| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| randall |
Posted - 12/12/2007 : 03:00:12
P. T. Anderson's new one arrives on the tenth anniversary of BOOGIE NIGHTS, and it can't be farther away, nor can Daniel Day-Lewis's performance be from, say, MY LEFT FOOT.
DD-L plays a misbegotten turn-of-the-century silver miner who stumbles upon oil, and as in Upton Sinclair's source piece [another hotshot filmmaker goes literary!], the result is... well...
D-L's growling presence commands this movie, and I will make an easy prediction that his will be one of the five names called for the Best Actor Oscar nom. Paul Dano of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE also kicks ass. Then there is gorgeous Texas scenery and Jack Fisk's incredible art direction. It's as if P.T. mind-melded with John Ford.
Like NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, also one of my favorites of the year, THERE WILL BE BLOOD isn't afraid to show you long passages without a word of dialogue. But when DD-L finally opens his mouth, my God!
I think it's the best work from director and actor since the two films I cited above. And don't take the title lightly: there will be. |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Demisemicenturian |
Posted - 02/11/2008 : 14:04:03
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Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
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Originally posted by Salopian
I was desperate for it to end for the last hour, other than the great finale, and this was even though I was not in the pain that I have had during many films of the last few months. The only possible reasons I could think of for the length were to indicate the passing of years or to batter the audience into the sense of Plainview and others' lives being a slog even with the occasional moment of high tension. However, numerous films successfully indicate the passage of time without being tedious, and everyone already knows that life is a slog so unlike some things in life (e.g. war) there is no validity in making the audience experience this.
I wish I knew how to respond to this, I have no idea exactly what you found a slog about it. I'm honestly just baffled.
The empty hours were obviously just a lot more fulfilling for you than for me. While Day-Lewis's performance is very good, I don't know what there is to gain from this film.
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B.B. is right about Eli's failure to age. I don't feel that it is on purpose and so it is very poor.
That's a nitpick, a passing annoyance at best.
No, I think it was extremely lazy. The whole point is that this vendetta has been dragging on for years. Why undermine that by half making it seem like no time has passed? (There would be some point if it were meant to indicate that it's as if they haven't progressed at all through life. While that would fit, it really doesn't come across as though they intended that.)
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Again, not spoilers: [beige]It is completely ridiculous that H.W. suddenly becomes mute once he is deaf, especially as deaf education of the time would have promoted oralism.
I don't think he became mute. He didn't talk much after the accident, but he didn't talk before the accident either.
I really do think he is supposed to have gone mute. That's why Plainview has to bully him into talking. The loss of communication between father and son is thus set up without a proper foundation, just so that there can be the denouement. It's really false.
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I also found the multiple mining accidents, two of which are almost identical, pretty unenlightening. Yeah, we get it - mining was a dangerous occupation. No shit.
I... what? What are you... I just don't understand what you're trying to say here. That's like saying that Day-Lewis's mustache was unenlightening because you already knew that could be humongous. What are you talking about?
No, it's not similar to that at all. Plainview's moustache does not waste any space, and serves the functions of setting him up as a certain type of character and making H.W. unable to lipread him (although the film fails to explore that). In contrast, the mineworking details, especially the accidents, are supposed to conjure up some kind of emotional or other framework, but the screen time is out of all proportion to the degree to which this is achieved. They do not create much of a sense of hard work or desperation or danger or fear, and certainly do not build a first person imagining of these, thus adding nothing that one cannot bring from one's general knowledge of that industry at that time. |
| GHcool |
Posted - 02/11/2008 : 07:44:52
quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
I was desperate for it to end for the last hour, other than the great finale, and this was even though I was not in the pain that I have had during many films of the last few months. The only possible reasons I could think of for the length were to indicate the passing of years or to batter the audience into the sense of Plainview and others' lives being a slog even with the occasional moment of high tension. However, numerous films successfully indicate the passage of time without being tedious, and everyone already knows that life is a slog so unlike some things in life (e.g. war) there is no validity in making the audience experience this.
I wish I knew how to respond to this, I have no idea exactly what you found a slog about it. I'm honestly just baffled.
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B.B. is right about Eli's failure to age. I don't feel that it is on purpose and so it is very poor.
That's a nitpick, a passing annoyance at best.
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Again, not spoilers: [beige]It is completely ridiculous that H.W. suddenly becomes mute once he is deaf, especially as deaf education of the time would have promoted oralism.
I don't think he became mute. He didn't talk much after the accident, but he didn't talk before the accident either.
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I also found the multiple mining accidents, two of which are almost identical, pretty unenlightening. Yeah, we get it - mining was a dangerous occupation. No shit.
I... what? What are you... I just don't understand what you're trying to say here. That's like saying that Day-Lewis's mustache was unenlightening because you already knew that could be humongous. What are you talking about?
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but from a thematic point of view, the movie is much more thin than it ought to have been.
Now this, GH, is something I heartily disagree with. The key contrast in this movie is the struggle between religion and capitalism; they're presented as antithetical to each other. So which is better, the path of God or the path of the dollar? Accepting God seems to be a way to not ever move forward to life, to complacently accept your own misery. But if religion in this movie is a way to not move, capitalism in this movie is a long road to nowhere, unless your ultimate goal in life is having a house with its own bowling alley. This is a movie about spiritual unfulfillment more than anything.
We don't exactly like Plainview, but when Day-Lewis steals Dano's milkshake, we gloat and we cackle just as he does. Why is that? Just because it's Plainview's story and not Eli's? They seem to be parallel figures in a way; what if it had been Eli's story? Could we sympathize with him? Or is Day-Lewis just more charismatic an actor, or Eli's religious fervor just too alien? Is Eli just too much of a dick? Is his dishonest moralism that much more repellent than Plainview's honest misanthropy?
I think both Eli and Plainview are both disgusting human beings. To identify with either character is like saying that you identify with either of the two spies in the "Spy vs. Spy" cartoon in Mad Magazine. The only reason why Eli is better than Plainview is that Eli never committed murder.
My problem with the movie is that it brings up the "religion vs. capitalism" issue, but it abandoned it midway through for the crazy psycho plot mixed with the remorseful billionaire plot. As a kind of "Citizen Kane meets The Shining," it worked. I just hoped that it would have risen above that and dealt with the issues it raised in the beginning more maturely. |
| MisterBadIdea |
Posted - 02/10/2008 : 20:50:54
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
I was desperate for it to end for the last hour, other than the great finale, and this was even though I was not in the pain that I have had during many films of the last few months. The only possible reasons I could think of for the length were to indicate the passing of years or to batter the audience into the sense of Plainview and others' lives being a slog even with the occasional moment of high tension. However, numerous films successfully indicate the passage of time without being tedious, and everyone already knows that life is a slog so unlike some things in life (e.g. war) there is no validity in making the audience experience this.
I wish I knew how to respond to this, I have no idea exactly what you found a slog about it. I'm honestly just baffled.
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B.B. is right about Eli's failure to age. I don't feel that it is on purpose and so it is very poor.
That's a nitpick, a passing annoyance at best.
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Again, not spoilers: [beige]It is completely ridiculous that H.W. suddenly becomes mute once he is deaf, especially as deaf education of the time would have promoted oralism.
I don't think he became mute. He didn't talk much after the accident, but he didn't talk before the accident either.
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I also found the multiple mining accidents, two of which are almost identical, pretty unenlightening. Yeah, we get it - mining was a dangerous occupation. No shit.
I... what? What are you... I just don't understand what you're trying to say here. That's like saying that Day-Lewis's mustache was unenlightening because you already knew that could be humongous. What are you talking about?
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but from a thematic point of view, the movie is much more thin than it ought to have been.
Now this, GH, is something I heartily disagree with. The key contrast in this movie is the struggle between religion and capitalism; they're presented as antithetical to each other. So which is better, the path of God or the path of the dollar? Accepting God seems to be a way to not ever move forward to life, to complacently accept your own misery. But if religion in this movie is a way to not move, capitalism in this movie is a long road to nowhere, unless your ultimate goal in life is having a house with its own bowling alley. This is a movie about spiritual unfulfillment more than anything.
We don't exactly like Plainview, but when Day-Lewis steals Dano's milkshake, we gloat and we cackle just as he does. Why is that? Just because it's Plainview's story and not Eli's? They seem to be parallel figures in a way; what if it had been Eli's story? Could we sympathize with him? Or is Day-Lewis just more charismatic an actor, or Eli's religious fervor just too alien? Is Eli just too much of a dick? Is his dishonest moralism that much more repellent than Plainview's honest misanthropy? |
| Demisemicenturian |
Posted - 02/10/2008 : 00:27:12
I was desperate for it to end for the last hour, other than the great finale, and this was even though I was not in the pain that I have had during many films of the last few months. The only possible reasons I could think of for the length were to indicate the passing of years or to batter the audience into the sense of Plainview and others' lives being a slog even with the occasional moment of high tension. However, numerous films successfully indicate the passage of time without being tedious, and everyone already knows that life is a slog so unlike some things in life (e.g. war) there is no validity in making the audience experience this.
There's a major spoiler about H.W. in turrell's post, so a warning should be added there or to the thread.
B.B. is right about Eli's failure to age. I don't feel that it is on purpose and so it is very poor. However, I don't think there is anything other than a fanciful basis for Paul and Eli being the same person. (Not spoilers but it would be a shame to know any of the few details of the film in advance: Eli's family would find it very bizarre for him to attack his father because he was angry with himself, even if they did not find his use of the third person odd. And even if we don't see him mentioned, Plainview would certainly have realised Paul's non-existence over the years.)
Again, not spoilers: It is completely ridiculous that H.W. suddenly becomes mute once he is deaf, especially as deaf education of the time would have promoted oralism. He would also probably be able to lipread (unlike people born deaf) and so while Plainview's moustache would be a problem, it would have made a lot more sense to show him lipreading others, such as Mary. Also, Plainview for business purposes would have ensured that he could read and write, so it is absolutely inexplicable why they didn't communicate that way. The context of the father-son division was thus extremely hammed up. I don't understand why H.W. and Mary get married so late either (when they are around 26 and 29).
I also found the multiple mining accidents, two of which are almost identical, pretty unenlightening. Yeah, we get it - mining was a dangerous occupation. No shit. |
| randall |
Posted - 02/09/2008 : 21:53:22
quote:
Originally posted by turrell
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
Why did it have to be soooo loooong?
It was long but I thought it moved much faster and needed every minute. One of your faves Brokeback was nearly as long and I thought the last third really dragged and didn't need to be near as long.
Me too. I thought BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN took forever to conclude, second only to RETURN OF THE KING. OTOH, the magnificent THERE WILL BE BLOOD concluded a tad too abruptly for some. |
| turrell |
Posted - 02/09/2008 : 17:42:10
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
Why did it have to be soooo loooong?
It was long but I thought it moved much faster and needed every minute. One of your faves Brokeback was nearly as long and I thought the last third really dragged and didn't need to be near as long.
The opening sequence is long - no words, but man it made me understand what he sacrificed initially and what a hard industry this was. |
| MM0rkeleb |
Posted - 02/09/2008 : 01:13:34
No one I've been able to find saw the film the same way I did. For me, what makes the film a demented near-masterpiece (and the best film I've seen from 2007) is the way the subject, writing, and direction work at cross-purposes to each other. The film sets itself up as being about big SUBJECTS like GREED and HYPOCRISY, and steels itself for a CONFRONTATION between the OILMAN and the PREACHER. Instead (in the writing) we get only greed and hypocrisy, etc. Everything is so petty and underwhelming. The direction then brings us back to the level of the epic, grandiose, and caps-locked. It's a film that seems to understand that true evil is more banal than terrifying. |
| Demisemicenturian |
Posted - 02/08/2008 : 23:25:27
Why did it have to be soooo loooong? |
| MisterBadIdea |
Posted - 01/22/2008 : 05:23:30
I don't see this movie as any kind of criticism or even comment on "the price of modernity" as GHCool puts it, or capitalism, or anything like that. It's very clear that this movie is not about greed, as greed is only a minor symptom of Daniel Plainview's raging hatred of everything and everyone.
This is the best damn movie of the year. By far.
Daniel Day-Lewis gloats that he drank your milkshake. |
| randall |
Posted - 01/17/2008 : 22:22:47
That was a very thoughtful post, cool. I had an advantage over you because I saw it at a FSLC screening before it opened, and all I knew was that it was a P.T. Anderson period piece. No pre-screening buzz. I had no idea what I was going to see when the lights went down, and it just hit me like a punch out of the blue. [This is the main advantage of film festival-type screenings: no critics have yet tried to tell you how to think. OTOH, you can get caught watching some incredible turkeys! ]
The Sinclair source, with its populist moralism, is only the springboard -- this is not an adaptation of Oil!, unlike NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, which is pretty much spot-on from the Cormac McCarthy novel. [Which now reads like a novelization -- HAW HAW HAW!]
Anderson has created his own statement on how money can eat away on one's insides, or even create a monster out of a perfectly hard-working individual. To me, it elevates him as a filmmaker in that he's focusing on one magnetic character [Adam Sandler doesn't fricking count] rather than an ensemble, and in the process he takes this individual apart. Plus, as I mentioned above, great lensing and Jack Fisk on design, and then there is Day-Lewis's powerful performance. I listened to some of it again after people had suggested he was imitating John Huston. It's not an impression. [Though he may have watched CHINATOWN, mind.] This is an oily character all its own. |
| GHcool |
Posted - 01/17/2008 : 00:48:41
I saw it this weekend. I liked it (if that's the word for a movie like this), but not as much as Randall and BaftaBabe. The real reason to see this movie is for Daniel Day-Lewis's incredible performance which reminded me of his performance in Gangs of New York crossed with Jack Nicholson's in The Shining.
My biggest criticism of the movie is that it didn't follow through on the whole theme of the price of modernity. The price of modernity is even more of an issue today than it was in 1911, and on both an international and local scale. An outsider comes to town and suggests you compromise your way of life, and in return, society in general will prosper, but nowhere near as much as the stranger will prosper. And whose to say whether or not society really prospers?
All of this is fascinating, philosophically dense stuff. So it was a let down for me that the movie abandoned this theme and went for the mad psychopath plot crossed with the sad billionaire plot that we've seen before in countless other movies. I definitely recommend the movie, Daniel Day-Lewis's performance is certainly worth the price of admission, but from a thematic point of view, the movie is much more thin than it ought to have been. |
| turrell |
Posted - 01/17/2008 : 00:20:55
quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
Okay, sports fans!! I've just seen this and need a bit of time to process it, but firstly may I just say
WOW!
I have to agree - what a heartbreakingly beautiful movie. What a horrible industry this was (and is). The HW storyline is so devastating - I have two small sons and I can't imagine the kind of person you'd have to be to act like DDL did to his adopted son.
Daniel Day Lewis was fanatstic as was much of the cast. I'd say at its heart it was a story of Plainviews personal demons.
Some have criticized the film as being anti-religious and anti capitalist, but I'd say it only rails against the worst of those forms.
I was confused by the Paul Eli thing I thought Paul was just an alias for Eli, but Eli makes mention of his stupid brother and doesn't flinch when Plainview tells him he gave Paul 10K. The family makes no direct mention of Paul amongst themselves - Eli tells his father that it was his son who sold them out, but I wonder if he was referring in the third person to himself.
SPOILERS - but not too bad.
I loved the contrast of the baptism scene with the final scene basically Daniel vs Eli trying to force the other to admit their sins. It will be hard to shake "I abandoned my son" put of my head for awhile - and even though Plainviews baptism is a farce you can tell he did sacrifice part of his soul to get the pipeline. |
| ChocolateLady |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 12:38:20
Um... yes, WOW does certainly seem like an understatement now.
Thanks!
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| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 10:33:44
What raises this film above the crowd is more about what happens between the viewer and the screen. That it tells a powerful story is undeniable, and that it's told so expertly is there for all to see in the superb performances from Daniel Day-Lewis and the ensemble cast who are essentially means to his ends. The production itself adds to the story with every shot.
Writer/Director Paul Thomas Anderson and his meticulous cameraman Robert Elswit [Michael Clayton, Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck] play with chiaruscuro to great effect, not only visually but as a constant reminder that this is a tale of telling the way of the dark from the way of the light.
Far from being a dramatization of its source material, Upton Sinclair's novel Oil, it's Anderson's focus on the anti-hero to an almost obsessive extent. Yet if you step back a bit you can see all the socio-economic implications of this oil man's tale.
Without giving too much away, there a long-shot that holds and after a while develops into a series of mid-shots which you expect to pay off in a close-up which never comes. That sequence encapsulates the emotional dynamic of the film, takes its emotional temperature and, in a sense, makes you complicit in the ambiguity played out in plain view, all pun intended. It's a scene well into the film. Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview - a self-man made whose wealth has come from scrabbling about underground and bringing up minerals like gold and oil - has raised a boy with generosity and affection, given him every advantage, and then sent him away when his presence interfered with business. The scene I refer to puts Daniel just off-center as the boy returns home to his father's embrace. It's a very long shot and it depicts eloquently the distance that has widened between them, between what was the only close relationship we ever get to see Plainview enjoy. In the mid-shot scenes that follow we see Daniel enclose the boy again, but this time we can see that although he allows the hug, he doesn't hug back.
People will talk about Day Lewis's modelling his accent on John Huston, and it's an uncanny but an apt choice, evoking the authority of the great director.
They'll talk about the protracted wordless opening fifteen minutes - and they are magnificent, fully the equal of Leone's Once Upon A Time In America.
They'll try to tell you this is a story of one man's greed. Don't buy that, not even if it's on a two-for-one sale! Daniel Plainview is no Gordon Gecko, and considering the source material for the film, if greed comes into it, it's the greed that nurtures capitalism - which is the real theme.
These people who speak are unlikely to deal with the Sinclair novel, to see how Anderson weaves it into a story devoid of the didacticism that peppered the book, yet without sacrificing the message.
Sinclair published Oil in 1927, when Anderson's film ends. He was a novelist and political campaigner of such conviction that the revelations in his book The Jungle led to legislative changes to the way the Chicago stockyards were run [though he always insisted his main interest was the effect of the abuses on the people who lived in the vicinity].
For it's social justice and welfare that drove Sinclair. His analysis of the ways of capitalism and how it flourishes - not only by exploiting the workforce but by hiding that fact, denying at all costs that it exists, and buying its way out of legislation passed to stop the exploitation - these are the rotten edifices he wants to topple with his docu-fiction.
And, if you extrapolate Anderson's focus on Plainview, many of Sinclair's concerns also drive his film. We don't have to look beyond the title to know this isn't a Disney tale of The Romance of Oil. Blood punctuates the film from the first glimpses of it as Plainview falls back into the pit where he's been chipping away at solid rocks to find gold. The following series of such accidents tells us much about the determination of the man, a self-confessed plain speaker, an avowed misanthrope who disguises his digust with charm, the easy generosity of the rich, and a willingness to conform to the principles of his rivals to get what he wants. Ends in this film always justify means for the main characters.
And it's not only Plainview whose principles are for sale. His main antagonist is a young preacher called Eli Sunday, son of a landowner whom Plainview duped to get access to the oil he knew was there. The scene again reminds us of the ways of this man's world, somehow bridging the gap between the silly-money bonuses of corporate head honchos and the human face of how business gets to that point. Both Sinclair and Anderson are concerned with that process. Plainview takes his pre-teen son HW [a performance of poise and quiet power by Dillon Freasier] to Sunday's place loaded down with hunting gear and claiming to want just to camp on the man's land so he can teach his boy to hunt quail.
Old Sunday offers as much hospitality as Plainview will take - water, goat's milk, firewood. On the alleged hunt HW kicks away some dirt and discovers oil on his shoe, confirming what his father has already paid money to know - the land is covering a sea of oil. And it's in a place that Plainview's main mineral development rivals Standard Oil haven't yet learned about. His informant, as it turns out, was Eli's brother Paul - both played by Paul Dano. Just a side-bar here - Dano does a lovely acting job in both roles, but I can't figure out why he's the only character who doesn't age as the decades pass. There's also, despite both brothers being listed in the cast list, the possibility that Eli and Paul are the same person. I'll leave that to you to decide. Anyhoo --
Eli witnesses how Plainview underpays his father for the land, trying his best to reason logically that it's worth more. He also reveals that his main interest is in getting a church built for his mission. Thus begins a fierce rivallry between the men that bubbles up occasionally, but is mostly contained under the niceties of social etiquette. And the incongruity isn't lost - the lace doily mind-set of the new century is constantly at odds with the relatively lawless industrialization that divides people even as it brings them physically closer together. We also learn later that Daddy Sunday's hiding some dark family secrets of his own, which ironically are dealt with by Plainview.
What both Sinclair and Anderson are intrigued by is the hypocrisy on both sides. The light and the dark. The good and the bad. Not as simplistic as God versus Mammon, but an acknowledgment that any concept of the spiritual that exists within - and because of - the fruits of exploitation that define capitalism, makes them obverse sides of the same coin.
It's that which leads to the powerful end of the piece. The book, which has more room to develop than this already epic 2� hour movie, concentrates on HW as a grown up rejecting his father's approach and striking out on his own. What the film does is to pull back again into the degeneration of the man Plainview. He's now able to live as he's wanted to, without help from anyone. In mad isolation. And, amid all the opulence, to find yet one more way to win which puts finality to what has essentially been a meaningless life.
So, yes, I'm saying if you don't take all that into consideration you may be very impressed by the elements of the film, the power of its components, but the underlying story will likely puzzle you. The film's structural flaws are those plaguing any from such a literary source. But it's one of the most important films of the year.
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| ChocolateLady |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 07:06:15
That said, I now know I'll have to see it - no matter what your review says.
(Anything that leaves Bafta speechless has gotta be good! [insert appropriate winky thing here])
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