There Will Be Blood vs The Man Who Wasn't There

Paul Thomas Anderson does not waste time trying to please you. Instead, he works his ass off trying to please people like me. Not that I’m hard to please. I normally just require, say, Drew Barrymore, or maybe some X-Men. But that’s just for survival. When a movie truly wants to please me, it brings the weird. Paul Thomas Anderson hasn’t made many movies, but each one is practically stuffed with the previously untold stories of society’s fringe. Porn stars, gambling addicts, Adam Sandler. A Paul Thomas Anderson movie is typically about three hours long, perhaps overly-ambitious, full of passionate performances, and divisive amongst viewers. Paul Thomas Anderson movies can be a love-it-or-hate-it affair. There Will Be Blood is no different: the two people I attended the movie with left about a third of the way in. I found them afterward having a drink in the lobby. If There will be Beer sounds better to you, hey, go with that. I was glued to my seat. There Will Be Blood is likely to be debated for years to come. And that, as you know, is what often happens to classics.

There Will Be Blood tells the story of Daniel Plainview, a silver miner in the late 1880s. During the film’s initial, silent scene, Plainview chips, picks and spit-shines rocks, finding little silver, but eventually finding something black. From that moment on, he’s an oil man (and declares himself so in the movie’s first line, about twenty minutes later). Plainview acquires land, builds derricks, finds oil and gets rich, over and over. His only mission in life seems to be to get rich, with this only being outshined by his goal to become richer. Plainview has no love in his life (There Will Be Blood only has one major female character; she barely speaks and her love isn’t for Plainview), although he has a son he uses as entrée into homes and upon land he might otherwise never get to purchase. Plainview makes promises of sharing the wealth, of donating to churches, of putting bread on plates, but his intentions are obviously just for his own betterment. Daniel Plainview is a nasty, self-centered, cold movie creation. Oh, and he’s the hero of the piece, or as close as There Will Be Blood gets to one, anyway. Did I mention some of you might hate it?

If you appreciate great filmmaking, or bold, near heroic acting, then you’ll be fine. Daniel Plainview is brought to life by Daniel Day-Lewis, who doesn’t take easy or commercial movies in between art films to pay the rent. For all I know, Daniel Day-Lewis is late with the rent once in a while, but I bet the man sleeps like a baby. There is not a wrong breath taken in his portrayal of Daniel Plainview. In a career of astonishing, jaw-dropping performances, this is the one to see. The final thirty minutes of There Will Be Blood contains some of the finest acting I can recall. An Oscar seems an inevitability, but is it enough? I mean, they’ve given a few out at this point, and not every winner truly lives up to the “Best Actor” title. Some of them go on to make movies like Next and Wicker Man. Can they make Day-Lewis’ Oscar bigger? Can it have a little “#1” on the base?

And, believe it or not, Day-Lewis has a foil in There Will Be Blood, and it’s a kid we’ve barely even heard speak before. Paul Dano plays Eli Sunday, a self-righteous local minister (the names in There Will Be Blood are obvious signifiers, but the movie is aiming for such crazy Citizen Kane heights of grandeur, the characters having iconic names ends up working). Sunday has given up land in exchange for a sizeable church donation, and doesn’t get it. He wants to bless the new derrick, and doesn’t get to. He wants Plainview’s soul, and…well, if Plainview has a soul, Sunday’s the man to take it. Dano is fantastic in There will be Blood. When casting a fire-and-brimstone, faith-healing, satan-throwing preacher, the mute kid from Little Miss Sunshine might not be the first actor who comes to mind. I was not prepared for the power in Dano’s performance (Day-Lewis isn’t alone in that final thirty minutes).

There Will Be Blood is filmed beautifully (there are definite echoes of Citizen Kane, as well as practically anything else ever called “epic”), and the score, by Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood, so accents and drives the film, it deserves billing above the title. Paul Thomas Anderson has crafted a movie so specific in its ambitions, it’s almost Daniel Plainviewian. Anderson is settling for nothing less than filming a classic. There Will Be Blood is a challenging movie to watch, and a hard one to love. As the years fly by, and Daniel Plainview becomes more and more despicable (there’s a cold, harsh scene when Plainview considers a request from his adult son), I began to wonder if I’d make it to the end of Paul Thomas Anderson’s vicious epic. If he’s ultimately painted himself into a bit of a corner, well that’s how it goes with madmen sometimes. Just ask Daniel Plainview, slumped there in his personal bowling alley.

And now, it’s time for Wicker Man! Just kidding. There would be blood, for sure, if I made you do that. Wait, not blood…bees! I think a nice Daniel Day-Lewis night might include There Will Be Blood followed by The Age of Innocence, in which Daniel Day-Lewis plays another frustrating man, this one held captive by both his society and his code of silent, guilt-ridden repression. This one has women, and is largely for women, but it’s not packing quite the challenge or scope of There Will Be Blood. Get some caffeine, have a stretch, turn the lights off. It’s time for The Man Who Wasn’t There.

While Daniel Plainview is a blustering, greedy, oil man so-and-so, The Man Who Wasn’t There’s Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton) is a meek, emotionless barber. And while There Will Be Blood is filmed in vast, sunburned widescreen, The Man Who Wasn’t There is a black and white film noir, with curls of smoke punctuating nearly every scene. Once you’ve watched both movies, though, you’ll have seen—twice—the downfall of an individual in over his head, and consumed with not letting anyone else see him sweat. Oh, and there will be blood in this one too, though not as red.

Ed Crane’s wife is having an affair with her boss. Ed figures this out one night at dinner, and initially does nothing. Eventually though, because this is noir, there is a crime, and blackmail and a death, and Ed’s wife (Frances McDormand) winds up in prison. The Man Who Wasn’t There then follows Ed’s efforts to free his wife (maybe), deal with a shady lawyer (Tony Shaloub), and lust innocently after Birdy, a local piano-playing teen (Scarlet Johannson). Oh, and UFOs. And haircuts. Mainly, he just wants to be acknowledged, to be seen and considered, by anybody, anywhere. Preferably, someone with ten thousand dollars. The Man Who Wasn’t There was directed by the Coen brothers. Movies by the Coen brothers seem to fall into two categories: movies in which the style is the point (Hudsucker Proxy, Intolerable Cruelty), and movies in which emotion and humanity take the focus (No Country for Old Men, Fargo). The Man Who Wasn’t There is definitely dominated by its style, but with a main character/narrator who feels he’s living a life unnoticed, that’s probably what the Coens intended. And because The Man Who Wasn’t There was created by the Coen brothers, the movie has its share of idiosyncrasies. The Coen brothers are like Paul Thomas Anderson in that way. They know I don’t just want a regular movie, so they get to work.

There Will Be Blood: A

The Man Who Wasn’t There: A