Master Index of Archived Threads
There Will Be Blood (2007)
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| AG/DC Apr 13 2008 06:42 PM |
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This is the legit polling thread.
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| Vic Sage Apr 14 2008 09:55 AM |
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Not flawless, but a better film than NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN by any standard.
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| Valadius Apr 14 2008 02:10 PM |
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An absolutely fantastic film, with one of the greatest lines in movie history - "I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!"
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| Willets Point Apr 20 2008 10:54 AM |
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I haven't seen this movie and with my track record probably won't see it for a while, but continually hearing the quotation and not knowing what it means is driving me nuts. Would someone be able to explain the context of the milkshake thing in a simple, non-spoilerific way?
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| themetfairy Apr 20 2008 11:10 AM |
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DDL sees someone in a restaurant whom he feels has previously dissed him. The line comes up in the middle of a rant.
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| Willets Point Apr 20 2008 12:30 PM |
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Is the person drinking a milkshake?
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| John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 20 2008 12:40 PM |
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no
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| Valadius Apr 20 2008 09:32 PM |
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That's not where milkshake is from. It's from the final scene of the movie.
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| Willets Point Apr 21 2008 10:22 AM |
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I'm more confused than I was before, but I was able to add this to my Netflix queue so I should be seeing it soon after all.
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| metirish May 12 2008 09:37 AM |
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Saw it Saturday night , Daniel Day Lewis is riveting and Paul Dano is quite good as well , as much as the last scene gets talked about my favorite scene was when Eli Sunday humiliates Plainview in front of his church congregation , both actors were brilliant in that scene , DDL right there was worth the price for his exchange with Sunday. The final scene ties into this scene nicely.
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| A Boy Named Seo Aug 01 2008 03:58 PM |
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Agree w/ Irish on everything cept the big screen TV part. Ain't got one.
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| AG/DC Aug 01 2008 04:10 PM |
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I haven't seen this film, so I ask what I ask from a position of ignorance.
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| themetfairy Aug 01 2008 04:19 PM |
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I disagree. It's difficult to pull off these kinds of roles without being over the top ridiculous.
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| Vic Sage Aug 04 2008 09:41 AM |
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And the character is riddled with self-doubt and internal conflicts. Very complex.
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| Vince Coleman Firecracker Aug 04 2008 09:55 AM |
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And Lewis's character simmers for most of the movie before boiling over in a few scenes. For all the scenery-chewing in the milkshake scene and the one irish mentioned of he and Dano in the church, I think the most powerful scenes are the quieter ones, like when Plainview is trying to explain his misanthropy to his brother, or when he's on the train with his son.
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| metirish Aug 04 2008 10:20 AM |
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The first several minutes of the movie with no dialog is riveting .
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| Vince Coleman Firecracker Aug 04 2008 10:53 AM |
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It didn't remind you of Citizen Kane at all? I mean, Anderson isn't the technical innovator that Welles was, but I feel the stories and scopes are similar.
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| AG/DC Aug 04 2008 11:27 AM |
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Well, then, I'm certainly posting from a position of ignornace. Good then.
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| Vic Sage Aug 04 2008 01:05 PM |
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No, not really. And it's not a matter of "technical innovation". Frankly, KANE gets overpraised for innovations it didn't innovate. The cinematographer's (JW Howe) use of deep focus, and all the wonderful little cinematic touches (shooting up out of the floor, the use of mirrors, the camera coming thru the skylight, etc) had all been done before. But Welles most interesting accomplishment (aside from the enormous chutspah of taking on a media mogul who was still all-powerful and who initially succeeded in crushing the film) was Welles notion of "truth".* KANE tells the life story of a man thru the prism of different peoples' recollections. They are often faulty or conflicting recollections... this is a literary device known as the "untrustworthy narrator"... and they add up to a fascinating portrait of a fictional character, who is supposed to represent WR Hearst. But Kane, like Hearst, is unknowable, because the "truth" is not really knowable. KANE preceded RASHOMON by a decade, and while I'm sure there are other films to have taken this narrative device, few have taken them to such virtually operatic heights as KANE, nor have any suffered the consequences that Welles did for having done so. None of this is present in BLOOD, other than the superficial telling of a life of a great and terrible man who built an empire at great personal cost. Those similarities are present in the 2 films i mentioned, CABLE HOGUE and JUDGE ROY BEAN, which also share a simllar "19th century old west overcome by the 20th century" time and place with BLOOD (as opposed to the 20th century urbanity of KANE). And, like HOGUE AND BEAN but unlike KANE, BLOOD picks up the character's life well into his adulthood, so those stories are narrower in scope and don't attempt the sweep of KANE, which traces its protagonist from birth to death. Of course, you could say that any film that depicts such a character is reminisicent of KANE, and KANE'S influence and greatness is such that you'd probably be right to do so. But i was looking at much more specific similarities. * Welles was always fascinated about the nature of "truth". As a kid, he was a skilled magician, and he later became famous for his WAR OF THE WORLDS radio hoax. At the end of his life, he made a fascinating documentary called F FOR FAKE, about the nature of forgery and fakery. Many of his movies dealt with the theme, in one way or another. LADY FROM SHANGHAI has the famous "hall of mirrors" scene, in THE STRANGER, Welles is not what he seems, also MR. ARKADIN. At the end of TOUCH OF EVIL, after Welles' corrupt sheriff is killed, and its noted that he was a great detective but a lousy cop, Marlena Deitrich says: "He was some kind of a man... What does it matter what you say about people?" Which was very much the point, i think, of KANE... a biography that debunks the very notion of biography.
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| Vince Coleman Firecracker Aug 04 2008 05:11 PM |
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While many of the similarities between Plainview and Kane are superficial- both are terrifying empire-makers, both are driven by insatiable greed, both spend their elderly years alone surrounded by wealth, both character's fortunes are started (oddly) by the discovery of a silver mine, etc- there are also a lot of thematic parallels between the movies. The emptiness of wealth, the dark side of the American dream and the main characters' longing for family all reminded me of Kane. While the central theme of Kane may be the search for truth, I feel that's a theme specifically relevant for a biography of a newspaper magnate known for bending the truth to suit his needs.
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