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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Fernando

Agree with pic, cbrad and md.

To put it real simple, Daniel loved HW the Daniel Plainview way.

As md rightly pointed, the bastard from a basket is just a defense mechanism,  he feels betrayed by HW, so he says the worst thing anyone could hear from a parent. It's clear to me that he never wants to be seen as a vulnerable figure, so he acts the way he does to avoid any sign of weakness.

tpfkabi

did no one mention Daniel's reaction after he left HW on the train in favor of him loving HW in some capacity?

if he didn't care would he not give a careless smirk as he walked away with HW in his peripheral view?
I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away.

diggler

you really thought that was a careless smirk? i thought it was more himself trying to convince himself that he didn't care, the businessman in him was relieved.
I'm not racist, I'm just slutty

picolas


diggler

I'm not racist, I'm just slutty

SoNowThen

Quote from: md on February 25, 2008, 08:06:46 PM
Saw it for the second time.  There is no doubt that Daniel cares for HW outside of his business, just look at the train scene preluding the flash forward...there is a warmth in his eyes and a tenderness in his heart that shows he will become his father.  We act as if parents, whether biological or surrogate, don't "use" their children...

What interested me is when Henry tells Daniel about his real brother.  He says he died of tuberculosis, and "wasn't hurt or killed"  -- blinks hard -- and then continues in cowardice to be asked to let go.  He is not a good man and deserves to die for killing the real Henry.  Did anyone else pick up on this subtlety? 

Also, the print at my local theatre looked atleast two stops darker than the print screened at the NY screening, making the cinematography much less detailed and darker than I remembered it.  Academy fucked up...how does a movie win best Actor and best Cinematography, and not take home best director...that's like not thanking the head coach of winning baseball team. 

Sadly, that last thing you mentioned keeps coming up in conversations with people who don't like the movie. They say things like "yeah, it looked cool, and of course Daniel is great... but, there is no story, or it was weird, or it was slow, or blah blah". It's really, really odd. It's like folks are validating their intelligence by "admitting" that they "understand" what good acting and camerawork look like, but also revealing that they are much smarter when it comes to story structure and plot. This is usually followed by me asking them to explain their problems with the "story", then them saying that "well, so the movie is about looking for oil...". So then when I say, no, it is not, I usually get a very puzzled look and that's the end of that.

Although it is really fun when people ask why it is called There Will Be Blood, and I can just reply "cos there was".

On a side note, your observation is very similar to Scorsese when Taxi Driver got nominated for Best Actor and Best Writing (and I think even Best Picture) but no Best Director. He said something like "so... who did they think was responsible for all that??". But yeah, it's certainly a snub to Paul, indirectly saying "here are the reasons why your movie turned out good".

(lotsa quotation marks in this post...)
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

idk

Quote from: Fernando on February 26, 2008, 10:35:44 AM
It's clear to me that he never wants to be seen as a vulnerable figure, so he acts the way he does to avoid any sign of weakness.
This point is probly relevent in supporting the water argument in the other thread, considering the way he rejects Eli's drink offer.
Quote from: SoNowThen on February 26, 2008, 11:04:48 PM
it's certainly a snub to Paul, indirectly saying "here are the reasons why your movie turned out good".
i found the most troubling aspect to be the fact that he lost the adapted writing award to the coen's who from what ive gathered(i trust ill be corrected if im wrong) more or less just condensed the book, where the credit lies with Cormac. Now no doubt they still had to make efforts to write it for the screen but come on, all the good shit was already there. On the other hand we have Paul who developed and made the story his own which had only its foundations in the earlier Sinclair work. The fact that after creating the whole damn thing Paul Thomas Anderson did not walk on that stage and walks away with NOTHING, really gets my juices flowing. I can almost, let me stress almost, understand why he wouldn't win for director or picture because of all the hoopla over NOCFOM but for him to not win for writing really disgusts me.

btw did anyone notice that the second after the coen's name for best director was announced paul kind of cringed his mouth just the slightest as if to say "darn it", of course it might have just been nervous energy


foray

Quote from: Stefen on February 25, 2008, 04:32:05 PM
Do you think Daniel could have been molesting Mary and that would explain his protectiveness over her? He never did a good thing the whole movie except for get Mary's father to stop beating her. It's not out of the question to assume there were other motives at work there.

You could argue he cared for H.W. but I don't think he ever did. I think he thought of H.W. as an accessory. Someone to help him seal the deal when he was trying to buy land. And it worked effectively. Maybe the Daniel/Mary relationship had something to do with H.W's distance from Daniel. Maybe he knew. Maybe Mary told him at a young age.

I, too, suspected sexual overtones when Daniel grabs her and asks if she likes the dress that he bought her. But then we see Mary embracing him warmly after his baptism. It is a surprisingly tender moment after all that theatricality. If Daniel connects with anyone in this movie, it's that scene with Mary.

foray
touch me i'm sick

I Love a Magician

what about when hw comes back and daniel's all like "this does me good"

pretty connected

jtm

regarding the whole "did Daniel ever really love HW" question.. i think it can be summed up in the quick flashback right after Daniel's "bastard in a basket" tirade. when HW stole Daniel's hat and Daniel playfully yet purposefully pushed HW to the ground.  that showed us Daniel's true side even before HW lost his hearing... sure, maybe he cared for HW in some respect, but never in the way a father should.

i think anything he did that maybe showed love for HW, was more him just doing what he thought was expected of him as a normal human. not what his heart told him to do.

ElPandaRoyal

Quote from: idk on February 26, 2008, 11:40:53 PM
btw did anyone notice that the second after the coen's name for best director was announced paul kind of cringed his mouth just the slightest as if to say "darn it", of course it might have just been nervous energy

I had my eyes on him when the Best Director was announced, because I remembered people saying he reacted badly when American Beauty won Screenplay (I never saw that reaction myself), and he did cringe, and I laughed. Paul seems to really want one of those naked men, and if you ask me, he should have already won. I don't know about this year, though, because NCFOM will only open tomorrow here in Portugal, but it has to be VERY VERY GOOD to be better than CMBB.
Si

Stefen

I'm glad Paul was visibly upset he didn't win. Shows he cares. Not so much for the Academy, but he cares about his art. Fuck being gracious. Hollywood is cut throat. He's worked very hard to get to where he's at and he did it HIS way. I'd be pissed too if I was him.

Granted, you can't really be upset if you lost to Joel and Ethan because they pretty much have been doing what PTA's doing since the early 80's and never really gotten recognized for it.
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.

©brad

Quote from: Stefen on February 27, 2008, 11:12:10 AM
I'm glad Paul was visibly upset he didn't win. Shows he cares. Not so much for the Academy, but he cares about his art. Fuck being gracious. Hollywood is cut throat. He's worked very hard to get to where he's at and he did it HIS way. I'd be pissed too if I was him.

if this is true, then fuck PTA, and fuck any other director who would honestly be that mad about it. but i honestly don't think he was. his "grimace" was a knee-jerk reaction of surprise, shock, probably even joy that two directors he no doubt respects and is friends with won the award. none of us know what it's like to be sitting there, awaiting in nail-biting anticipation that you might be called upon to give a speech to 200 million ppl around the world. you cannot automatically assume solely by his facial reaction that he was truly upset. i can't believe it. 

at the end of the day we know the academy awards are meaningless, that they don't make the films any better, and that the very act of works of art competing against one another is silly and counterproductive. what PTA should be (and no doubt is) proud of, and i apologize for resorting to a tired old cliche here, is that his film was nominated in the first place, that it's doing very well out there in the world (both critically and financially) and exposing him to a wider mainstream audience, and, thanks to its financial success, will allow other directors to produce more "riskier" projects with studio backing. as the coens said, if you look at the body of work this year, it's a testament to the health of the industry right now that these films are being made and are finding audiences. that's all that really matters.





Stefen

You put a portion of your life into a film you're making.

"I'm just happy to be nominated!" is for actors who spend a couple months on a film, wash their hands of it, then move onto something else.

A filmmaker like PTA is spending YEARS on a movie. The Academy Awards is the end of the cycle. It's a culmination of everything he's put into it. After the show, the cycle ends and it's time to start something new. I can't really blame him if he was upset he didn't win director, writer, or picture. I'm sure he takes solace in the fact he lost to the Coen's, but I doubt he didn't care that he didn't win. Everyone cares. Who doesn't want to win?

You can't really hate on someone for being disappointed they didn't win an award for something they spent a long time working on, ya know?
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.

©brad

Quote from: Stefen on February 27, 2008, 12:04:13 PMYou can't really hate on someone for being disappointed they didn't win an award for something they spent a long time working on, ya know?

sure i can. anyone who makes movies purely to win awards is a douchebag.