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Movie of the Week #19 - There Will Be Blood
First movie in the Best Picture Losers month, starting with There Will Be Blood from 2007 directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. While it didn't win Best Picture, Daniel Day-Lewis won for Best Actor and Robert Elswit won for Best Cinematography.
Besides any thoughts on this movie, have you seen the other nominees that year and do you think this deserved the win instead?
The other nominees:
- No Country for Old Men (winner)
- Atonement
- Juno
- Michael Clayton
The rest of the schedule is:
- 11th: Life is beautiful
- 18th: High Noon
- 25th: Saving Private Ryan
They’re both westerns, both are period pieces (although nearly 100 years apart), both were shot in New Mexico. Both are high brow works from their auteur filmmakers. And both have psychopathic characters.
Heh, you are not the first I have seen with this problem. I have only seen this twice, but No Country For Old Men probably close to ten times, so they are pretty separate in my head, but I can understand why it happens. Besides being released the same year, they both cover similar themes and share a similar style. Also, you could more or less swap the titles of the movies and it would still make (to a degree) sense.
Maybe since they came out in the same year. My brain catalogued them together since I saw one after the other within a month of each other.
While it's themes on capitalism is pretty straightforward, I don't feel it is hammering any point down. On its own it is a epic tragic tale of building a successful business empire from scratch and an exploration of what that process does to a person. Daniel Plainview isn't merely an evil capitalist, and while not exactly sympathetic, we still see how his own ambitions breaks him and how he can't deal with the complexities of upbringing his adopted son. He is not heartless and seems to genuinely care for his son, but his own success destroys his empathy and in the end he cannot view any sort of human relationship on other terms than a business transaction. At least that is how I read his actions in the end, where he rejects his son and is trying to protect himself by distancing his own failure as a father by reducing his son to merely a business opportunity.
The conflict with religion, impersonated by Eli, is equally interesting and not so clear cut either. Eli isn't exactly a saint either and his style of practicing religion builds on the similar deceptions of regular people. In addition, the mystery of the Paul and Eli characters is an interesting one, because it is not completely clear if they are twins or something else is going on. Not that it is a mystery that needs an explanation.
It was also interesting to watch this close to Gangs of New York because Daniel Day-Lewis is clearly bringing the same sort of character work and acting style to the set, but he is allowed to use better here.
As for the other nominees that year, it is tough to be on the ballot alongside No Country For Old Men. Interesting how they came out the same year, both dealing in the same sort of "Americana"-theme. I think both deserve it equally well. I haven't watched Atonement, but Juno isn't anywhere in the same league as the others here. I also like Michael Clayton which could have been a worthy winner in a less competitive year.
I first watched this when I was 15, which was nearly 10 years ago now (sheesh). I had already seen Punch-Drunk Love but that's not considered "high brow" PTA. So this was my first experience with that. I don't think it was the first high brow movie I ever watched, but it's probably the first that made an impression on me.
I remember being so captivated by the film, despite it being slow and despite the first 20 or so minutes of the film having no dialogue. After my initial viewing of it it became my favorite movie. I remember thinking the movie was kind of "old" at the time, but that would be the equivalent of a teenager watching La La Land or Dunkirk today and thinking those movies are "old."
I've seen it many times since. I think it is one of the great American epics, and it's one of the best films of the 21st century. The oil explosion sequence is engraved into my memory. Incredible filmmaking and the score during it is awesome.
I think this should have won Best Picture over No Country For Old Men.
In terms of the other nominees, I've seen them all. I've read/listened to people talk about how everyone thought Atonement would be the Picture winner early on in the race. But that ended up missing DGA and under performed by the end of the season. It did, however, win the Golden Globe for Motion Picture - Drama over There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. What's interesting is the winner of the Golden Globe Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy was not Juno, but was Sweeney Todd, which didn't get a Picture nomination but would have in an expanded line-up.
Atonement is good. It's very middle-brow, but it's well made. It's definitely the most Oscar bait of the nominees but that's right up my alley. I don't think Joe Wright has made a good movie since.
I haven't seen Juno in a very long time. I saw that in theaters when I was a kid (my cousin wanted to see it cause she was following the Oscars at the time), and I enjoyed it at the time. I think I've rewatched it a few times since then, it used to play on cable a lot. I don't love Diablo Cody's writing, and I think I would like it significantly less if I were to rewatch it today. It feels very 00s quirky indie comedy in a way that annoys me now. I don't think Cody has every written anything as good as Reitman's Up in the Air.
Michael Clayton might actually be my least favorite of the nominees. Maybe I should rewatch it but it didn't click for me. I like the ending a lot though "does it look like I'm negotiating?"
No Country is good, that's something that I also didn't fall in love with like other people. But I do think it's a worthy Best Picture winner and one of the better ones from this century (though a lot of winners aren't great). I think I probably would like it more if I rewatched it though. I think it's actually kind of weird that No Country won both Director and Picture yet lost Cinematography to There Will Be Blood. That doesn't really make sense in my head.
Edit: Let me just add what probably would have gotten into Picture if there were ten nominees: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, The Bourne Ultimatum, Into the Wild, Ratatouille
I am curious on what you mean by high brow here? It is mostly a term I see used in a derogatory manner when criticizing something as pretentious. I would consider these in the same category as the Fincher and Tarantino movies of the 90s. Not exactly blockbusters but still accessible for regular entertainment while also having deeper themes one can analyze but isn't required.
I don't think high brow is derogatory at all. There was a discussion about this on the flick subreddit. But I think both No Country and There Will Be Blood fall into that category. They're slow and understated. They're much more interested in thematic elements than say plot or action. Comparing it to Atonement, which plays more broad and less intellectual.
I think they're accessible high brow films, but high brow nonetheless. I think there's different levels to it, just cause it's not a four hour long movie where nothing happens and all you have are themes doesn't mean it's not high brow. I think stuff like TAR, The Zone of Interest, and even stuff like Parasite and Moonlight would fall into this category.
The majority of Fincher's and Tarantino's work comes from genre too much to really be in that same There Will Be Blood vicinity. Though Fincher has The Social Network. But Tarantino takes a lot of inspiration from exploitation films as opposed to like Bergman or something.
PTA has works that are considered high brow (There Will Be Blood, The Master, and Phantom Thread) and also works that aren't (Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love, and Licorice Pizza). It's not a good or bad thing.
This is by far my favourite movie. I have watched it dozens of times and I'm not one to rewatch anything. It has everything; beautiful cinematography, incredible musical score, written and acted perfectly. If you have the attention span to stay with it, it is an incredibly suspenseful, hilarious, dramatically powerful film.
The humor is layered into the most dramatic scenes, so I could see if some wouldn't recognize or remember it that way. The baptism scene, "give me the blood" is darkly humorous and tragic. The final scene is both darkly hard to watch and hilarious at the same time. Plainview confronting his rivals at the restaurant. The preacher fight. All dramatic and funny scenes. (I'm being vague because I don't want to give much away.)
Besides that it is a film rich in meaning and nuance. The parallels between capitalism and religion. Their shared bond: greed. Plainview being really a despicable person but so well written and acted, the story so well told that you don't feel disgust for him, just sadness. I'd love to hear what other people got from the film.
And yes, I think it should have won best picture although I love No Country For Old Men as well
There Will be Blood is a good example of a film that I find worthwhile, and powerful and yet one that I didn't enjoy. Daniel Day-Lewis dominated the screen and it was easy to get lost in his performance. Nevertheless, it's not a movie I want to revisit. Coming out of it, I felt emotionally numb, beaten down by the experience. Even thinking of the film gives me a bad taste in my mouth.