 |
| (A)greed? |
Greed, hate, power, revenge- are some of
the words that can be used to describe the intense emotion in Paul Anderson’s
2007 film, There Will Be Blood. Starring
Daniel Day- Lewis as Daniel Plainview and Paul Dano as Paul and Eli Sunday, the
film is a captivating story of a silver miner (1898) turned oil miner four
years later (1902). Plainview is a hard-working, money driven individual, who
will stop at nothing for his success strongly communicated in the first scene
in which despite him breaking his leg after falling into a shaft, he drags
himself out and all the way to the nearest trading station to get money for his
precious metal.
Plainview’s only son, H.W, is his only
family, and is seemingly a part of the business from birth, even “christened”
with oil as a baby. The relationship between father and son is a touching bond,
and almost borders on unnatural or possessive, with Plainview describing his
child as a business partner at a young age. We encounter Paul Sunday early in
the movie when he offers Plainview a business proposition, directing him to his
family ranch which lies on a major oil reserve in California. Plainview visits
the ranch with his son pretending to camp and hunt quail. Eli, Paul’s twin
brother, confronts Plainview when he offers to buy the land, as he knows that
he wants to drill for oil. Eli sells the land at a higher price than originally
quoted by Eli’s father in the hope that he will be able to build a church, the
3rd Revelation Church, of which he is the preacher. Dano’s
pseudo-antagonistic role in the film is brought out by his wanting recognition
and power in his community, which Plainview is stealing away by means of money
and development. He is humiliated, beaten and conned by Plainview, which he in
turn blames his weak father for.
Plainview’s character is gradually darkened
by an accident on the drilling field, in which H.W loses his hearing. Shortly
after, a man claiming to be his long lost half-brother shows up looking for
work, providing some sort of solace and company for a tormented and confused
Plainview. However, he is murdered by an increasingly alcholic Plainview after
he confesses to be an imposter of his real brother who died some years before
of Tuberculosis. All this time, Plainview becomes richer and richer, turning
down an offer to be made a millionaire by a company wanting to buy his oil
well. To this, Plainview asks “Then what will I do?” showing that drilling for
oil had become his only reason to live. He even threatens to slit the throat of
the man who suggested that he could take care of his son, a touchy issue in
their broken relationship, brought to surface by his extreme guilt in
abandoning him to boarding school without an explanation. He hits the “jack
pot” by striking a deal with Union Oil, which allowed him to build an oil
pipeline. Eli gets a chance to get revenge by beating the sin out of Plainview
and forcing him to confess in church, as Plainview would do anything to get the
pipeline deal.
Anderson beautifully incorporates music for
dramatic effect - the score is not exaggerated but is enough to evoke fear,
suspense and avarice throughout the film. The first scene is a powerful silent
depiction of passion and determination - everything that Plainview is; so that the
first dialogue we hear fourteen minutes into the film helps to put the
character in sharper focus.
Anderson directed a great story, the spiral
towards disaster is quite a ride for the audience. It is understandable then
that the movie scooped two Oscars, as well as numerous other awards, with
Day-Lewis winning award for Best Actor (2008). However, I do think that some
scenes were too long, lengthening the movie a great deal (over two and half
hours).
The film is strongly influenced by and partly based on Upton
Sinclair’s 1927 political novel, Oil!
centred around the oil boom in Southern California in the early 1900s.
Day-Lewis embodies a man in search of the American dream, for him and his son,
and does a brilliantly convincing job of gradually morphing into an alcoholic maniac
tormented by his own ambition. It has strong moral undertones, questioning the
insatiable desire for wealth and power which erode Plainview, leaving him alone
and dependent on alcohol, not even able to enjoy the grand house he had always
dreamt about. The film also questions religion as a means of control. There was
no big difference between Plainview and Sunday- they both utilised various ways
of control, seeking revenge from each other, which ended up with a dead Eli,
being clobbered by Plainview after a dramatic chase in Plainview’s bowling
alley (which I thought was a terrible ending- there really was no justification
for his murder, though it is understandable that Plainview was crazy and had
reached a point of no return).
All in all, There Will Be Blood is a wonderful story of greed and destruction,
leaving the viewer asking, “is there really anything worth my blood?”
No comments:
Post a Comment