Richard Schickel, the venerable film critic for Time, has written a review that seems to typify the nearly unanimous critical praise heaped upon There Will Be Blood. Schickel subtitles his review “An American Tragedy”, and though few, if any, have taken up this particular interpretive angle, the unrestrained awe that underlies the criticism is shared by many. Although it is not uncommon to see gushing praise from prominent critics in response to such an artfully crafted film, the profusion of superlatives that surround P.T. Anderson’s latest work seem, at least in some instances, to be exercises in extreme hyperbole. For example, David Denby wrote in the New Yorker that it was “as astounding in its emotional force and as haunting and mysterious as anything seen in American movies in recent years”, and Richard Schickel called it “one of the most wholly original American movies ever made.” Then there is Manohla Dargis, who concluded her review for the New York Times by saying “But the film is above all a consummate work of art, one that transcends the historically fraught context of its making, and its pleasures are unapologetically aesthetic. It reveals, excites, disturbs, provokes, but the window it opens is to human consciousness itself.” (emphasis mine)
Clearly, there is a subjective element to every piece of criticism, this one included. Yet I can't help but feel that the ravishing praise is as much a response to form as it is to content. So rare is the occurrence of film as art that when one aspires to the craftsmanship of a Stanley Kubrick or an Orson Welles there is a tendency to respond enthusiastically to the ambition itself, and when one achieves the level of masterful style that PT Anderson has in this picture, you can somehow understand the excitement it creates. However, to merely respond to form or style is to look only at the surface. What about what lies beneath? What I witnessed in There Will Be Blood was a remarkable refinement and progression of form, but a critical and nearly egregious regression of the human element that has, at least up to this point, characterized Anderson's entire oeuvre. Some may say this latter characterization, which I take to be a flaw, is precisely the point. Where is the humanity? Not here. Well, OK.
Clearly, there is a subjective element to every piece of criticism, this one included. Yet I can't help but feel that the ravishing praise is as much a response to form as it is to content. So rare is the occurrence of film as art that when one aspires to the craftsmanship of a Stanley Kubrick or an Orson Welles there is a tendency to respond enthusiastically to the ambition itself, and when one achieves the level of masterful style that PT Anderson has in this picture, you can somehow understand the excitement it creates. However, to merely respond to form or style is to look only at the surface. What about what lies beneath? What I witnessed in There Will Be Blood was a remarkable refinement and progression of form, but a critical and nearly egregious regression of the human element that has, at least up to this point, characterized Anderson's entire oeuvre. Some may say this latter characterization, which I take to be a flaw, is precisely the point. Where is the humanity? Not here. Well, OK.
Yet what I find problematic is not Daniel Plainview’s extreme (and unexplained) misanthropy. It is the lack of depth or marginalization of every other character in the film. Daniel Day-Lewis' performance is Oscar-worthy and on par with some of the greatest in the history of cinema, but his channeling of Daniel Plainview gives us such an all-consuming character that nearly everyone else is pushed to the background. Paul Dano, as Eli Sunday, does a fine job trying to match the blistering intensity of Daniel Day-Lewis, but he is relegated to a secondary role, functioning mostly as an antagonist to the savage and brooding specter of Plainview. What we are given is, in effect, a character study: a nearly immaculate portrait (stylistically speaking) of a man so obsessed, so competitive, so full of mistrust, that he is in the process of losing his soul. He cannot relate to others and is therefore a prisoner in his own self-imposed isolation. The film is merciless in its' portrayal of relational disintegration, revealing an eroding sense of compassion that ultimately results in the complete absence of love, which, theologically speaking, means that at this point the picture becomes the very image of hell.
I use the phrase "theologically speaking" because the film supposedly contains a religious dimension, yet looking for anything of substance in the film's treatment of it is a nearly fruitless endeavor. In reality the film never delves deeply into matters of faith. Several times phrases such as "washed in the blood" or "the blood of the lamb" are used, yet any spiritual significance or metaphorical richness such explicitly Christian language may possibly point towards is never explored. Like the film's few scenes that contain real human concern and compassion, they are tantalizingly inserted here and there, leading you to think there will be a revelation of some gravitas, but there is not. They quietly disappear, with little evidence that they ever existed.
Why this is such a critical failure is that the film is commonly interpreted as a look at the intersection of business and faith, and the conflict they seem to engender when they become bedfellows. Part of the trouble lies in the fact that Eli Sunday is the film's embodiment of religion, but he is only a straw man, a caricature of fundamentalist Christianity, and a poor one at that. While he radiates a charisma and ambition similar to that of Plainview, his inner person, his beliefs, and whatever gospel he preaches, remain a mystery. Only at the end, when Plainview repays one brutal, extracted confession with another, does the film allow us a real glimpse at Eli. In some cases his distance and mysteriousness wouldn't be such an issue but P.T. Anderson's films have always been character-driven and emotionally raw and bare, and this film seems, at least formally, to continue that trend. Exactly how such an impoverished character can reveal anything about a life of faith or even the duplicity and hypocrisy that are its pitfalls is unclear.
This is a film that on nearly every level, whether it's the acting, directing, cinematography, editing, or music, screams "masterpiece!" and yet its' ability to develop its ideas and characters never matches its' epic structure. I'm not exactly sure what Manohla Dargis meant in her review by "it's pleasures are unapologetically aesthetic." I'm wondering if she's referring to being overwhelmed by Robert Elswit's gorgeous cinematography, or Johnny Greenwood's masterful score, or the riveting acting and go for the jugular directorial style that the film radiates. Maybe. Maybe not. Yet I'm not convinced the film opens a door to human consciousness. Yes, maybe Plainview embodies the worst qualities endemic to unfettered capitalism. Maybe his isolation is symbolic of a certain type of American arrogance. But the film's focus narrows to such an extent that I'm not sure it has anything substantial or insightful to say about oil, or business, or religion. What it does well is show one man's leap into the abyss: his growing emotional and spiritual deformity reveal him to be an anti-Christ of sorts, and there's more than a little irony in his echo of Christ's last words which bring this film to a close.
I think Richard Schickel is right, that there is something tragic at play here. But for the film to truly be a tragedy it would seem one would need to have some idea of what has been lost, but that's not the case here. There is more bravado than reflection. Please don't misunderstand, despite my criticism, I can't deny the film's excellence on many levels. It goes where many films never dare to go. There Will Be Blood is one of the most deeply unsettling and psychologically intense films I've ever seen. Yet it's the sort of film that is easy to admire but proves harder to love. I entered it with more anticipation than I've had for anything since The New World. This could have been one for the ages. The tragedy is that it turns out to be something less.
