There Will Be Blood
For some reason, I feel like this movie could be a Coen brothers film, which I recently read an interesting (German) article on. Maybe it’s because the title sounds like “No Country for Old Men”, maybe it’s because the title sounds like one of those Coen brother films full of black humor, or maybe it’s also because the famous Pokemon parody actually looks like it could just as well be based on a Coen film. I have no idea.
What I do know, however, is that the film totally deserves its fame. It kicks ass, so to say. It is indeed a long, very long film, and more than anything else, I am absolutely fascinated by how incredibly long the Wikipedia article to the film is. How is it even possible that one single movie is getting so much analytical depth from Wikipedia writers? Most of all, of course that means that these damn Wikipedia writers are doing a bad job on other films, and it would be great if such an article could become the standard for films that deserve it. “There will be blood” surely has an incredible depth to it, and its main character is, if you ask me, significantly more interesting than Kane who doesn’t really have all that much character besides being rich and lonely. Plainview truly hates the world, uses schemes and ruses, is an alcoholic and doesn’t feel any remorse about using people to the point of killing them, yet acts affectionate towards his son. His antagonism against Eli Sunday especially is so much more fascinating than any human interaction with Kane. I guess I am being too harsh on Orson Welles here.
Basically, “There will be blood” is a movie without any weakness. If it had one, I’d say it is mostly that there is practically no likable character in the whole film, and it draws a world that is almost as black as the one of the Coen brothers. But then again, that is where its strength lies as well, and as such, Plainview is certainly one of the greatest characters of the decade.