There Will Be Blood

Just a short note on the movie. I don’t feel up to a full review; it left me with mixed feelings. Those of you in the cultural know (which I’m not always, proudly, by the way, since vast segments of our contemporary cultural is crap), will know the phrase “I drink your milkshake,” which by its very bizarre-ness has morphed into a life of its own. Case in point is the SNL skit a year or two ago where Bill Hader and Amy Poehler, as Daniel Plainview and his adopted son H. W. go around to various delis and eating establishments to film his Food Network TV show, “I Drink Your Milkshake.” The movie is also noteworthy as Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor award at the Oscars for his portrayal of Mr. Plainview.

In a sentence or two, the movie spans about thirty years in the life of Plainview, an “oil man” at the turn of the 20th century, from an impoverished but unstoppable single man operation to a mansioned Rockefellerian millionaire. Suffice it to say that Day-Lewis is absolutely phenomenally riveting as Plainview; when he’s on the screen you can’t look elsewhere or think of anything else. The character is filled with flaws as well as admirable characteristics (admirable in the sense that “America” defines them as such: determination, drive, ambition, an unquenchable thirst for wealth, the individual over the collective, etc). There’s a powerful conflict between two equally (potentially) insane characters, and like all excellent movies, you will be hard pressed to guess the outcome.

The cinematography is simply gorgeous; the characters all look appropriately grimy and stinky. The dialogue’s well-written, and, aside from an odd feel to the final twenty minutes of the film, the pacing and plot is superior to the vast majority of the product Hollywood puts out. I’m ambivalent because I think the final twenty minutes ruin the movie – unless there’s something there that I just don’t get, and maybe need to see it again. But the first two hours is easily worth the price of admission.

It’s strange because I can listen to a Daniel Plainview speech over and over again. The cadence, the confidence, the barely-disguised menace just below the surface, the promise of shared wealth. I suppose he’s not unique in the history of American – this type of man, that is – nor, I suppose, in the history of the world. I have never met anyone of his type, and I suppose that’s a good thing. But because of men like Daniel Plainview I can go out in a car and drive anywhere I want, can go to a machine and withdraw cash to pay for it, can go into a house I normally could not afford and switch on a machine that can enable me to write these words for anyone in the world with access to electricity to read.

See here for info on the flick.

See here for Ebert’s review.