Layering the Sonnets
The general thought is that Shakespeare’s Sonnet 20 is his one open expression of homosexuality in all of his sonnets. There are hints of affection toward male figures in a few other sonnets, but the direct reference to homosexual acts and feeling all comes to realization in number 20. Criticism has been made of what it means. The discussion is limited because most critics refuse to take notice of the larger universe of thought and gender relations that Shakespeare builds in his sonnets. Sonnet 20 is about Shakespeare’s sensual and sexual interest, but numerous other sonnets elaborate on Shakespeare’s thoughts about the young man who began as his strict subject ordered by his father (he was his Shakespeare’s benefactor at the time) to convince to marry and then became someone to be enamored with.
Many critics are willing to admit that the male friend who is the subject of Shakespeare’s first 16 sonnets is the one that transformed into the object of Shakespeare’s desire in Sonnet 20, but they do not connect the act of Shakespeare trying to convince this young man to marry as being one of the major reason that Shakespeare is enamored with him. Martin Seymour-Smith believes there is a transition in Sonnet 17 and 18 that foretells Sonnet 20, but he remains dismissive of the first 16 Sonnets, “One does not need to conjecture that Shakespeare had a received a commission from someone to urge a young man to marry: the formal nature of the theme is obvious, for the exhortations to marry are clearly more rhetorical than invested with emotion. They are ‘boring’ in that they have little impact, even as arguments.” (1-24)
The beginning of Seymour- Smith’s explanation starts with a background of Renaissance sexuality and the normality of homoerotic relations between men during the times. Because modern ideas of sexuality and our conception of the denigration of homosexuality did not crop until years after the Renaissance, there is no established idea of whether homosexual relationships were really looked down upon in society. The comments and criticisms have lead to an ambiguity of what was acceptable and what was not. The critic Mario DiGangi highlights the open ended aspect of homosexuality by pointing out that homoeroticism in the Renaissance period extended to friendships between men. He offers a pastoral poem, written in 1607, by Lewes Machin, as example. In it, there is a friendship between two men, Apollo and Hyacinth, that describes their physicality and affection to each other with terms like, “toying,” “play,” embracing,” and that hours together were spent “in delight.” DiGangi says while it is not exactly clear what they do together, the important thing “is that Apollo is said to prefer his ‘male paramore’ to women” (2-198)
If the implication is that same line of thought could be put to Shakespeare’s first 16 Sonnets, one might think Seymour-Smith would probably retort that the context of the relationships were totally different. The pastoral poem by Machin suggests a personal relationship between the two men. As Seymour- Smith sees it, it isn’t until Sonnet 17 until Shakespeare personalizes the admiration of his male friend with the line, “If I could write the beauty of your eyes.” [Line #5] As Seymour-Smith interprets it, “this was the first time that he unequivocally linked himself to the idea of beauty in the Friend.” Seymour-Smith believes that all previous sonnets were done because Shakespeare was rudimentary tasks set by his benefactor.
In his essay, “Marlowe, Queer Studies, and Renaissance Homoeroticism,” Mario DiGangi’s argues that the criterion with which to judge the place of homoerotic relations or feelings during the Renaissance was too skewed to identify in black and white. He qualifies the Lewes Machin poem as an instance in which friendship bordered on homosexual feelings, but DiGangi disqualifies even this friendship as solid evidence. He relates back to the notion that there is no way to define what would constitute as homosexual at the time, “the indeterminacy of the ‘sexual’ should make us skeptical of approaches that deem homosexual ‘acts’ more subjectively and socially meaningful than homoerotic desires or discourses, and that require ‘evidence’ of homosexual acts…before granting the existence of homosexual desires.”(2-199) DiGangi seems to want critics to take notice of the idea that there could be other ways in which to judge the place of homosexual feelings. Just because most works from the time period doesn’t show both the act and desire of overt homosexuality doesn’t mean there weren’t attempts to allude to it at all.
In Shakespeare’s sonnets, it is trickier because only a few sonnets explicitly refer to even the equivalent of male friendship on the level of which DiGangi holds up as his best estimate of homosexual feeling, but because DiGangi’s ultimate thesis is that one can never gage the nature of homosexual relationships during the Renaissance, so it allows for the interpretation to exist on other levels. With Shakespeare’s poetics, the best entry level into interpreting the homosexual inklings is by taking a systematic analysis of how Shakespeare regards the genders. The first 20 sonnets do not prove Shakespeare was strictly homosexual because later sonnets would be more conventional with juxtaposition of self involvement over the love of a woman, but they still set up the idea that Shakespeare wasn’t strict about his sexual orientation and because the sonnets are considered the best biographical information about Shakespeare the interpretation of all the sonnets as if they were one larger piece of literature brings out some interesting revelations about the discourse of Shakespeare’s mind and ideology. Martin Seymour-Smith believes that any sonnet that does not have the “I” as the subject doesn’t reflect the personal side of Shakespeare, but the fact is that all of the sonnets still come from Shakespeare and do reflect institutional thoughts and predispositions of his psyche, social fields and the forces that
instantiate him.
To be fair to Martin Seymour-Smith’s thesis, the first sonnets do start out with Shakespeare strictly adhering mainly to the request for the young man to marry and have children. He sets a tone in sonnet 1 that mixes affection for the young man with attention to what he should be doing for his family’s sake, but the language in the first sonnet is thicker with the tone it is paramount that the young man start procreating. The first two lines, “From the fairest creatures we desire increase, / That thereby beauty’s rose might never die” introduces the theme, but the only words that strike the reader as effeminate in interest for the young man is “fairest” and “beauty’s rose”. The words are sincere terms of admiration, but they lack all possessiveness of true interest on Shakespeare’s part. They read as just general terms of beauty for something. As the poem continues, it starts to define itself with a tone that gets more dire and commanding of what the young man’s duty is to do for his family,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
To thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. [6-8]
The quote is three lines long, but only one word, “sweet”, stands out as tender to the subject while the rest is authoritative of what the young man’s situation and role is. The sonnet continues on and offers some diversity, but the word choice by Shakespeare that could be interpreted as caring still comes off as cold.
Thou art now the world’s fresh ornament,
And only herald to this gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding; [9-12]
In the first line he refers to the young man as a “fresh ornament” for the world. The implication is that the young man should see himself as a symbol and part of a social order that has expectations, but instead he is “herald[ing] to this gaudy spring,” meaning he is distracting himself with tasteless endeavors. Then the sonnet acknowledges the sphere of the young man’s happiness with “content”, but says that he is forgoing it by refusing to produce any children. Shakespeare surrounds the sonnet with the theory that peace and happiness is found in having children and preserving the cultivation of the family unit.
The rest of the sonnet paints a grim fate for the young man because of his actions. The last few lines are biting and harsh, “Pity the world, or else this glutton be, / To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.” Shakespeare sounds like he is over embellishing what is at stake with implying the ruination of the world in any way, but Shakespeare means to be downtrodden to the young man. The picture that the reader takes away from first the sonnet is symbolism of life and death and the remnants of the boy’s guilt being synonymous with a great sin (the mention of “glutton”). The excellent language that Shakespeare deploys in the first sonnet has to do with his word choice in the painting the great error that the young man is committing.
The major change of tone in sonnets begins with sonnet 3. Shakespeare still believes in the social order where it is right for the young man to be married off, but in this sonnet he begins to approach his subject with a more affectionate and understanding tone. Unlike sonnet 1, Shakespeare isn’t summing up his affection for the young man in just a few choice words, but Shakespeare’s overall tone in appeasing to the young man is noticeably different. This sonnet could be seen as the first instance, in which Shakespeare is appealing to the heart of the young man,
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest
Thou does beguile the world, unbless some mother [1-4]
The distinction of the word choice is how neutral Shakespeare is compared the first sonnet. The approach with the young man is the same, but the tone is much more pleasant. Only the line, “thou does beguile the world,” shares the tone of the first sonnet in painting a worldly gloom. The phrase stands out in this section the way “sweet” stood out in the first sonnet and for the first time Shakespeare introduces “unbless.” The word is repeated in other sonnets, but is a seminal word in the effeminate tone that Shakespeare builds in his relationship to the young man.
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime; [7-10]
In sonnet 1 the word “glutton” replaced “fond”. The former represented a sin of self absorption while fond is a mild term for infatuation and silliness. The difference of tone continues in the next line when Shakespeare admits a form of self-love for the young man. Also in sonnet 1 the term of love was wrapped in the cloak of being able to provide for future generations, but Shakespeare here admits that “love” can exist even in selfishness. Then there is the image of the mother. In the first quote of this sonnet the mother was about his possible future wife and what the young man was robbing her with choosing not to marry, but in this quote Shakespeare is equating the young man’s beauty to his own mother’s, “Look art thou thy mother’s glass, and she in thee.” Glass is symbolic of reflection so Shakespeare’s best estimation of the young man’s beauty is in his mother, but not her at just any time, but his beauty “Calls back to the lovely April of her prime;” In the notes with the sonnet, April refers to “proverbially fresh,” likely a month that was good for farming. Of course “prime” is a call back to the mother’s youth and height of her beauty.
If there is any criticism of this sonnet for lack of a personal context, it could be that Shakespeare was changing the perspective in which he was trying to convince the young man to do the same thing, marry. Sonnet 1 could be from a stern point of view and represent the young man’s father (Shakespeare’s benefactor at the time) and this sonnet could represent his mother. Taking on two points of views would require different languages and approaches, but it isn’t that simple. In the sonnet 1 Shakespeare established a tone that not only highlighted the young man doing very bad deeds, but looked at his selfishness with a definite idea of what it was and wasn’t. The amazing part of sonnet 3 is how Shakespeare changes so much identification of the young man and what his actions mean. In the span of a couple of sonnets the representation of the young man has almost completely changed, save the fact that Shakespeare still believes that it is best he marry.
The development in sonnet 3 reflects the greater tone of the sonnets about the young man, but it still isn’t convincing that there was a systematic thought to Shakespeare’s affection that could be understood as homosexual on a significant level. Everything changes though with sonnet 10 when Shakespeare inserts himself into the argument of what is proper for the young man. Beginning with the 9th line,
O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind:
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
Be as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:
Make thee another self for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine and thee. [9-14]
The first line is a plea by Shakespeare (invoking for the first time, “I”) that the young man change his mind about procreation so Shakespeare himself can about him as well. The next line is about the young man’s refusal to have children spewing hatred out of him and that it would be wiser to choose love in kinship instead. The next few lines are a variety of well wishes in choosing to find a wife over being selfish and refusing to have children. The interesting transition comes in, “Make thee another self for love of me.” It is the first time that Shakespeare speaks of a personal relationship, but he shrouds feelings what will become very personal and possessive in the idea that it is still the good thing for this young man to marry and have children, but the final line reveals a deeper institution of thought. “That beauty still may live in thine and thee” shows that Shakespeare looks for beauty may live in the offspring for the young man, likely the family gene and even Shakespeare as well.
The evolution in just these three sonnets is telling. In the first sonnet Shakespeare is very rigorous in telling the young man what his role is in society. Then Shakespeare highlights him in a different light in sonnet 3 that is not only affectionate and sympathetic, but starts to speak of the young man in distinctly feminine features. The object of Shakespeare’s language becomes less about the condemnation of this young man and more about his positive features and the shame there is in his selfishness. It is the beginning of identification for Shakespeare in his subject. Then in sonnet 10, a full circle of the relationship between the writer and subject takes place as Shakespeare tries to put himself as much into the situation that allows Shakespeare not to disbelieve everything that goes against order at the time. The last two lines smack of Shakespeare being enamored with the young man, but the tone of his feelings is that everything must exist with a certain social order. Shakespeare can’t radicalize the relationship or even change the feelings of the young man, so instead he wishes what he was originally contracted to convince the young man to do: marry. It’s just that Shakespeare hopes in this conclusion he can live through the good looks and charms of the young man’s offspring. The idea being that Shakespeare can revel in what good looks and charm the young man will produce in his children.
The first 16 sonnets don’t explicitly document homosexuality, but the point of looking for structures of thought in the sonnets is to show that all the sonnets about one subject (the young man), had a beginning and an end. Shakespeare plays with general moral judgment in sonnet 1, but the sonnets evolve and so does Shakespeare’s thoughts. He institutes himself in a role with the young man and his belief that he should marry, but he starts to sympathize with the young man and even look to him as a feminine character and start to preclude meanings he will take on later sonnets, but the main revelation comes in sonnet 10. For the first time Shakespeare puts himself into the situation of the young man’s marrying and wishes (for his sake) that he will marry and procreate, but the context of the language goes beyond the advice of just a good friend. It shows a level of need on Shakespeare’s part to inject himself into the young man’s life and make both of their beauties come together. Then with the reading of sonnets 17-20, there comes a full picture of Shakespeare emotional and mental development with the young man.
WORKS CITED
1.) Seymour-Smith, Martin. “Shakespeare’s Sonnets 1-42: A Psychological Reading.” New Essays on Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Ed. Hilton Landry. New York: AMS Press, Inc, 1976. 21-40.
2.) DiGangi, Mario. “Marlowe, Queer Studies, and Renaissance Homoeroticism.” Marlowe, History and Sexuality: New Essays on Christopher Marlowe. Ed. Paul Whitfield White. New York: AMS Press, Inc. 1998. 194-212
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Sunday, August 10, 2008
A Bloody Mess
A Bloody Mess
Notes on There Will be Blood
There Will Be Blood has risen as a personal favorite among critics and audience members. The praise has been so extensive that the film only knows a few rivals for best of the year. During most years critics are able to sufficiently disagree with each on what is the best, but this year No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood have run away with most considerations. The few critics who have gone against the hype have had to issue statements in their reviews that were acknowledgements of the large leap they were taking. What sometimes happens when a film becomes universally applauded is that acceptance of agreements and disagreements gives way to a situation where the minority is just trying to get some representation. Andrew Sarris met the situation when his failure to acknowledge No Country for Old Men as a great film left readers attacking him. He responded in his annual top ten list award by giving No Country the entire category of “Movies Other People Liked and I Didn’t”. There Will Be Blood could get similar recognition for those who disliked it.
I’m not a fan of There Will be Blood. I actually dislike almost every part of the film. Most critics would be dismissive when dealing with a film of zero favor to them, but the praise and ambition of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest is forcing me to take issue with all of the criticisms. There Will be Blood is also so large and complicated that a simple review cannot cover all the problems so I’m utilizing an old structure to tackle the film. Years ago there was such a thing as critical history books. They were critical reviews of a major film movement or era. The author(s) wanted to criticize certain periods of cinema but wanted to structure the book so it could encompass numerous ideas and trends. Thus the books were broken into shorter chapters about the individual ideas. This review will follow suit.
The Two Beliefs
The accepted conflict in There Will be Blood is with Daniel Plainview and the forces around him. His problems in the story come in numerous folds. The major one is his struggle with local Christians of a small town he goes to because of oil. Plainview disdains them for their arrogance because it impedes on his well being and business when he is trying to dig for oil. The second important conflict is with a supposed brother who shows up out of nowhere but has no real relationship to him. It’s just a man who knew his brother before he died. The third is with the illegitimate son Daniel grew to love as his own but disgraced him when he grew up to become an oil man himself and posed a threat to his business ventures. The complexities of these entanglements has made for a film that people are applauding as rich and diverse. The truth is that their only one conflict within the film. The other two are just symptoms of Daniel Plainview himself.
Daniel, like the Christians, represents an institution of belief himself. His character really is the basis of the idea of nobility and aristocracy. Daniel believes the success he has in life and power he holds over everyone comes from inert qualities within him that no one outside of his bloodline possesses. His character represents an idea of power and just cause older than even religion itself. The film simplifies his meaning when it shows him as just God-less and semi-disturbed. That is how the townspeople of Little Boston view him. The film makes his problems with his supposed brother and illegitimate son to be signs of his evil when they are indicators of deeper beliefs a lot of people held back then. There Will be Blood takes no consideration of the deeper history to Daniel’s character and instead views all of his actions at such a close barometer that they are meant to outweigh its context.
The apology could be that Daniel’s characterization is a completely personal one. Whatever the rationalization may be it is the opposite of how Eli Sunday and the other townspeople are depicted. The film shows their belief and its meaning before it shows any of their distinguishing personal characteristics. Eli Sunday is a major character but all of his scenes are standard scenes of a preacher being a preacher. The only scene that stands out to show his character flaws is where he sits at the dinner table with his family, covered in mud, and insults his father for agreeing to a deal with Daniel Plainview that he himself originally thought was fair. The scene is indicative of the personal defeats Eli will meet later, but it’s also the only scene that does it. In all the other scenes Eli Sunday represents the establishment of religion and God. He is a walking caricature of a religious man because his personal aspects are almost wholly removed.
The difference in how Eli Sunday and Daniel Plainview are shown is important. The two characters make up the dramatic center of the film. Daniel’s problems with his son, brother and business in Little Boston rise to a crescendo when he is baptized and asked to confess the sin of his abandoning his child. The event encapsulates the frustration Eli Sunday and Little Boston has with Daniel. It’s also the greatest burden for Daniel because it makes him say the things that strike hardest at his psyche. Daniel’s defeated baptism meets its own reclamation at the end of the film when Daniel forces Eli Sunday to admit he is a hypocrite and everything he said before was a power play instead of him voicing the word of God. Sunday stands firm in saying he was the voice of God, but admits he has been a liar and is the failure of his family. Tell tale signs before show Sunday had more interest in power than God. His final stand with Daniel revealed the nature of his character.
The relationship between Daniel and Eli goes even further than the dramatic principles. Their characters are both the symbolic representations of their respective beliefs and ideals. There Will be Blood is about both the personal and cultural clash that happens. The societal comment is a significant part of the film. The film has to balance both elements when sculpting the portrait of the characters. The end result is a completely divided picture. The audience only knows Daniel for his personal demons and Eli for his religious extremism. The fact that the end hangs on Eli’s “dramatic” revelation is a joke. The scene is more explanatory than dramatic because it includes so much new information about Eli. It has to because it didn’t have a character outline to base his demise off of.
Realism and Plot
Paul Thomas Anderson doesn’t make a true classical epic with There Will Be Blood. He goes against many conventions of standard storytelling devices by not basing the film on methodical scenes and structure. Normally the focus of an epic is in building up environment, plot and character. Instead Anderson puts all his effort in a narrative that has a life of its own. The film flows at a pace that heightens the personal closeness of the major characters. We follow the characters before we understand the world around them. Scenes are drawn out to recreate the atmosphere of realism within the world. There Will Be Blood is closer to a dramatic rendition of a historical epic than a filmic one. The film has an amazing back drop that could have created a much lusher and more beautiful film, but Anderson commits himself to a realism platform in which to exhibit the characters.
Anderson isn’t breaking new ground with this choice. The beginning of this kind of realism began in the 1970s with American films that were trying to venture into new arenas of storytelling. Films like A Woman Under the Influence, Mean Streets, Mikey and Nickey were beholden to the realities of the scene. John Cassavettes was the forerunner of this style and a product of avante garde theater. He was able to respect film art by using cinema verite methods, but he made films that were made to be shown in the realities of a theater setting. The stories were limited to shorter time frames and most of the scenes were long and realistic. It allowed for films to explore realism more, but the essentials of the style had to more to deal with the essentials of theater than film.
There Will be Blood represents the opposite extreme. It has a large story of dense personal history for the characters and a historical overview of the time period. It takes place over thirty years and deals with numerous objectives for a range of characters. It has everything that fits the description of a novel adaptation, namely a large plot. It is the antithesis of the realist platform because plot itself requires construction and meticulous design to allow all the strands of the story to unfold. There Will be Blood has numerous elements to attest to. Paul Sunday is only worth a scene at the beginning and a few mentions later on but his character becomes a bridge for an important revelation at the end of the film. A film focused on the construction of plot would not have allowed an important character to get such scant recognition throughout the story. This is a classical example of empty symbolism. A character becomes an important idea for a theme but has little existence within the story.
An epic in the realist format isn’t impossible. It’s just that the story cannot be chronological. Doing so let’s in all the historical and personal details that have little relevance to the themes. The realist story is based on the close encounters between characters so structural decisions are very important. The story has to be adjusted to spotlight the theme the best. The best example of a realist epic is The Deer Hunter. It is about friends torn apart in the midst of the Vietnam War. The bond and connection between them is outlined at an extended wedding scene at the beginning. The rest of the film is a cut back between horrendous moments in battle and fond memories of life and how it was before. The film could have detailed each character’s life out much more extensively, but kept their portraits within the context of the friendships. Keeping this portrait allowed us to frame the character’s lives within our memories of their happier moments. If the film was traditional it would have to be six hours long to satisfy our interest in each character.
There Will be Blood limited itself greatly by making the story chronological. It had themes and characters to relate to the audience. The choices the film made as it relates to dramatic conception and character lay out kept the film from realizing the full potential of its subject. Paul Thomas Anderson had the chance to make a lot of progress and make a film of good art, but he made filmmaking choices that became standard affair of the overrated aspects of the art circuit.
A Default Style
There Will be Blood has to be given some due. It has a very deep dramatic identity but it does many things to try to escape easy categorization. Most filmmakers resent critics because they box their films into easy categorizations. As much as a lot of filmmakers complain publically, most do little about it filmically. They continue to make films that follow standard rules of storytelling. But filmmakers like Bertrand Tavernier have openly tried to defy the attempts of criticism to objectify by making films that have no consistency relevant to any recognized structure in filmmaking. Tavernier has been successful with this in such films like A Sunday in The Country and Safe Conduct. There Will be Blood also exists to defy structural recognition by taking a difficult subject and filming it with a style and tone that distinguishes it from any other film today.
It is hard to have a straight forward conversation about the style of There Will be Blood. When Robert Altman was asked to speak about his style (something most critics claim to easily recognize), he said he had no clue about the thought process to how he filmed stories. There Will be Blood has a few nods and references to Paul Thomas Anderson’s other films, but the only recognizable development is the tone of the film being more important than the story. Boogie Nights has a lot of camera movements and shot techniques. It is also filled with elaborative editing patterns and flows at a brisk pace to keep up with the pace of a fast story filled with numerous characters and plot points. There Will be Blood has a much different construction around it. The film lingers through the story with few shot adjustment and very little editing techniques. The composition of the film is based on camera angles and a methodical tone. The actors have a lot of room for movement because the camera is always well centered, but many scenes don’t end when the dialogue does. The camera continues on with the scene because the tone it creates within the film is the most important feature.
There Will be Blood is about a historical subject that is very familiar in American folklore. A very specific genre is recalled when one deals with the Old West and the development of land to suit technological innovation. The Western genre began as the shoot ‘em up genre, but evolved to encompass most stories about the development of America west of the Mississippi River. John Ford gave the genre its aesthetic tone when he made the visuals of the land an essential character to all of his films. Robert Altman took that look deeper when he based the tone of the film on the realism of yesterday with McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Then Terrence Malick created an archetype in Days of Heaven with a tone of visualization so ambient and exalting of the landscape that his style became famous. Malick became synonymous with his work on the film that filmmakers who explored his style of visualization did so with the direct threat their work would be compared to how Malick set the original barometers.
Paul Thomas Anderson creates a style in There Will be Blood that is a mixture between McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Days of Heaven. Anderson wants the tone of the film to be observant and peaceful with respect to highlighting the landscape, but he also favors graceful movements of the camera to go in between the action and the scenes. The composition is remiscient of Days of Heaven while the movement goes back to Altman’s achievement with Mccabe. He isn’t doing much out of the ordinary with this combination of tonal styles. Most Westerns of any ambition since then have taken on the personality of either Altman or Malick’s achievements. Both films were that influential to later filmmakers. The surprise with Anderson’s decision to mix his filmmaking with these two films is that the story in There Will be Blood has both too much story and action to be the best fit.
The first reason for the assertion of too much story in There Will be Blood has to deal the structures of the former two films. McCabe and Heaven are comprable to Paul Thomas Anderson’s film only in the matter of realism, but opposites in almost every other way. Both really are poem-like expressionist works that rely very little on physical story but instead on color hues with the cinematography and tonal features in how camera investigates the story. When most films would bring the camera closer to the action, both of these films kept a distance in all the scenes. They were able to do so because the stories were simple and philosophical. When originally released, both were unique for being ambient character pieces in a time when realism constituted higher degrees of drama and violence. The easy comparison is that McCabe and Heaven reflected the wavelengths of Yasurijo Ozu when most other filmmakers embraced the tough drama of Akira Kurosawa.
The first situation with the style of There Will be Blood comes with the obscuring it does of numerous plot points through out the film. Plot points are nothing more than story and character references that help to spell out the details of the story. It gets a subplot from point A to B. Numerous examples are bound through out the film, but most glaring are scenes like when H.W. looks through Henry’s diary and then mysteriously lights fire under his bed. What the audience sees H.W. sees in the diary gives no clue to why he does what he does. It’s revealed later on, but is just a random action at the time. Then there is the presence of Paul Sunday. Paul Dano plays both Eli and Paul Sunday, but it’s never revealed they are twins. The casting was accidental in the first place but the film never tries to distinguish their differences or even make a theme out of the uniqueness they are twins. The story just goes on, but it does so with such scant characterization of Paul Sunday that the subplot is confusing. The film has a lot of information to convey to the audience but fails to do an adaquate job because better relaying it because that would force the film to deconstruct its lingering camera movements and provide a denser, more adaquate editing structure.
The second major problem with the style is how it expels the most dramatic scenes. The nature of the style is to be distant and reflective, but There Will be Blood has a confrontational force to it with a lot of scenes and moments. The purpose of editing and composition is to be able to gage the drama best when the action is heightened, but the film is sloppy at best and absurd at other major points. The easiest example is with the renunion of Daniel and H.W. Plainview after the latter was sent away. The scene begins in an open field. The camera shows their reunion in the distance, but instead of cutting closer to the scene when it becomes fiery, the camera continues to weave down an oil pipeline. It does this while the characters are having a troubling moment. The reason for this choice of filmmaking is to highlight the oil pipeline which Daniel later shows off to H.W. and also to show the new found distance between the characters. The problem is that highlighting the oil pipeline really has little significance to what matters in the scene. Then the shooting from a distance to show character distance is so elementary of a film technique it would be criticized in film schools if a student attempted to use it.
The other major example is with the final scene. Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday start a troubling discussion that excalates to physical blows when Daniel attacks Eli in his bowling alley. His method of attack is to chase Eli around the room, throw different things at him and then finally beat him with a bowling pin until he is dead. The chase has Eli begging for mercy and hiding behind the front of the bowling frame while Daniel attacks him. Anderson does little to bring the camera closer to the confrontation. While Daniel is chasing Eli, the camera remains aloof. Even when Eli goes out of frame and hides and Daniel is severely hitting him, the camera remains aloof. The only major cut into the action the camera does is when it does a low angle pan up to Daniel and he smears some excrement onto the lens. It’s surprising Anderson chooses that technique of all things because when he has used it before it was always for expositional purposes to introduce new scenes and locations. It has little reason to be in a dramatic moment with exception to the smear on the lens. The feeling is that Anderson is just on a rotation of different film techniques to lay out the story. His concern is mainly about the tonal structures in the film.
There are numerous other examples of bad filmmaking decisions by Anderson. Only a DVD commentary could do justice to explain all the problems in the film. The style is so bad because it takes so many basic ideas of how to shoot a Western period piece and does so with little direction. The general assumption could be that Anderson looked at the backdrop of his story and made a film to look like other films that dealt with similar historical periods, but didn’t know how to make the adjustments to fit into There Will be Blood.
Final Thoughts
It’s hard to sum up There Will be Blood. The film is driven by its loose ends and intensity. Critical comment about the film is so scattered that most are impressionistic jubiliations without being detailed and specific. There even isn’t an agreed upon argument about how the film is good. The film is mostly relevant for its differences in look and feel from every other film out there.
My best summation comes with comparing There Will be Blood to another film. When The Passion of the Christ was released, it was done to notable controvery and heavy critical discussion. Social critics took exception of the film for its stereotypical image of Jews while historical critics demoted the film for its slim, almost irrevelant perspective of Catholicism. Film critics said the film tried to make up for its lack of variety in production skills with a high intensity to make the story more powerful.
There Will be Blood holds a similiar position with respect to all those subjects. The film is highly interesting, but succeeds on just a few levels of how we look at a film. It is irrelevant or clueless when other greater subjects are taken into consideration. The intensity or uniqueness of the film shouldn’t be the sole reason it is considered a masterpiece.
Notes on There Will be Blood
There Will Be Blood has risen as a personal favorite among critics and audience members. The praise has been so extensive that the film only knows a few rivals for best of the year. During most years critics are able to sufficiently disagree with each on what is the best, but this year No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood have run away with most considerations. The few critics who have gone against the hype have had to issue statements in their reviews that were acknowledgements of the large leap they were taking. What sometimes happens when a film becomes universally applauded is that acceptance of agreements and disagreements gives way to a situation where the minority is just trying to get some representation. Andrew Sarris met the situation when his failure to acknowledge No Country for Old Men as a great film left readers attacking him. He responded in his annual top ten list award by giving No Country the entire category of “Movies Other People Liked and I Didn’t”. There Will Be Blood could get similar recognition for those who disliked it.
I’m not a fan of There Will be Blood. I actually dislike almost every part of the film. Most critics would be dismissive when dealing with a film of zero favor to them, but the praise and ambition of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest is forcing me to take issue with all of the criticisms. There Will be Blood is also so large and complicated that a simple review cannot cover all the problems so I’m utilizing an old structure to tackle the film. Years ago there was such a thing as critical history books. They were critical reviews of a major film movement or era. The author(s) wanted to criticize certain periods of cinema but wanted to structure the book so it could encompass numerous ideas and trends. Thus the books were broken into shorter chapters about the individual ideas. This review will follow suit.
The Two Beliefs
The accepted conflict in There Will be Blood is with Daniel Plainview and the forces around him. His problems in the story come in numerous folds. The major one is his struggle with local Christians of a small town he goes to because of oil. Plainview disdains them for their arrogance because it impedes on his well being and business when he is trying to dig for oil. The second important conflict is with a supposed brother who shows up out of nowhere but has no real relationship to him. It’s just a man who knew his brother before he died. The third is with the illegitimate son Daniel grew to love as his own but disgraced him when he grew up to become an oil man himself and posed a threat to his business ventures. The complexities of these entanglements has made for a film that people are applauding as rich and diverse. The truth is that their only one conflict within the film. The other two are just symptoms of Daniel Plainview himself.
Daniel, like the Christians, represents an institution of belief himself. His character really is the basis of the idea of nobility and aristocracy. Daniel believes the success he has in life and power he holds over everyone comes from inert qualities within him that no one outside of his bloodline possesses. His character represents an idea of power and just cause older than even religion itself. The film simplifies his meaning when it shows him as just God-less and semi-disturbed. That is how the townspeople of Little Boston view him. The film makes his problems with his supposed brother and illegitimate son to be signs of his evil when they are indicators of deeper beliefs a lot of people held back then. There Will be Blood takes no consideration of the deeper history to Daniel’s character and instead views all of his actions at such a close barometer that they are meant to outweigh its context.
The apology could be that Daniel’s characterization is a completely personal one. Whatever the rationalization may be it is the opposite of how Eli Sunday and the other townspeople are depicted. The film shows their belief and its meaning before it shows any of their distinguishing personal characteristics. Eli Sunday is a major character but all of his scenes are standard scenes of a preacher being a preacher. The only scene that stands out to show his character flaws is where he sits at the dinner table with his family, covered in mud, and insults his father for agreeing to a deal with Daniel Plainview that he himself originally thought was fair. The scene is indicative of the personal defeats Eli will meet later, but it’s also the only scene that does it. In all the other scenes Eli Sunday represents the establishment of religion and God. He is a walking caricature of a religious man because his personal aspects are almost wholly removed.
The difference in how Eli Sunday and Daniel Plainview are shown is important. The two characters make up the dramatic center of the film. Daniel’s problems with his son, brother and business in Little Boston rise to a crescendo when he is baptized and asked to confess the sin of his abandoning his child. The event encapsulates the frustration Eli Sunday and Little Boston has with Daniel. It’s also the greatest burden for Daniel because it makes him say the things that strike hardest at his psyche. Daniel’s defeated baptism meets its own reclamation at the end of the film when Daniel forces Eli Sunday to admit he is a hypocrite and everything he said before was a power play instead of him voicing the word of God. Sunday stands firm in saying he was the voice of God, but admits he has been a liar and is the failure of his family. Tell tale signs before show Sunday had more interest in power than God. His final stand with Daniel revealed the nature of his character.
The relationship between Daniel and Eli goes even further than the dramatic principles. Their characters are both the symbolic representations of their respective beliefs and ideals. There Will be Blood is about both the personal and cultural clash that happens. The societal comment is a significant part of the film. The film has to balance both elements when sculpting the portrait of the characters. The end result is a completely divided picture. The audience only knows Daniel for his personal demons and Eli for his religious extremism. The fact that the end hangs on Eli’s “dramatic” revelation is a joke. The scene is more explanatory than dramatic because it includes so much new information about Eli. It has to because it didn’t have a character outline to base his demise off of.
Realism and Plot
Paul Thomas Anderson doesn’t make a true classical epic with There Will Be Blood. He goes against many conventions of standard storytelling devices by not basing the film on methodical scenes and structure. Normally the focus of an epic is in building up environment, plot and character. Instead Anderson puts all his effort in a narrative that has a life of its own. The film flows at a pace that heightens the personal closeness of the major characters. We follow the characters before we understand the world around them. Scenes are drawn out to recreate the atmosphere of realism within the world. There Will Be Blood is closer to a dramatic rendition of a historical epic than a filmic one. The film has an amazing back drop that could have created a much lusher and more beautiful film, but Anderson commits himself to a realism platform in which to exhibit the characters.
Anderson isn’t breaking new ground with this choice. The beginning of this kind of realism began in the 1970s with American films that were trying to venture into new arenas of storytelling. Films like A Woman Under the Influence, Mean Streets, Mikey and Nickey were beholden to the realities of the scene. John Cassavettes was the forerunner of this style and a product of avante garde theater. He was able to respect film art by using cinema verite methods, but he made films that were made to be shown in the realities of a theater setting. The stories were limited to shorter time frames and most of the scenes were long and realistic. It allowed for films to explore realism more, but the essentials of the style had to more to deal with the essentials of theater than film.
There Will be Blood represents the opposite extreme. It has a large story of dense personal history for the characters and a historical overview of the time period. It takes place over thirty years and deals with numerous objectives for a range of characters. It has everything that fits the description of a novel adaptation, namely a large plot. It is the antithesis of the realist platform because plot itself requires construction and meticulous design to allow all the strands of the story to unfold. There Will be Blood has numerous elements to attest to. Paul Sunday is only worth a scene at the beginning and a few mentions later on but his character becomes a bridge for an important revelation at the end of the film. A film focused on the construction of plot would not have allowed an important character to get such scant recognition throughout the story. This is a classical example of empty symbolism. A character becomes an important idea for a theme but has little existence within the story.
An epic in the realist format isn’t impossible. It’s just that the story cannot be chronological. Doing so let’s in all the historical and personal details that have little relevance to the themes. The realist story is based on the close encounters between characters so structural decisions are very important. The story has to be adjusted to spotlight the theme the best. The best example of a realist epic is The Deer Hunter. It is about friends torn apart in the midst of the Vietnam War. The bond and connection between them is outlined at an extended wedding scene at the beginning. The rest of the film is a cut back between horrendous moments in battle and fond memories of life and how it was before. The film could have detailed each character’s life out much more extensively, but kept their portraits within the context of the friendships. Keeping this portrait allowed us to frame the character’s lives within our memories of their happier moments. If the film was traditional it would have to be six hours long to satisfy our interest in each character.
There Will be Blood limited itself greatly by making the story chronological. It had themes and characters to relate to the audience. The choices the film made as it relates to dramatic conception and character lay out kept the film from realizing the full potential of its subject. Paul Thomas Anderson had the chance to make a lot of progress and make a film of good art, but he made filmmaking choices that became standard affair of the overrated aspects of the art circuit.
A Default Style
There Will be Blood has to be given some due. It has a very deep dramatic identity but it does many things to try to escape easy categorization. Most filmmakers resent critics because they box their films into easy categorizations. As much as a lot of filmmakers complain publically, most do little about it filmically. They continue to make films that follow standard rules of storytelling. But filmmakers like Bertrand Tavernier have openly tried to defy the attempts of criticism to objectify by making films that have no consistency relevant to any recognized structure in filmmaking. Tavernier has been successful with this in such films like A Sunday in The Country and Safe Conduct. There Will be Blood also exists to defy structural recognition by taking a difficult subject and filming it with a style and tone that distinguishes it from any other film today.
It is hard to have a straight forward conversation about the style of There Will be Blood. When Robert Altman was asked to speak about his style (something most critics claim to easily recognize), he said he had no clue about the thought process to how he filmed stories. There Will be Blood has a few nods and references to Paul Thomas Anderson’s other films, but the only recognizable development is the tone of the film being more important than the story. Boogie Nights has a lot of camera movements and shot techniques. It is also filled with elaborative editing patterns and flows at a brisk pace to keep up with the pace of a fast story filled with numerous characters and plot points. There Will be Blood has a much different construction around it. The film lingers through the story with few shot adjustment and very little editing techniques. The composition of the film is based on camera angles and a methodical tone. The actors have a lot of room for movement because the camera is always well centered, but many scenes don’t end when the dialogue does. The camera continues on with the scene because the tone it creates within the film is the most important feature.
There Will be Blood is about a historical subject that is very familiar in American folklore. A very specific genre is recalled when one deals with the Old West and the development of land to suit technological innovation. The Western genre began as the shoot ‘em up genre, but evolved to encompass most stories about the development of America west of the Mississippi River. John Ford gave the genre its aesthetic tone when he made the visuals of the land an essential character to all of his films. Robert Altman took that look deeper when he based the tone of the film on the realism of yesterday with McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Then Terrence Malick created an archetype in Days of Heaven with a tone of visualization so ambient and exalting of the landscape that his style became famous. Malick became synonymous with his work on the film that filmmakers who explored his style of visualization did so with the direct threat their work would be compared to how Malick set the original barometers.
Paul Thomas Anderson creates a style in There Will be Blood that is a mixture between McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Days of Heaven. Anderson wants the tone of the film to be observant and peaceful with respect to highlighting the landscape, but he also favors graceful movements of the camera to go in between the action and the scenes. The composition is remiscient of Days of Heaven while the movement goes back to Altman’s achievement with Mccabe. He isn’t doing much out of the ordinary with this combination of tonal styles. Most Westerns of any ambition since then have taken on the personality of either Altman or Malick’s achievements. Both films were that influential to later filmmakers. The surprise with Anderson’s decision to mix his filmmaking with these two films is that the story in There Will be Blood has both too much story and action to be the best fit.
The first reason for the assertion of too much story in There Will be Blood has to deal the structures of the former two films. McCabe and Heaven are comprable to Paul Thomas Anderson’s film only in the matter of realism, but opposites in almost every other way. Both really are poem-like expressionist works that rely very little on physical story but instead on color hues with the cinematography and tonal features in how camera investigates the story. When most films would bring the camera closer to the action, both of these films kept a distance in all the scenes. They were able to do so because the stories were simple and philosophical. When originally released, both were unique for being ambient character pieces in a time when realism constituted higher degrees of drama and violence. The easy comparison is that McCabe and Heaven reflected the wavelengths of Yasurijo Ozu when most other filmmakers embraced the tough drama of Akira Kurosawa.
The first situation with the style of There Will be Blood comes with the obscuring it does of numerous plot points through out the film. Plot points are nothing more than story and character references that help to spell out the details of the story. It gets a subplot from point A to B. Numerous examples are bound through out the film, but most glaring are scenes like when H.W. looks through Henry’s diary and then mysteriously lights fire under his bed. What the audience sees H.W. sees in the diary gives no clue to why he does what he does. It’s revealed later on, but is just a random action at the time. Then there is the presence of Paul Sunday. Paul Dano plays both Eli and Paul Sunday, but it’s never revealed they are twins. The casting was accidental in the first place but the film never tries to distinguish their differences or even make a theme out of the uniqueness they are twins. The story just goes on, but it does so with such scant characterization of Paul Sunday that the subplot is confusing. The film has a lot of information to convey to the audience but fails to do an adaquate job because better relaying it because that would force the film to deconstruct its lingering camera movements and provide a denser, more adaquate editing structure.
The second major problem with the style is how it expels the most dramatic scenes. The nature of the style is to be distant and reflective, but There Will be Blood has a confrontational force to it with a lot of scenes and moments. The purpose of editing and composition is to be able to gage the drama best when the action is heightened, but the film is sloppy at best and absurd at other major points. The easiest example is with the renunion of Daniel and H.W. Plainview after the latter was sent away. The scene begins in an open field. The camera shows their reunion in the distance, but instead of cutting closer to the scene when it becomes fiery, the camera continues to weave down an oil pipeline. It does this while the characters are having a troubling moment. The reason for this choice of filmmaking is to highlight the oil pipeline which Daniel later shows off to H.W. and also to show the new found distance between the characters. The problem is that highlighting the oil pipeline really has little significance to what matters in the scene. Then the shooting from a distance to show character distance is so elementary of a film technique it would be criticized in film schools if a student attempted to use it.
The other major example is with the final scene. Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday start a troubling discussion that excalates to physical blows when Daniel attacks Eli in his bowling alley. His method of attack is to chase Eli around the room, throw different things at him and then finally beat him with a bowling pin until he is dead. The chase has Eli begging for mercy and hiding behind the front of the bowling frame while Daniel attacks him. Anderson does little to bring the camera closer to the confrontation. While Daniel is chasing Eli, the camera remains aloof. Even when Eli goes out of frame and hides and Daniel is severely hitting him, the camera remains aloof. The only major cut into the action the camera does is when it does a low angle pan up to Daniel and he smears some excrement onto the lens. It’s surprising Anderson chooses that technique of all things because when he has used it before it was always for expositional purposes to introduce new scenes and locations. It has little reason to be in a dramatic moment with exception to the smear on the lens. The feeling is that Anderson is just on a rotation of different film techniques to lay out the story. His concern is mainly about the tonal structures in the film.
There are numerous other examples of bad filmmaking decisions by Anderson. Only a DVD commentary could do justice to explain all the problems in the film. The style is so bad because it takes so many basic ideas of how to shoot a Western period piece and does so with little direction. The general assumption could be that Anderson looked at the backdrop of his story and made a film to look like other films that dealt with similar historical periods, but didn’t know how to make the adjustments to fit into There Will be Blood.
Final Thoughts
It’s hard to sum up There Will be Blood. The film is driven by its loose ends and intensity. Critical comment about the film is so scattered that most are impressionistic jubiliations without being detailed and specific. There even isn’t an agreed upon argument about how the film is good. The film is mostly relevant for its differences in look and feel from every other film out there.
My best summation comes with comparing There Will be Blood to another film. When The Passion of the Christ was released, it was done to notable controvery and heavy critical discussion. Social critics took exception of the film for its stereotypical image of Jews while historical critics demoted the film for its slim, almost irrevelant perspective of Catholicism. Film critics said the film tried to make up for its lack of variety in production skills with a high intensity to make the story more powerful.
There Will be Blood holds a similiar position with respect to all those subjects. The film is highly interesting, but succeeds on just a few levels of how we look at a film. It is irrelevant or clueless when other greater subjects are taken into consideration. The intensity or uniqueness of the film shouldn’t be the sole reason it is considered a masterpiece.
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