I won't call this a review, just a reaction.
I have seen There Will Be Blood twice now, and I still don’t get it. Then again, maybe I do get it and am right to think that there is a lot less to it than meets the eye.
It has received such praise that I would be arrogant indeed not to question my initial reaction. Rolling Stone compared it to Citizen Kane – that does no film any favours; others to Treasure of the Sierra Madre – same problem; Mark Kermode declared that it ‘redefines the grammar of cinema’ – I tend to think that it ignores it; Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance was ‘visceral’ – or was it a hammy impersonation of John Huston; the music was unjustly denied even an Oscar nomination – but I found it portentous and intrusive.
It’s not my complaint merely that it has been over-praised. It’s not that I don’t admire many aspects of it. I just think it fails, and that it fails unnecessarily. Maybe it should have shown more respect to filmic grammar after all.
* * *
The film opens with a blast of doom-laden music and a barren landscape, and we are treated to a near wordless overview of Daniel Plainview’s rise from solitary silver prospector to independent oilman, acquiring on the way a broken leg and an adopted son, symbols no doubt of his flawed humanity.
This dialogue-free opening reel is arresting, but hardly original. Off hand I recall its being used in the taut Dirty Harry and the flabby Rio Bravo.
When Plainview finally speaks clearly it is in a silkily confidential voice, inviting his audience of farmers to view him a plain, honest family man, as well as a professional in whom they can have confidence should they allow him to drill.
Many reviewers invite me to see the presence of his ‘son’ as evidence of his callous ruthlessness. The lad is a mere prop. The farmers are being swindled. Underlying this accusation, for which I can detect no evidence as yet, is surely the fact that he is an ‘oilman’. In other words, a capitalist, and worse than that, a pillager of the earth’s resources.
At this point of the movie I see only a hard-working, rather admirable entrepreneur, with a heartfelt, if rough, love for the boy. Frankly, I like him a lot. Anyone who can shrug off the pain of a broken leg to relish his discovery of silver has my admiration.
* * *
It is because of this sympathy that I recognise immediately the distaste he feels for the self-appointed preacher, Eli Sunday, one of the locals where Plainview makes his biggest strike.
Sunday’s snivelling sanctimony is repulsive. If he is intended to be Plainview’s great rival or antithesis, then the script or the actor fails to deliver. What we need is Burt Lancaster as Elmer Gantry. I wonder, by the way, how many notice that Sunday quotes Burt when he talks about ‘gumming the devil’ should he find himself without teeth.
The disgust finally erupts when Plainview’s son is injured and loses his hearing. He beats and humiliates Sunday, the supposed believer in divine miracles and ineffective healer.
If, as some critics, say Plainview and Sunday stand for the twin evils that exploit the American common man, capitalism and fundamentalist religion, then the film is demeaned, for humanity has been lost. No work of art can aspire to greatness that departs from the examination of man and his motives.
And here is my main problem with this film. Why does Plainview act as he does in the second half of the story?
* * *
Plainview’s ‘brother’ turns up. Obviously, he’s a fraud. We all know that; so why not Plainview, this shrewd and ruthless man?
It’s nothing but a clunky plot device. The script has plans for Plainview’s end and we need some motivation pretty damn quick. A handily discovered brother enables Plainview to cavort in the sea and reminisce about his youth, dream of a house full of children and then confide his misanthropy and hatred of competitors.
Where on earth did all that come from?
And when he learns at long last that his brother is no such thing, he shoots him dead. This, of course, is no surprise, because we know how much he hates everyone. He’s just told us, hasn’t he?
But he’s found out by one of Sunday’s flock of sleep, coincidentally one whose land is badly needed. They blackmail him into accepting baptism and confessing his sins. It’s humiliating for him, embarrassingly funny for us and sweet revenge for Sunday.
Sunday demands he confess to abandoning his child and it’s odd how many reviewers agree with him, even though all he’s done is send him to a special school. Good idea, in my opinion. The boy himself agrees with the critics, the ungrateful brat, and strikes Plainview on his return, despite his father’s genuine display of joy at the reunion.
* * *
The film has been going on for some time now and we need to speed to a conclusion. So a quick cut to ten years later, with the boy now married and announcing his departure to try his luck in the oil business. A horrified Plainview – he hates competitors, remember – denounces him and reveals, though not to us, that the boy is not his real son, just ‘a bastard in a basket’. Not nice, I agree, but we all say hurtful things when we ourselves are hurt.
We move rapidly along and Sunday re-appears for the final showdown. Plainview gets his final revenge with some basic lessons on the geology of oil and a repetitive speech about milk shakes. As if realising that this is hardly dramatic enough he beats out the preacher’s brains with a bowling pin, and declares – in words the screenwriter must have thought a crowning sentence – ‘I’m finished.’
Black screen and some violin music (rather good, I thought).
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