Comments on: There Will Be Blood: The Misconceptions

By: x

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 03:07:29 +0000

I remember about this thing about a middle aged man running a scam on oil and later finding oil on the land. And knocking up every woman he comes across. There is an old man by the name of Dave Thompson SR constently repeating the story about a person that is a decendent of this “oil barron in california and he was running around knocking up every woman he came across. He clams that Mike J Fox is one of his kids and Bill Gates (co-owner of microsoft) and Tom Cruse and name a few on TV. He is a devouted jehovah witness he clams how one of this persons decendets killed the black dayia.

By: jenny

jenny — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:59:23 +0000

Daniel Day lewis’s performance was stunning and fantastic. I loved this film. Dark, Creepy, Unsettling and Beautiful. One mans painfully slow dissent into insanity and madness. One amazing film.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:44:21 +0000

http://buysomethingawesome.com/posters-signs/there-will-be-blood-monopoly-style/prod_775.php

This “art piece” was designed and illustrated after I watching There Will Be Blood in theaters for the third time. A huge amount of thought and time into it, so that it made sense both as a monopoly game, and as a themed adaptation of the film.

The creator, known as numeric_atrophy, is a huge fans of both the film and the game of Monopoly. “I thought, why not combine the two? I had a single board printed up for $50 (laminated to 1/8 inch plastic). I purchased little silver charms off of ebay for the game pieces. A model-t, an oil derrick, and so on. The whole project turned out so well that I was offered $100 for the board. Well, I decided to take it to ebay and find out how much I could get for it. It ended up selling at $202 with the pieces. I was very excited, and had a second one printed (again at $50). It sold at $165 (no pieces).”

It turns out that the second board was given as a gift to Hans Howes (who played William Bandy Senior). He was apparently very excited to receive it, and had very nice things to say about it, which pretty much made my day. Apparently the cast received a belt with the film’s title on it as their wrap present, and he would have preferred the board :-).

By: imoth amero

imoth amero — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:43:01 +0000

last one: anyone else notice plainview commits all seven deadly sins?

By: imoth amero

imoth amero — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:41:30 +0000

#30: he’s lost his mind and his humanity and admits he is “finished” severing himself from mankind. for nothing. with nothing. he has no brothers, no family. no soul, if you wish to assume fireflies in our wintry night.

By: imoth amero

imoth amero — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:36:29 +0000

i agree entirely. except i believe plainview has decayed into a physical and psychological ‘monster’ of sorts in the bowling alley scene. hell of a movie.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 05:20:44 +0000

Out of all these comments, and some of them were quite good, I noticed that no one mentioned that the ‘bad guy’ kills the ‘good guy’ of the film. If it is like the Shining, I would suggest that the ending of the Shining be changed to allow Jack Nicholson to hack up his wife and kid and then sit down gleefully beside their mutilated bodies.
That is what’s wrong with the ending. There was no comeuppance. I don’t understand this absence of morality. The holy man declares ‘I am a false prophet and God is a superstition’ and is beaten to death. Why does this make me think of Abu Ghraib?
The writer had a choice towards the end on how to deal with these two characters and favored the man with the wooden club and the bad temper. Very cave-man-ish.
For showing us mankind’s darkness and then letting it win, this movie as well as ‘No Country for Old Men’ are in the same league as B-movie slasher films, plain and simple.

By: JK

JK — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 05:22:31 +0000

Acting was good, plot was dragging, message was lost in dryness. I don’t care about any characterization of oilmen being cynical. Who would have thought that a businessman could be so impersonal, ambitious and cold; really!!! Show me a film with a statement that doesn’t take 3 hrs. to convey the stereotypically obvious. I’m also sick of the avant-believer-hypocrite roll. Break the mold and present a Christian in a positive perspective. Jesus!

Uninspired yawns.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:14:20 +0000

The movie is an admittedly effective effort at attacking two things Anderson seems to hate most; the rugged individualism which built this nation, and the religious faithful which kept it morally on the straight and narrow, each crucially contributing towards making America the most giving nation in the history of nations. Anderson portrayed the independent, driven and self-made man as monstrously greedy, psychopathically hateful and murderously evil. He then portrayed a country pastor as not only a bit of a loon, but a hypocrite who would sell his faith for the promise of a few lousy bucks. Obviously, Anderson hates who built America and those who pray in and for it. Disgustingly insidious in its execution, it is hard not to imagine Anderson will one day have to answer for it, and he’ll likely be speechless while he tries vainly to beg for mercy.

By: Irony

Irony — Thu, 22 May 2008 23:55:47 +0000

You know, I sympathize and agree with people who walk out of this movie and say something vague like, “This movie sucked.” This movie wasn’t really about anything in particular. The only way the film’s thematic material can be consistent is on an ironic level. Meaning it’s actually an attack on this type of filmmaking. But, at this point, PTA can’t make clear if it’s intentional or incompetence.

By: Kevin B

Kevin B — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:56:24 +0000

The film was brilliant. Reading everybodies comments will probably prompt me to watch the film again this week. For some reason, for me, the film gives off a similar vibe to the novel Atlas Shrugged. Maybe its the absolute symbolism of all the characters. Any thoughts?

By: andrew

andrew — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:07:23 +0000

I really enjoyed the movie and i thought it was very original but it was so SLOW moving. It took 1/2 an hour for anyone to get a sentence out.

By: suk

suk — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:51:19 +0000

As one writer here says, blood is oil, blood is family. Regarding the latter, Daniel the loner rejects humanity (or so he says) yet desperately seeks familial connections and loses them all: the false brother, whom he too willingly trusts and must kill on learning the truth; the real brother who dies, unknown to Daniel; the father whose death he hears of from the stranger/brother; H.W., an adoptive son, with whom he does make a connection, but one which weakens after the hearing loss… Doesn’t it seem that Daniel’s towering rage in the final scene is stoked by the much-hated Eli addressing him as “brother”?

By: Topher

Topher — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 05:08:40 +0000

re # 1

You’re wrong, this is totally a monster movie! But Instead of Godzilla vs King Kong, it’s Oilman vs Preacher Boy!

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 21:30:36 +0000

I’ve looked all over and this is the best review I’ve seen.

As for comedy aspect, I think the best thing about PTA has been his ability to mix dramatic and comic tones skilfully. It’s like there’s a central tension in Plainview that holds him and the film together and when that snaps his character disintegrates and the film floats away into farce. I must say I think most reviews I’ve read haven’t gotten to grips with this movie in any way beyond a few bland platitudes about greed. The tone is unlike any movie I’ve seen in my life. Using comedy and bordering on farce it touched on an element of real tragedy - that a person whose life falls apart can often become a messy and exaggerated version of themselves. Maybe the will that kept plainview together has suddenly gone and after it disappears, his character falls out of coherence and becomes flabby. It feels like there’s always been a tension between the seriousness of american epics and the farce and comedy usually happens unintentionally. But PTA seems to have taken the mixing of these tones as a main aim, and the tragedy of plainview is his descent into a farce. And the performance immerses you in this decline. Looking back now what I’ve written all seems pretentious, but simply put, well done on an astute review.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:11:37 +0000

I noticed that no-one has mentioned the other Kubrick film that pops up in this. The opening recalls 2001 as mentioned, but to my eyes the physical comedy coupled with psychotic violence at the end recalled Jack Nicholson’s performance in The Shining. Watch the ‘All work and no play’ scene and you’ll get what I mean.

Great review by the way.

By: J.

J. — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 07:02:41 +0000

Finally, a “review” that gets it. This understanding of the movie will take a while… maybe years… to seep into the critical mainstream, but once it does it will be - like the film - eternal.

By: driches

driches — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:05:50 +0000

“Plainview may behave monstrously, but with the final scene excepted, the victim of his terror is mostly himself.”

Wha??? Huh???

1. He murders his fake brother. Was Plainview the real victim in that encounter?

2. His madness for oil deafens his adoptive son, whom he then cruelly abandons, twice. Poor Plainview!

3. His madness for oil kills, albeit inadvertently, workers, and we can assume more that didn’t make the film.

4. He either literally steals (milkshake!) or virtually steals (”quail prices”) a fortune from plain folk who don’t know any better.

(not to mention the final scene).

I’m sorry, but arguing his terror didn’t have victims is an extremely puzzling mischaracterization of the plot of the film.

By: Anon

Anon — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:13:05 +0000

The layers of this movie are as deep as an oil well.

If, after seeing TWBB, you don’t recognize the ambiguity in the above statement, you can’t begin to comprehend the genius of this movie.

For the haters:

PTA openly tips his hat to his influences (i.e. Scorsese and the like). Besides, what artist doesn’t strive for greatness equal to (if not surpassing) that of his masters, and, whether subconsciously or consciously, what artist doesn’t emulate that greatness in his own work?

Next - unoriginal?!? This movie is one of the most original interpretations of Sinclair’s Oil! imaginable. The book and the movie are often as different as night and day. Though many of the central themes remain, the characters, imagery and story found in the film belong to DDL/Dano and PTA alone.

By: KWeed

KWeed — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:11:01 +0000

While watching TWBB, did anyone think that Paul and Eli might be the same person instead of simply twin brothers? (I do realize both characters were played by the same actor.) I thought Eli may have employed the persona of Paul as a means to “bargain with the devil”.

During the bowling alley scene, I also thought Daniel’s reference to Paul’s successful oil derricks could be a metaphor for Eli’s church. Afterall, Eli was sucking the sanctity out of religion with his church of the 3rd Revelation, much like Paul was sucking the oil from the ground with his 3 derricks.

By: Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 15:57:03 +0000

Saw the movie a second time. Completely different experience. It seems to me Thomas’s main artistic theme is the unholy alliance between capitalism and fundamentalism in the republican party, which is coming to a head right now in 2008. Didn’t anybody catch the H. W. as in G. H. W. Bush, the first oilman president. Thomas is also clearly a fan of Faulkner in using religious themes and names to contrast the good or evil actions and thought that occur in parallel biblical stories. The whole final bowling alley scene is where the theme of the republican schism plays out, where Plainview’s exposes the fundamentalist as a fraud and swindler, only interested in money and self aggrandizement, the same as Plainview, only Plainview beat him to the punch by sucking the oil (blood) first. It was no coincidence that Eli said he was on the radio, as in right wing talk radio. It was no coincidence that Plainview’s final words after killing the fundamentalist nearly replicated the final words of Jesus on the cross. It was clearly intentional that Plainview said that Paul was the true prophet (new testament) and Eli was the false prophet (old testament). Thomas has made a literary masterpiece on film.

By: EA

EA — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 04:05:49 +0000

So final scene thought - Did anyone notice the pause between the first hit with the bowling pin and the 2nd. For me it seems as if it was an accidental end result - in that time of pause I think he saw what the remainder of his life would be - crushing his competitor (adopted son) - and a chance to not have to subcome to his baser self. So the 2nd and 3rd hit - leaving NO doubt that this was intentional - and accountable to the full extent of the law - hence his being finished (finsished being a slave to his competitiveness).
Just a thought…

By: markmiller

markmiller — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 06:59:51 +0000

If you missed the fact that HW wasn’t his son, then you’re completely clueless (real father dies early and Plainview parades him around for sympathy). Let’s face it: the movie was pointless. It was unoriginal and self-indulgent. Pretty to look at, good acting, but I guess that’s enough nowadays in Hollywood. No substance. It this movie is the best in your lifetime (as stated above), then you need a new life! Save the 10 bucks: the Emporer has no clothes.

By: mike

mike — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:08:38 +0000

I think that the apparent physical comedy of Plainview at the end is what probably jolts people out of the dark mood they were in from the previous scene (and heck, the rest of the movie). But i think it helps to keep in mind: how incredibly drunk plainview is at the time; how much glee he is getting out of bringing down his main foil (reference the ‘competition in me’ scene) as well as the fact that this is the last bit of joy left to him in the world (son gone, lonely and wasting); and finally that he’s so far gone as an alcoholic and physically decrepit from that as well as the coal mine fall that moving fast enough to enact his gleeful rage on Eli is just going to look awkward.

And for fun, I like to think his final internal dialogue is ‘oh crap did i just knock him out? i think i did. maybe i should . . . actually i think i like where this is going.’ *thwack*

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:07:22 +0000

I agree with the fact that H.W. is the normalizing influence in Plainviews life. But, another important influence that shouldn’t be overlooked is that of Eli’s as the pesky symbol of morality. Both occasions on which Plainview physically attacks Eli are preceded by the scenes in which Plainview turns his back on H.W. The first time being when he sends him away for school and the second being after he tells him off at the end of the film. H.W. is a symbol of the little bit of humanity that Plainview left behind, and Eli is the pest that has to remind him of that if only through his presence and suggested moral authority.