make the connection between HW's fire and Henry's fakery. I completely missed this the first time.

Daniel is awakened from a drunken state lying on the ground three times, and each one is connected with a death. First, on the floor of his shack, he is awakened by Fletcher Hamilton, who informs him that they lost a man in the well. Second, he is awakened by Bandy, the morning after Henry's murder. Third, he is awakened by his servant before he murders Eli.

Eli catches the oil workers as they walk down the wooden stairs. ("The Church of the Third Revelation welcomes you.") Some of them just walk by, some of them are abrasive, but Eli finds a worker who's interested and pins a little white cloth cross on his jacket. This is the same worker who died at the bottom of the well. ("He was a man of considerable faith," Plainview says to Eli.) When they go through his possessions, they find the cloth cross, and the camera definitely lingers on it. Another not-so-subtle moment. We're meant to infer something. Did Eli, the unholy false prophet, mark the man for death? Perhaps it's a good thing that Eli didn't bless the well. When Eli confronts Plainview about the well blessing, it's right after his sermon, and Plainview ends this conversation by saying, "that was one god-damned hell of a show." So Plainview is responding to the fact that he didn't allow the well to be blessed by pointing out Eli's showmanship—his falseness, or even his "damned"-ness and "hell"-nes—and then walking away. Plainview knew more than we thought earlier than we thought. Remember the dinner table negotiation, when Eli said he wanted money for his church? How did Plainview respond? "That's a good one."

The sequence of the scenes is crucial. The first time it worked on a subconscious level, but this time I consciously noticed it. Immediately following the "HW is deaf" scene is the scene where Plainview slaps Eli around in the mud. Plainview's "hatreds" have definitely been unleashed. No more Mr. Nice Guy, as they say. That scene is followed by the dinner table scene, where mud-caked Eli slaps Abel around, in a way that closely mimics what Plainview just did to him. And who knows, maybe Abel will pass along that anger to Mary. Now, at the end of this scene, Eli mentions his brother Paul, says bad things about him, etc. Cut to Henry (this is not very subtle). We see the back of his head as he walks from a train station, and he turns a bit so we can see his face. Cut to Plainview finding Henry at his shack (the "brother from another mother" scene), and the connection has been made between the two sets of brothers.

Now, the gusher scene (where the oil explodes from the ground and eventually ignites). Remember what immediately preceded that scene? Plainview was sitting in "the mess hall" (the screen porch type thing), and the sky was bright. When the oil explodes from the ground and HW is knocked back, the sky turns suddenly darker (yes, before the fire). This scene goes on into the night through the next morning, so we don't think much of it after the fact, but the sky definitely turned dark rather suddenly after HW hit his head. This obviously reflects Plainview's inner experience.

Also, notice what happens when Plainview brings the oil-covered (and deaf) HW to the mess hall. HW tells him not to let go, but Plainview forces himself out of his arms and exits the little building. Watch what DDL does here. As Plainview starts awkwardly bounding toward the oil, away from HW, you can see his internal conflict in the way he moves. When faced with this choice between HW and oil, he chooses oil. Also notice the way he responds later when Fletcher Hamilton asks him if HW is okay. It's cold. HW pretty much instantly lost all of his meaning to Plainview. I think it's during the fetal position scene that Plainview really lets go of him.

That said, it was clear to me on this second viewing how meaningful their father/son relationship was before the deafening. Notice how they interact in the quail hunting sequence and especially the flashback, which puts a fine point on it. It was the real thing.

Plainview walks with a slight limp because of his early injury, but, immediately after the oil explosion and the deafening, it turns into a severe limp, and he kind of hunches over a bit, stiffly folding forward. You can see this right away, even in the first scene with Henry. By the end of the film, in the bowling alley, Plainview is really bending forward and limping almost cartoonishly, a physical manifestation of his inner experience.

I had questions before about how sincere Plainview's baptism confessions really were. I think I have a pretty good grasp of it now. Paraphrasing:

You abandoned your son.
I abandoned my son.
You abandoned your son.
I abandoned my son.
Louder!
I abandoned my son!
Louder, Daniel!
I abandoned my son!
I abandoned my boy!

Plainview was repeating after Eli, just saying what he was supposed to say, until that last line, where he says "my boy." This is his statement, not Eli's, and he definitely means it. The rest of it was recital, but this is real.

Also, it's interesting that a baptism scene like this would normally be a moment of catharsis, release, forgiveness. Instead, this is a high point of conflict, and you can see Plainview's anger building and building and building. He takes that with him. There was no release.

While I don't necessarily believe it, the "Plainview is dead before the final scene" theory is sort of supported by what happens near the end. During the final HW/Plainview confrontation, Plainview says, "You're killing us." That's immediately followed by the short scene with Plainview sort of stumbling down the dark stairway. Cut to the final scene, which has some very blurry shots at the beginning. And, of course, the servant has a completely unnatural reaction to what he finds at the end.

sure, things happen. but they only really serve to look deeper into the souls of these two men. the men don't learn anything about themselves, the audience learns about them. it develops the notion of these two evils. expands them. paints them. this is a dense painting. it's not an epic in the way you think of an epic.. it's like a very long zoom. and that's revolutionary to pt as a storyteller. sydney, boogie, maggie, were all for the most part movies about things that were actually happening. pdl is about a change in a person, and it's still a fair degree of literal. its essence is fable, mythic, image-based... it's a painting, but it's a moving painting. twbb is just a painting. an enormous painting that you walk into from a mile away, all the way up so you can make out the enormous, towering smears.

Ding ding ding!

[modage]

After Henry has arrived, HW finds that book with the picture and figures out that Henry is a fake. He sets the fire to destroy Henry or at least send a message to Plainview. It's only after the murder on Bandy's property that Plainview figures it out. The pages with singed edges help him make the connection between HW's fire and Henry's fakery. I completely missed this the first time.

HOLY SHIT.  how did i never catch this?  THIS is a revelation.

[JG]

sure, things happen. but they only really serve to look deeper into the souls of these two men. the men don't learn anything about themselves, the audience learns about them. it develops the notion of these two evils. expands them. paints them. this is a dense painting. it's not an epic in the way you think of an epic.. it's like a very long zoom. and that's revolutionary to pt as a storyteller. sydney, boogie, maggie, were all for the most part movies about things that were actually happening. pdl is about a change in a person, and it's still a fair degree of literal. its essence is fable, mythic, image-based... it's a painting, but it's a moving painting. twbb is just a painting. an enormous painting that you walk into from a mile away, all the way up so you can make out the enormous, towering smears.

Ding ding ding!

i don't know if i wholly agree with this - are you implying that there isn't really an arc for plainview's character? nonetheless, i still think its great to look at this movie as a "very long zoom."

if you approach the movie as an attempt to peer into the lives of plainview and co., the camera then takes on more meaning. the first notable scene  i can think of - and probably the most stylized moment of the whole movie - is when eli pushes us out of the church.. "get out of here devil," eli says, like a condemnation for trying to pry into the souls of these men. there are also quite a few shots where we watch the characters through screens and archways, namely the last moments of the 1905 sequence when h.w. and mary are jumping off the porch. my memory fails me, but i want to say the shot starts at the altar of the church and slowly pushes toward them.. we never get out the door.

going on this, it interesting to try and resolve the fact that the first time we see daniel we are far closer to him than the final shot of the film. in the last moments, we assume the role of his butler: watching from the back of the room, trying to make sense of it all.

[©brad]

After Henry has arrived, HW finds that book with the picture and figures out that Henry is a fake. He sets the fire to destroy Henry or at least send a message to Plainview. It's only after the murder on Bandy's property that Plainview figures it out. The pages with singed edges help him make the connection between HW's fire and Henry's fakery. I completely missed this the first time.

HOLY SHIT.  how did i never catch this?  THIS is a revelation.

yeah i totally missed that too, and many other astute obversations in jb's fantastic follow-up analysis. i'm really itchy to see this sucker again.

There are no women in "There Will Be Blood" -- Plainview is apparently so fixated on oil he has zero interest in sex -- and that's fine. But their absence is never addressed; the understanding is that a world of power-hungry men is interesting by itself (which it isn't).

a female co-worker just last friday came to me with a similar complaint, although she was a bit more candid ("this movie is in desperate need of one thing: pussy"). i didn't have an immediate response, and after thinking about it briefly i referred back to the "i see the worst in people" speech and the scene when henry asks daniel for hooker money, and the look of utter disgust on daniel's face as he concedes w/ the dough. the question remains, does the movie suffer from its lack of women, or does it suffer from not overtly explaining why it lacks women, or does it benefit from sidestepping a potentially superfluous female subplot in favor of a more single-minded, father-son exploration?

[polkablues]

sure, things happen. but they only really serve to look deeper into the souls of these two men. the men don't learn anything about themselves, the audience learns about them. it develops the notion of these two evils. expands them. paints them. this is a dense painting. it's not an epic in the way you think of an epic.. it's like a very long zoom. and that's revolutionary to pt as a storyteller. sydney, boogie, maggie, were all for the most part movies about things that were actually happening. pdl is about a change in a person, and it's still a fair degree of literal. its essence is fable, mythic, image-based... it's a painting, but it's a moving painting. twbb is just a painting. an enormous painting that you walk into from a mile away, all the way up so you can make out the enormous, towering smears.

Ding ding ding!

are you implying that there isn't really an arc for plainview's character?

No, I think he was saying it outright.  And I'm inclined to agree.  The changes in Plainview's character throughout the film are more a matter of revealing his true self, peeling back the layers of the onion, than an actual arc in the traditional sense.  He's affected by the events that take place, but he responds not by evolving as a person, but rather letting the veneer fall away until we see him not as the man he's trying to pass himself off as, but as the man he really is, deep down.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Exactly. He has his "hatreds," but he's keeping them locked up so he can play the business man role. That accounts for his pseudo-professionalistic, almost constipated manner of speaking.

You can see it bubbling up in that very first sales pitch scene, with the extended close-up on his reddening face.

[hedwig]

the question remains, does the movie suffer from its lack of women, or does it suffer from not overtly explaining why it lacks women, or does it benefit from sidestepping a potentially superfluous female subplot in favor of a more single-minded, father-son exploration?

the women issue is getting out of hand.

it's not true that women are ENTIRELY absent. how about mary, mary's an important character, wouldn't you say? there you have it, female quota filled. i just don't understand the need for one in the first place. not every story must directly involve women.

the role women play or don't play in plainview's life is definitely worth discussing, but it's crazy that people are actually thinking of it as a FLAW. why! does the lack of women take away from 2001, or strangelove, or plenty of other movies that don't focus on women characters? that's kinda missing the point.

it's interesting to think about this in contrast to PTA's treatment of women in PDL. that movie was ALL ABOUT WOMEN and the permutations of barry's relationships with them.. as shallow escape from loneliness (phone sex), as a cause of weakness and insecurity (his sisters), and ultimately as the source of rebirth and salvation (lena). with CMBB, paul is tackling this idea from a different angle, another reason why this film marks a great evolutionary step for him, by removing women almost entirely from plainview's life. it's not that women are unimportant, not at all. the same impulses, hungers, desires, and needs that might manifest themselves in relationships with women are instead channelled into other areas of plainview's life. which goes back to strangelove.

[JG]

the question remains, does the movie suffer from its lack of women, or does it suffer from not overtly explaining why it lacks women, or does it benefit from sidestepping a potentially superfluous female subplot in favor of a more single-minded, father-son exploration?

the women issue is getting out of hand.

it's not true that women are ENTIRELY absent. how about mary, mary's an important character, wouldn't you say? there you have it, female quota filled. i just don't understand the need for one in the first place. not every story must directly involve women.

the role women play or don't play in plainview's life is definitely worth discussing, but it's crazy that people are actually thinking of it as a FLAW. why! does the lack of women take away from 2001, or strangelove, or plenty of other movies that don't focus on women characters? that's kinda missing the point.

also, during one of the outcries in the scene where plainview rejects the lease, a woman in the crowd says something and a man shouts back "sit down woman, you have no business here!" i don't think it really matters, but i think that subtle moment shows that the filmmakers were aware of the lack of women. did anyone else catch this?

[picolas]

(JB has inspired me to write a really long post about this)

the second time was far better. i can now wholeheartedly say that this is an amazing film. i'm certain now that my first view was ruined by trailer exposure. the opposite of JB. the most important thing that was messed up was the "i don't like most people" speech, which shouldn't be thought of or even known going in. it's really meant to be more of a surprise. i watched it as though i didn't know which scenes were coming, and never thought of or judged plainview outside of what he had done up to whatever point in the film. yknow, like a normal person watching a movie.

some thoughts:
this is an extremely internal film.  ddl could almost be credited as a writer, because his non-verbal acts are SO crucial to understanding the movie. i realize this is what an actor does, but this goes beyond characterization and subtext. his face speaks in ways that his voice never does. we are very cleverly primed for this by the mostly silent opening. watch this guy. he's not a talker. two shots that illustrate this and are also among the most important moments in the film:


recognition/admiration/hate/self-hate

in both moments he's looking into eli, and as ddl has said in interviews, recognizing himself. the awful fact is that he hates what he sees. the mirror. they're both frauds, and though he feels/knows eli is the worse fraud, he also can't bear the thought that they're both very similar. he also recognizes that he's the only other person he's met who can bend an audience like him, to believe all the false intentions, which is a skill that he admires in the way a secret agent might admire another secret agent. this is all spoken by his face. and you need a gif to see the range of it. a single photo doesn't work.

another moment where the performance is more important than what is being said is the negotiation with the bankers, which is the first time he begins to manifest what has been building in him. he's finally confessed his feelings about the world in general to his "brother" and lost the ability to communicate with the only person he loved. he is liberated from the role of the father. it's a wonderfully complex scene. and deceptively so for the lack of dialogue. plainview takes offense at the mention of his son, or the notion that he might raise his family, or simply do anything with his life outside of hunting for oil. the other guy at the table is subtly using HW as a negotiation tool, just as plainview had been doing. and plainview recognizes that. the threat to slit the guy's throat comes from all these angles. the mirror, the idea that there's life beyond oil. the walk away from the table coupled with the score show how profound this scene is for him. he's finally really tapping into the silent, shadowy part of himself. the part of him that guarded against that side/reversed it left with HW. he is, in a way, beginning to live the dream of escaping 'these.. people'. slavoj zizek, whose film analysis film 'the pervert's guide to cinema' i really dig, brings up a recurring theme in cinema: the dream realized is really the ultimate nightmare. this theme echoes throughout Blood.

i disagree with JB's analysis of the HW fire. how does the photo tip off HW? he certainly can't read since the book is upside-down. i think HW is disturbed by the idea that a stranger could take his place at his father's side so suddenly, and that mixes with the silent, alien world he's found himself in. and that explodes in an attempt to light a bed on fire with oil. you can tell from his reaction that he didn't really mean for it to get so out of hand. it's a frustrated youthful moment. i believe daniel's tears as he reads the diary by the fire after killing the fake come from the fact that he is now TOTALLY alone and has no one to share himself with. the only remaining person who could listen to him would've been his brother, who's already dead.

did bandy know plainview had killed a man? i like to think he didn't, because it's not the most believable reaction if he did, but it's tough to explain the giving of the gun to him after "what sin have i commited?" otherwise. someone clear this up!

the transition to the final section of the film (scored with "HW/Hope of New Fields") is one of my favourite parts of the film. the only piece of hope/light that escapes the madness of the plainview's legacy is HW, who is the only living product of and witness to plainview's love. though that has very little to do with the conclusion.

which brings me to "i'm finished."

the first time i saw the film i felt a wealth of connotations and potential meanings behind this line. the most prominent was that of a man recognizing his life was over. that's not invalid, but i like the second viewing connotation better. and that has to do with the delivery and the look on the servant's face. the servant isn't shocked at all. nor is he rushing down the stairs. i think, therefore, the final moment of the film suggests plainview literally gets away with murder. this is the movie at its most insane and allegorical. and the score perfectly reflects this. a man of enormous wealth got to where he is by tunneling underground, away from people, and risking his life in search of a liquid. he's mad. extravagantly mad. and the tragedy of the end of his path is not as simple as an old man flailing wildly in the air. it's a hugely intricate madness. like the derrick itself, which is tied to the concerto, which also represents an intense intricacy.

the most striking and obvious metaphor in the film is the oil deafening HW and then setting on fire.

the flashback to the love he had for HW ends appropriately with daniel walking towards the derrick.

[B.C. Long]

i believe daniel's tears as he reads the diary by the fire after killing the fake come from the fact that he is now TOTALLY alone and has no one to share himself with. the only remaining person who could listen to him would've been his brother, who's already dead.

Can someone also clear-up who's baby photo that Daniel was looking at right before he breaks down?

[Jeremy Blackman]

i disagree with JB's analysis of the HW fire. how does the photo tip off HW? he certainly can't read since the book is upside-down. i think HW is disturbed by the idea that a stranger could take his place at his father's side so suddenly, and that mixes with the silent, alien world he's found himself in. and that explodes in an attempt to light a bed on fire with oil. you can tell from his reaction that he didn't really mean for it to get so out of hand. it's a frustrated youthful moment. i believe daniel's tears as he reads the diary by the fire after killing the fake come from the fact that he is now TOTALLY alone and has no one to share himself with. the only remaining person who could listen to him would've been his brother, who's already dead.

I actually like this better. 

did bandy know plainview had killed a man? i like to think he didn't, because it's not the most believable reaction if he did, but it's tough to explain the giving of the gun to him after "what sin have i commited?" otherwise. someone clear this up!

I'm guessing Bandy knew about the murder. He may have heard the gunshot in the night, and it was probably easy for him to identify the hastily-dug grave. You're right, though, it's a confusing reaction. I mean it's not exactly the old west, but maybe murder and death are not as surprising in this context as we'd expect them to be.