The reviews are stellar -- "extraordinary;" "a work of symphonic aspirations and masterful execution;" "as astounding in its emotional force and as haunting and mysterious as anything seen in American movies in recent years..." Daniel Day Lewis' performance is "among the best I've seen." Paul Thomas Anderson is a genius; "California's certified cinematic poet laureate." And while DDL is undeniably good in this movie -- the twinkle in his eyes and his lupine grin dance effortlessly between menace and charm -- the ejaculatory praise being heaped upon this film and its director miss the mark. (Only Roger Ebert's review gets it right, in my opinion, as far as the mainstream media outlets go.)Is the film beautifully shot? Undoubtedly. Cinematographer Robert Elswit's locations and Anderson's framing of shots are beautiful. The elemental mix of dirt, oil, fire, and blood make for a wonderful visual display -- you can almost taste the grit on your tongue as you inhale in the theater and feel the warmth of the sere Texas breeze.
And DDL is a marvel to watch -- Anderson captures every fleck of spit and bulging vein thrown forth as DDL swings from glowering stare to furious explosion. (The prolonged close-up on his face in the church scene towards the end, with its violent shifts and wild range, are almost worth enduring the previous two and a half hours.)But Anderson is not the second coming of the Messiah. "Blood" is merely the latest entry in his catalog of films that prove just because a movie is technically well made does not mean it is a good movie. Anderson continues to fill his movies with characters that are utterly devoid of sympathy or pathos and an ability to generate those feelings in the viewer. They are powerfully and emotionally acted -- besides DDL, Paul Dano (from "Little Miss Sunshine") does a great job as the preacher Eli Sunday -- but they don't induce powerful emotional reactions.
A perfect example comes here in "Blood" -- early in the movie there is a scene with DDL and his son on a train where the infant is staring intently up at him, tickling his chin and cooing. DDL smiles and looks back, oblivious of his surroundings on the loud, clattering train. For a second, it is just the two of them, alone in their private moment. It is a touching scene, one that feels surprisingly candid and natural. Sadly, it is also the only time I connected emotionally to a character for the remaining 2:45 hours. (Which at times plods interminably forward -- the film never matches the implied doom and bloodshed of the title or its commercials.) DDL's son has an accident shortly thereafter that leaves him deaf, an event that seems to serve as a breaking point for DDL's Plainview and he slowly spirals towards the emotionally black madness of the film's conclusion.
But you never feel sympathy for his plight, a point that becomes abundantly clear in a confrontation between the two at the end. This sequence, which should be utterly wrenching, instead falls flat, only showcasing the worst of DDL's devolution. We should feel gutshot, sharing the devastating blow his son feels. But because Anderson never seems to care about his characters -- there is no loving portrayal of them akin to the Coen brothers, say, and their care with equally complex and flawed protagonists Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, and the freight train that is Javier Bardem in "No Country for Old Men," for example -- you never get emotionally invested in the people in front of you, and thus only enjoy the film on a basic, superficial level.
True art connects with you emotionally and forces you to engage it on a personal level; it makes you invest yourself personally and empathize with the main character(s). To use "No Country" as an example again (which was shot in the exact same locations as "Blood," with far different results), the care with which the Coens spin out their tale and force you to put a piece of yourself in each of the leads' shoes is revelatory. They make you grapple with what your emotional responses mean -- how you can simultaneously want Brolin to get away with the money, Bardem to catch or kill him, and Jones to stop both of them before they can? It is a powerful, draining experience and why "No Country," and not "Blood," as many have suggested, is hands down the movie of the year.
Because DDL doesn't have a foil to counter his insanity and aggression, you are left to watch his performace as mere spectacle. (And it is spectacular -- besides Bardem, I haven't seen such a mesmerizing performance this year.) But you never connect with him -- "Blood" is filled with people you just don't care about. Besides the situation with his son, Dano's confession of hardship and ruin at the end leaves you similarly unaffected and detached.
And this does a severe disservice to the film's component parts -- in addition to the great performances by DDL and Dano, there's the aforementioned cinematography and the jangly score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, which bounces nicely between Psycho-style strings and tribal drum arrangements, to enjoy along the way. The problem is that each of these pieces float through the film like bubbles -- they may exist in the same scene or area, but they never occupy the same physical space and overlap. They blaze in isolation like lightning bugs in the forest, individual points of brilliance that fail to illuminate the night sky.
This isn't the first time we've seen this. Anderson does this in all his movies -- the 70s pop and Mark Wahlberg/ Julianne Moore in "Boogie Nights;" Aimee Mann and Tom Cruise/ Philip Seymour Hoffman/ John C. Reilly, et al, in "Magnolia;" Jon Brion and Adam Sandler in "Punchdrunk Love" -- all are rendered toothless and squandered by Anderson's neglect. If he doesn't care, why should we?
Anderson continuously proves to be the cinematic exception to the rule of Gestalt, where the product is decidedly not more than the sum of its parts. And nowhere is this reality more criminal than in "Blood," which comes to the fore with an arsenal of weapons, but never inflicts the wounds its title portends.
--Roberto del Sol
2 comments:
Interesting, Richard. Although I thought both movies were interesting in their own terms, I cannot agree with your conclusion that "No Country" was ultimately more satisfying. (Notwithstanding the fact that it was satisfying to see Maurice, from Northern Exposure, show up again in the end of of No County.) Oddly, I am huge fan of the Coen's work and have found PT Anderson's movies in the past, with the exception of Punch Drunk Love, to be quite disappointing. So this reaction came as surprise to me too.
But to me, their is a gulf between the ambitions of the two films. No Country is the elevation of cinematic technique -- by which I really mean film editing -- to its maximum potential. This allows the filmmakers to play what I view as a very clever trick on the audience. We are made to identify with the characters, as you claim. We sympathize with Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones, and even in his brief cameo Woody, and we come to understand the story from their limited perspectives. Which is to say, we believe at least somewhere in our little beating hearts that their struggle for survival or to catch the killer or whatever is not in vain. But, of course, as we are so abruptly and effectively informed, the struggle is laughably short and hopelessly impossible. A depressing riff on Cervantes, for there is no meaning in imagining different possibilities.
"There Will Be Blood" while expressing similar but somewhat less refined technical virtues is a full frontal assault on movies and their meaning. The question of our identification with the characters is at the heart of the story and PT Anderson confounds our expectations for character and story development at every turn. I see Daniel not as the absence of pathos but as pathos in untold quantities. He is Ahab, on a pathological quest for the white whale. His history is the whole history of conquest and exploitation that might be called by some, um, American History. The failure of the movie to conform to our expectations of pacing, character development, and plot arc read to me as a critique of the convention of Hollywood narratives and American tropes. You might say that Anderson sets ablaze the stories we tell ourselves in order to sleep at night.
There Will be Blood is less enjoyable to watch, for sure. But in contrast to No Country, its cruelty is apparent on the face of things. No Country just strings us along before its abrupt elimination of our hopes. PT Anderson laughs at the whole notion of hope or redemption, as he beats our flimsy little skulls with his handmade bowling pin.
Ciao for now!
Interesting article today in Salon (http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2008/02/20/daniel_day_lewis/) that mirrors much of what you said about Lewis' role in There Will Be Blood. However I take issue with her assessment of his portrayal of Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York. Periodic cartoonish exaggeration aside, Bill was supposed to be larger than life and in an ensemble picture like Gangs, not every role is designed for the type of multi-layered nuance that she suggests here. But we can all agree that the milkshake line in TWBB was moronic. Enjoy.
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