A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

THERE WILL BE RUMINATIONS: Several of our readers asked for a piece on Paul Thomas Anderson’s film There Will Be Blood. My thoughts are below. I would also suggest that you look at the many perceptive reviews by professional reviewers available at Metacritic. I particularly liked David Denby’s piece in The New Yorker.

The characters and themes in There Will Be Blood echo those in Anderson’s earlier movies. I have four main observations to share. First, in Anderson’s films you will often find characters whose capacity for a truly meaningful and loving connection to another person has been thwarted in some way. That usually leads to some sort of sublimation. Second, in most of his movies there is a flawed father figure. Third is the way that characters throughout Anderson’s films rely on drugs and alcohol to ease their pain. Finally, there is Anderson’s uncommonly skillful use of music.

1. Love and Related Matters

In Hard Eight (1996), the seemingly avuncular Sydney (played brilliantly by Phillip Baker Hall) has a secret that is revealed at the end of the film, which puts his display of kindness to John (John C. Reilly) in an entirely new light. John, in turn, has been damaged by the death of his father when he was a young boy. He has a relationship of sorts with Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow) but that relationship is unreal. Clementine says what she thinks people want to hear. John chooses to ignore the fact that she is hooking on the side.

Boogie Nights (1997) provides an interesting parallel with the plot of There Will Be Blood. In Boogie Nights, the characters sublimate their need for love with a fervent quest for sex, fame, and drugs (love -> sex), while in There Will Be Blood, whatever capacity Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) might have had for love appears to have been transformed into an obsessive competition for wealth (love -> greed). Most memorably in the earlier film, Eddie/Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) can find fulfillment only when he is acclaimed as a star of adult films. When his career tails off, he turns to drugs. Throughout the film, Diggler, a narcissist fond of clothes and a fast car, seems unable to respond to any sort of real love. Similarly, Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), a former housewife, is now a porn star who makes sobbing telephone calls late at night to her ex-husband, begging to speak to their child. Another narcissist, the Nina Hartley character (a real life porn star who plays a porn star in the movie) seeks sex rather than love. She continually humiliates her husband Little Bill (William H. Macy) by having sex with other men, occasionally in public.

Magnolia (2000) is chock full of characters yearning for love and mostly failing to find any sort of significant connection: Frank Mackey (Tom Cruise) a repugnant stud, damaged by his adulterous and unloving father, has distorted “love” into a coldly calculating approach to seducing women, his father Earl Partridge (Jason Robards) on death’s door looks back at a life of business success and a loveless family life full of betrayal, Linda Partridge (Julianne Moore) is Earl’s unloving wife, who has become addicted to prescription painkillers, former quiz kid Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) is a pathetic loser, who thinks all would be good in his life if he only had orthodontics for his teeth, Jimmy Gator (Phillip Baker Hall) is the host of a quiz show, and another adulterous phony. Even the few kind caregivers such as a cop played by John C. Reilly and a nurse played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, are unable to forge any sort of rewarding relationship. The theme of the movie is loneliness. The film interweaves nine separate yet interlocking stories about these characters covering a single day, yet all of these relationships are so fragile that none can really prosper.

Enraged, depressed, and frantic, Barry Egan (Adam Sandler), the central character in Punch-Drunk Love (2002), initially seems incapable of love. Wearing a mask of cheerful blandness with which to face the world, he often erupts in horrifying outbursts. Barry appears to be on guard most of the time, unsure of himself, threatened by something beyond his understanding. Yet when he meets Lena Leonard (Emily Watson) somehow they overcome the odds and figure out a way to connect. The climax in Hawaii is full of vivid romantic colors, echoing the rare joy the two have found. This is one of very few examples of a fulfilling romantic relationship in any of Anderson’s movies. (There is an amazingly good analysis of the film here.)

We know very little about the back story of Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood. We know that he has no wife, no friends, and no interests except for alcohol, the pursuit of wealth, and, intermittently his “son” H.W. He states that he “hates most people” and that:

“There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I want to earn enough money that I can get away from everyone.”

A proud narcissist incapable of love or simply disinclined to love, he fills that void with a ferocious entrepreneurial energy and ruthlessness.

2. Father Figures

Anderson’s films frequently focus on flawed father figures. Sydney (Phillip Baker Hall) in Hard Eight, Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) in Boogie Nights, Jason Robards and Phillip Baker Hall in Magnolia (and Michael Bowen in the same film as a browbeating father of a young quiz show star), and, of course, Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood.

3. Drugs and Alcohol

Characters throughout Anderson’s films rely on drugs and alcohol to ease their pain. The alcohol-fueled Reno party scene in Hard Eight. Dirk Diggler’s insatiable quest for coke and meth in the second half of Boogie Nights. Amber Waves’ cocaine addiction, which causes her to lose custody of her child. Donnie Smith as the alcoholic former quiz kid in Magnolia. The self-medicating character played by Julianne Moore in Magnolia. The junkie played by Melora Walters who is befriended by John C. Reilly in the same movie. Plainview’s use of alcohol in There Will Be Blood.

4. Music

Anderson has a rare gift for incorporating music into his films. Michael “Romeo in Black Jeans” Penn wrote the soundtrack for Hard Eight. The song that plays over the end credits is sung by Aimee Mann, who would later inspire and provide most of the music for Anderson's film Magnolia. The Boogie Nights soundtrack is simply sublime. The hits from the 1970’s capture the hedonism of the time that is depicted in the film. Aimee Mann’s tender songs of lonely longing echo perfectly the theme of Magnolia. The score to Punch-Drunk Love was composed by Jon Brion (Aimee Mann’s frequent collaborator), featuring heavy use of the harmonium. The oddly dissonant sounds of the harmonium seem to parallel the unsettled emotional state of Barry Egan (the Adam Sandler character). At the start of There Will Be Blood, a discordant, threatening electronic screech, written by the Radiohead guitarist and composer Jonny Greenwood, presages danger ahead. An excellent analysis of the music in the film is in this New Yorker article.

5. What it All Means

Like the vast majority of the characters in Anderson's other films, Plainview has at best a limited capacity to love. He fills that void with a tremendous quest for wealth, but that wealth brings him no closer to happiness. In that regard, his tale is similar to the other Quixotic quests for happiness upon which various characters in other Anderson movies embark. You can also see some of Barry Egan's (the Adam Sandler character in Punch-Drunk Love) unsettled rage in Plainview's violent outbursts.

As is the case in other films by Anderson, Plainview is a flawed father figure who numbs his pain with alcohol.