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Notes from Underground

  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 Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but ... hadn’t I better end my “Notes” here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I’ve been writing this story; so it’s hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment.  Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are...
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Hope

To be human is to be a miracle of evolution conscious of its own miraculousness — a consciousness beautiful and bittersweet, for we have paid for it with a parallel awareness not only of our fundamental improbability but of our staggering fragility, of how physiologically precarious our survival is and how psychologically vulnerable our sanity. To make that awareness bearable, we have evolved a singular faculty that might just be the crowning miracle of our consciousness: hope.-- Erich Fromm


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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"

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.










Boogie Nights (1997) >>>




Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil!, There Will Be Blood is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of the 21st century. It is a sprawling, dark character study that explores the intersection of burgeoning capitalism and religious fervor at the turn of the 20th century.



The story follows Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a silver miner turned ruthless oil prospector. The film begins with a nearly wordless sequence tracking Plainview's grueling rise from a lone laborer to a successful independent oilman. After hearing of oil "oozing out of the ground" in the town of Little Boston, California, he travels there with his adopted son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier).

In Little Boston, Plainview encounters Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a young, charismatic preacher who leads the "Church of the Third Revelation." The film chronicles the decades-long feud between the two men—one driven by material greed, the other by spiritual manipulation—culminating in a violent, unforgettable confrontation in a private bowling alley.



Direction and Cinematography

Paul Thomas Anderson and cinematographer Robert Elswit (who won an Oscar for his work) used a stark, minimalist visual style. The film features long takes and wide vistas of the Texas desert (standing in for California), emphasizing the scale of the oil derricks against the natural landscape.

The Score

Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) composed a dissonant, avant-garde score that serves as a primary source of tension. Eschewing traditional "Western" motifs, the music uses strings and percussion to create an atmosphere of impending doom and industrial grinding.



The "Milkshake" Scene and Its Origins

The film’s climax in the bowling alley features the iconic "I drink your milkshake" monologue. While often viewed as a moment of pure madness, the dialogue has a historical basis. Paul Thomas Anderson found the phrase in transcripts from the 1924 Teapot Dome Scandal (a bribery scandal involving oil reserves). Senator Albert Fall used the "milkshake" metaphor to explain "drainage"—the process by which one can extract oil from a neighbor's property through a straw-like pipe system.



Legacy and Awards

The film received eight Academy Award nominations, winning two:

  • Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis (his second of three wins).

  • Best Cinematography: Robert Elswit.

It is frequently cited in "Best of" lists for the 2000s, often noted for its final line—"I’m finished!"—which carries a double meaning: Daniel has finished his bowling game, but he has also finished his moral descent, leaving himself with nothing but his wealth.


"I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people." — Daniel Plainview


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