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

Started by pete, November 06, 2007, 01:06:10 AM

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Pozer

Quote from: modage on December 23, 2007, 05:31:46 PM
how do you know the ending was originally intercut with that?   i havent read the script yet, but i wonder if it made it that way into the film if so.

i think he was talking about the script cuz that's the way the ending was there.  better that it was excluded. 

i wish some more from the opening sequence of the script made it in like where his mule drops dead, BOTH his ankles snap from the fall, the cart tips over from the weight of the silver and his canteen has spilt out all its water (this wouldve gotten a great reaction - he finally makes it out of the mine shaft with both broken ankles and in horrible pain only to find another obstacle), and finally how he's forced to push the cart w/his upper body and then drag himself to catch up over and over.

wonder if he shot that or why he chose not to or why he cut it.


md

I'm assuming they didn't even shoot the original opening; the dry erase board had "dead mule" erased -- probably too graphic and logistical/PETA nightmares.  Also, Plainview kills Henry in a different way and there is a scene where he is tipped off by a Chinese servant who tells him that Henry might not be who he really is. 

Brahms would be nice:  http://youtube.com/watch?v=rIE2sX2dY4Q&feature=related
"look hard at what pleases you and even harder at what doesn't" ~ carolyn forche

matt35mm

So I saw this at the Arclight yesterday (and I walked past a guy who looked a lot like Joe Wright).  It affected me, but I don't know how, yet.  It is an incredibly strange and haunting movie... one that I'll have to see several more times.

I feel like I won't really ever want to talk about the movie, but rather just let it live in my head.  I'm happy about that because I would have been disappointed if I could have given a simple yay or nay while walking out of the theater.  Right now I'm left with having to digest something new, which is what I was hoping to be able to do.

Ghostboy

Man, that last scene was amazing. The movie is an unwieldy monster that I think is brilliant and flawed, but it all crystallizes into perfect focus once we hit 1927. And I love that it galvanizes people so much - it's what's going to make the movie stick, more than anything else.

To answer Modage's question about the book and what made it to the screen:

1. The scene(s) where the father (named Arnold Ross) confronts the townsfolk in a hot house is how the book begins. Pretty much the same.

2. They go quail hunting as a subterfuge to check out the Sunday farm.

3. Eli is pretty much the only character who remains the same from the novel. He even makes the same transformation in the book, from crazed zealot to Hollywood sell-out.

4. Other than that, though, this is all new. There isn't a trace of Plainview in the novel. The dad in the book is a congenial old money type, a gentle loving capitalist. Not a trace of Plainview, really. The son (named Bunny) is really the main character, and the story is told through his eyes. He doesn't go deaf. The brother Paul is a much bigger character than this, and the major crux of the book is the Bunny's crux between the old fashioned capitalism his father's instilled in him and his growing admiration for Paul's socialism and the Bolshevik uprising. The religious aspect is more background coloring - Sinclair definitely paints a negative portrait of organized religion, strongly insinuating that it's an even more duplicitious industry than the oil business, but it doesn't affect the plot that much.

Now I need to read the script.

modage

Is Impotence Daniel Plainview's Problem?
Source: Cinematical

***SPOILERS FOR THE SCRIPT -- READ AT OWN RISK***


A number of people who've seen There Will Be Blood have commented on the fact that women don't seem to figure into lead character Daniel Plainview's life at all. As one commenter on David Poland's blog recently put it, "There's never a single woman in sight of him. Not when he becomes successful. Not even when he's older. Not even whores. There's no explicit point of this made, so much as it's just de facto." This is part of the commenter's argument that Plainview is a repressed homosexual. Another commenter pegs Plainview as simply a-sexual, noting that "his only love and appetite was for more money as a means to an end." But is that really what's going on? I recently sat down and read the script for There Will Be Blood and noticed something that I don't remember being included at all in the film. Since it's only one line I could have just missed it, but I don't think I did, and if I'm right it might go a long way towards explaining things.

On page 80 of the script, Daniel and Henry (a drifter who may be his brother) are sitting in a mess hall drinking and talking and Daniel tells Henry that H.W., who he's been passing off as his son, is "not even my son." "What do you mean?" Henry asks. At this point, the script says that 'Daniel begins to break down, holds his crotch' and then says to Henry "He's not my son. My cock doesn't even work. How am I gonna make a kid? Does yours work Henry?" So that kind of sheds a new light on things, doesn't it? His half-hearted attempts at finding male companions -- his adopted son and Henry, in addition to his manservant -- are his only option, really.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

cine

jesus now we have SCRIPT spoiler warnings in the FILM spoiler thread? come on....

MacGuffin

Quote from: Lucid on January 01, 2008, 09:26:22 PMSo I guess this is when we start discussing the significance of all the phallic symbolism that drilling for oil dredges up.  It's bigger than Boogie Nights, that's for sure.

Jesus Christ, that casts a whole new meaning behind my avatar too.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

pete

"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

Stefen

In the Onion AV Club interview, there is a question where they ask him if he's happy at peolpe laughing at the end and he says he is even though it's not really a funny Part. Is that cool? Is it like when Barry beats up the restroom in PDL and people are laughing hysterically because they think they're supposed to? Or is it a genuinely funny scene?

PTA may be the kind of making audiences feel unfomfortable. Seeing PDL in the theater was AWFUL because people would laugh at everything because they felt like since Sandler was in it, it was supposed to be funny. It's like audiences only think it's funny if they're told it's funny. Reminds me of something someone said here once where if it's a comedy it's "fucking funny" because people can't distinguish between good funny and bad funny. Everything to them is just "fucking funny"
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

elpablo

I was really surprised to read that he didn't mean for it to be funny, because while I was watching that scene there was no doubt in my mind that it was supposed to be funny. Part of it is pure slapstick. People here were talking about how the slapstick gives way to horror and that complete 180 degree turn was great, so it's weird that he claims it was an accident.

Stefen

That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. So the ending is actually funny? What makes it funny?
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

modage

DDL's performance and the way he taunts Dano is amazing.  a few lines of dialogue in particular get a solidly uncomfortable laugh.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Pozer

ah yes, the ***SPOILER FROM THE SCRIPT -- SWIPE AT OWN RISK*** impotence scene.. another one from the script that i think shouldve been left in.

modage

i havent read the script yet but the page on its own seems like its from another film, Boogie Nights maybe?, and definitely would be way too on-the-nose about simplifying WHY daniel is the way he is.  its much more ambiguous/mysterious that there are no women in the film without it. 
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

hedwig

agreed with mod. the cock exchange wasn't included in the movie so i wouldn't make too big a deal out of it. there's no denying the masculinity/represson aspect even if you never knew about that scene.

the absence of women from the movie is indeed a glaring omission. i remember at least two vague references to daniel's female relations: during the beach scene he and henry talk about getting liquored up and bringing some women to the peachtree dance, and eli accuses daniel of lusting after women during the baptism scene. one of his bad habits as a backslider.