Two films loomed large on the horizon as fall 2007 approached. These were both highly anticipated projects from two (actually three) of my favorite filmmakers, both based on novels by celebrated American writers, both exploring the corrosive effects of greed as played out across the American West, and both featuring amoral protagonists. No Country for Old Men from Joel and Ethan Coen and There Will Be Blood from Paul Thomas Anderson. The advance reviews were glowing and expectations were high. No Country (reviewed here by guest reviewer Bill Andreassen) fully lived up to the hype: a flawless film full of poetry and prose with an unexpectedly graceful ending. As the credits rolled I wanted to yell up to the booth, "run it again". The second film finally rolled into town this weekend. I couldn't wait to see it.
All the elements were there for a great film, but it was not to be. There Will Be Blood starts promisingly, as Anderson, his long-time DP Robert Elswit and production designer extraordinaire Jack Fisk painstakingly portray the early days of the oil industry in California. Some of the best sequences come early on as we see the nuts and bolts of oil exploration, looking for the big strike that can make a man a millionaire overnight: the passion of "oil-man" Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis). Throw in some of that old-time religion in the form of the Church of the Third Revelation led by a prophesying faith healer named Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) and we had the makings of an epic confrontation between two prominent streams of American history: money and religion. I'm not sure when this "sprawling epic" started taking on water, but it was well before a bewilderingly awful final act with young Dano yelling lines like "I am a false prophet, God is a superstition" while being used as a bowling pin by his drunken rival. I wouldn't have been surprised if an axe-wielding Jack Nicholson suddenly appeared yelling "here's Johnny"! I'm sorry, it just didn't work for this viewer.
Daniel Day-Lewis is a fabulous actor. He doesn't work often, so when he does it's an event. His commitment to the roles he plays has become legendary. All the predictions are that he'll take the Best Actor Oscar this year (although we might not see it if the writer's strike goes on). The villain Chigurh in No Country (played by Javier Bardem), seemed more like a deus ex machina, or the archetype of a deterministic philosophical ideal, than a flesh and blood person. Also, he was part of an excellent ensemble cast, but Day-Lewis is this movie. It's his face -- by turns charming, wary and menacing -- that fills (sometimes literally) every frame. He's the kind of actor that probably doesn't need, or take well, to much direction. You just get out of his way and let him work. He's a personal favorite, but still I didn't think his performance here was completely compelling. Some of his choices seemed over the top and just eccentricity for it's own sake.
I think the basic problem though, with this film, is Anderson's script, and to a lesser degree, his direction. He's done brilliant work. Magnolia (1999) is a structural and cinematic tour de force, and one of my all-time favorites, even his first feature, Sydney a/k/a Hard Eight (1996), is a gem. Look for it. But back to the matter at hand. There Will Be Blood has a schizophrenic relationship with it's "hero" that I found disorienting. Disorienting the viewer can be a good and valid tactic for a filmmaker to use, but here I found it unsettling in a way I can't quite put my finger on. Perhaps it was because I sensed the audience (a sold-out Saturday afternoon matinee) emotionally with Daniel, even approving, as his villainy increased. Was the baptism scene and Plainview's climactic confrontation with Sunday supposed to be funny or taken seriously? The people around me found them hilarious judging from all the laughter. I simply found it baffling coming from someone I thought I had a pretty good read on. A lot of sound and fury signifying little.
Most of the music in the film is contributed by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. He shows himself to be a talented orchestral composer, and his cues (played mostly on strings and piano) are quite effective. On the other hand, Brahms' Violin Concerto has been forever tainted for me by Anderson's use of it in his film. I suspect he was going for the same ironic effect created by Kubrick's use of Beethoven's Ninth in A Clockwork Orange (1971). In both cases, I found it distasteful.
Someone has said that it takes a truly talented director to make a truly awful film. And it's true that it sometimes takes a while for an ambitious film, as this one undoubtedly is, to find it's true audience. I wouldn't be surprised if I revisit it in several years and have a quite different reaction, but presently you'd have to pay me to sit through it again. TWBB has been compared to Great American Movies such as Citizen Kane (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and Raging Bull (1980). That's Orson Welles, John Huston and Martin Scorsese...pretty elite company! I don't doubt that Anderson has the talent to make the next Great American Movie, but this isn't it.
I agree that the film is a thundering disappointment, but still quite worthy. One of my initial criticisms was the overwroughtness of it: the tone, the score, some over-the-top, borderline ham fat acting. Then I thought of the classic films of yore, say, the 1950s. Clearly There Will Be Blood is attempting to emulate (and play like) a movie of yesteryear.
ReplyDeleteI watched Giant recently and found myself howling at how melodramatic it seemed to my 21st century sensibility. I've been tainted by years of exposure to ironic and post-modern works. Plus, subtlety was not always the hallmark of the films of Ford, Hawks, Stevens, Capra, Kazan, et al. Their films often were emotive, sometimes bludgeoning. Viewing TWBB in that way may assist with appreciation.