There will be blood - trailer (teaser)

[dubman]

saw it a second time last night and despite taking in the extra details and processing it more critically, i found that when the third act came in i was really just waiting for the final bowling scene.

spoilers

there's the first scene, the baptism, the mudfight, the sermons, the confessions, the business death threat... all those scenes are wonderful to watch, but that final scene is 15 sustained minutes of daniel's final fullfillment of his constant hatred for the things he sees in people and especially what he sees of himself in others. his son was basically what was keeping him tethered, and losing that part, along with having acheived the dream he needed a good business face to attain, let him show/react as he always would to his dim view of humanity and it's structures, especially that of religion, without censor. paul dano's eli was practically a validator of his most misanthropic views, and experiencing a conman trying to con a fellow conman reignites his vicious competition with no business or social restraint to keep him from expressing his full disgust. i'm not surprised it ended in murder, nor that he became strangely comical, because the desire to humiliate necessitates some way of belittling. the first time was slapping him repeatedly, getting on top of him, holding his arms and pushing mud in his face. the last scene was a hatefully condescending and childish lecture that was primarily fueled by eli's desperation (he could barely stand up before), chasing him around, throwing him in the lanes for target practice, acting and hollering in a way that would be funny if the target didnt feel so trapped with a rage that couldnt be reasoned with, so instead it's just terrifying for eli, because it's the thought of them having fun while intending to probably kill you, but funny for us.

the scenes in between the many, many highlights of the movie seem to be there as character building, daily motions, either reinforcing his obsessive/dismissive nature or adding depth to his relationship with his son, but a lot of time i was struck with the feeling that these senes were added JUST for that, as if it was a conscious acknowledgement that this kind of quiet is the kind thats respectable and favored. it's what makes it LOOK like high-end movie making. luckily for PT, it mostly lives up to that idea by being an excellent story overall, but it's still too self-conscious about it to really lose myself in.

first time i saw it i was blown away by the end scene enough to give it a 9. seeing it again did make the faults more apparent: the half brother storyline helped to flesh out daniel some, but felt unwelcome and awkward (fitting i guess, but not especially enjoyable to put up with all the same). and while the poker-faced character of HW was fun to experience and unique, skipping ahead 12 years from a sensory and emotional victim into someone thoughtful, emotional, married, and sensitive was, if not a big jump, then at least noticably ignoring that transition. again, maybe necessary for the sake of a movie, but lacking nonetheless. but i cant tell if i like those 'faults' because a perfectly oiled (haha) movie is a boring one, or because these faults never really distrupt the tone or feel out of sync from the overall vision.

i wouldnt rate it any lower, it's just not the blown-away, movie-of-the-year, oh-my-fucking-god experience that the gradually building climax had me thinking as i left it the first time, though it is a truly excellent movie.

that last 15 minutes though... i mean, i couldnt be happier with that.

DRAAAAAAAAAIIIINNNNNNNAAAAAAAGE

[dubman]

looking for other reactions to the movie, i had no idea that the ending was so controversial. i can't see how it doesnt make sense or that it isnt fitting. it wasnt jarring at all, and if you didnt see it coming while watching the movie, you could at least have seen it coming in hindsight.

but i guess not. yes, the scene itself is bizarre, but not in the way that it doesnt make sense.

i found this excellent article someone wrote about it that explains it better than me here:
http://www.thesimon.com/magazine/art..._hysteria.html

...this shift in venue is vital for making sense of the end. We’ve never seen Daniel completely enclosed in these kinds of ornate, wealthy surroundings. He’s always been either in a mine, in an oil field, making a play for someone else’s property, or ever so briefly in the small shack where he slept and the roughly built church where Eli preached. He’s been in process, outdoors, claiming the final frontier. Now he owns everything. He has nothing left to carve out and conquer. A mansion is not his natural habitat, and so he amuses himself by shooting his rifle at a stuffed buffalo head—when he’s not getting snockered in an indoor bowling alley one suspects has never been used. The monomaniacal energy for empire building, and the hatred he feels for just about everyone on earth, have nowhere “productive” to go. And when that kind of inner sewage builds up, well, think of what happens with that flaming oil geyser. Yep, it explodes over the top. His first confrontation with the adult H.W. reveals how any affection he may have felt for his son has been curdled by his circumstances. Daniel is a man who has become accustomed to having his way and getting whatever he wants. He’s also deeply invested in how his personal father-son myth is as key to his identity as his business. H.W. getting married and leaving Daniel’s company is a double betrayal. He puts his wife, a Sunday, first, and dares to become the competition. Daniel lashes out accordingly. That he doesn’t inflict violence on H.W. is, perhaps, just plain luck. Eli, of course, isn’t so lucky. Kudos to Paul Dano for both holding his own against Day-Lewis, and making Eli such a baby-faced and believable snake in the grass (and snake oil salesman, I suppose). When he shows up in Daniel’s bowling alley, you just know this isn’t going to end well. Daniel’s been primed: he’s been waiting (and wanting) to crush Eli for years. He’s also lost his hope for a family man tycoon legacy with H.W. He’s pissed (in all senses of the slang term). And anyone who gets his jollies by firing his shotgun inside his house isn’t going to respond with rationality and self-control when he finally gets his chance to take out all of that pickled rage on Eli. Daniel plays it straight at first, stringing along Eli in a manner that recalls their baptism face-off. Once again, he gets his last financial laugh. This time, however, there is nothing and no one to hold him back like the first time Daniel shoved Eli in the mud years earlier when he asked for money. No bystanders to grab him. No son he must consider. No business to build. No community to woo. No “civilization” he must abide. Needless to say, he goes absolutely off-the-rails, head-over-heels, batshit crazy. And what better way to viscerally convey madness than with a jarringly lunatic ending featuring a truly horrifying murder with a bowling pin? The bizarreness of Daniel and Eli’s fight in the indoor bowling alley becomes a metaphor for Daniel’s cracked psyche, complete with his deceptively simple response when his unflappable butler comes to check on him. For all the damage and exploitation his fanatical drive for success has engineered, Daniel Plainview does not deserve anything resembling a triumphant or happy ending.