And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?---Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground There are certain people of whom it is difficult to say anything which will at once throw them into relief—in other words, describe them graphically in their typical characteristics. These are they who are generally known as “commonplace people,” and this class comprises, of course, the immense majority of mankind. Authors, as a rule, attempt to select and portray types rarely met with in their entirety, but these types are nevertheless more real than real life itself. For instance, when the whole essence of an ordinary person’s nature lies in his perpetual and unchangeable commonplaceness; and when in spite of all his endeavours to do something out of the common, this person ends, eventually, by remaining in his unbroken line of routine—. I think such an individual really does become a type of hi
There Will Be Blood (2007)
“There Will Be Blood,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic American nightmare, arrives belching fire and brimstone and damnation to Hell."
The film is loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel “Oil!”
Set against the backdrop of the Southern California oil boom of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, it tells a story of greed and envy , the story about descend to madness of the main protagonist Daniel Plainview, petroleum prospector, played by a monstrous and shattering Daniel Day-Lewis (Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role).
There is no God but money in this oil-rich desert and his messenger is Daniel Plainview.
"There Will Be Blood "is regraded by some to be the best American film of 21st century , certainly one of the two , the other one being "No Country for Old Men"
Set against the backdrop of the Southern California oil boom of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, it tells a story of greed and envy , the story about descend to madness of the main protagonist Daniel Plainview, petroleum prospector, played by a monstrous and shattering Daniel Day-Lewis (Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role).
There is no God but money in this oil-rich desert and his messenger is Daniel Plainview.
"There Will Be Blood "is regraded by some to be the best American film of 21st century , certainly one of the two , the other one being "No Country for Old Men"
Anderson's character is a man who has no friends, no lovers, no real partners and an adopted son that he exploits mostly as a prop. Plainview comes from nowhere, stays in contact with no one, and when a man appears claiming to be his half-brother, it is not surprising that they have never met before. Plainview's only goal in life is to become enormously wealthy, and he does so, reminding me of "Citizen Kane" and Mr. Bernstein's observation, "It's easy to make a lot of money, if that's all you want to do is make a lot of money."
"There Will Be Blood" is no "Citizen Kane" however. Plainview lacks a "Rosebud." He regrets nothing, misses nothing, pities nothing, and when he falls down a mine shaft and cruelly breaks his leg, he hauls himself back up to the top and starts again.
He gets his break in life when a pudding-faced young man named Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) visits him and says he knows where oil is to be found, and will share this information for a price. The oil is to be found on the Sunday family ranch, where Standard Oil has already been sniffing around, and Plainview obtains the drilling rights cheaply from old man Sunday. There is another son, named Eli, who is also played by Paul Dano, and either Eli and Paul are identical twins or the story is up to something shifty, since we never see them both at once.
Eli is an evangelical preacher whose only goal is to extract money from Plainview to build his church, the Church of the Third Revelation.
Eli is an evangelical preacher whose only goal is to extract money from Plainview to build his church, the Church of the Third Revelation.
