Day-Lewis *is* playing the part of the villain, purely, simply, archetypically, entertainingly - the Snidely Whiplash aspect is half the fun. It's not a subtle performance, but the film isn't the model of subtlety, either. Day-Lewis plays a self-proclaimed "oil man"; I think Anderson and Day-Lewis are attempting to suss out what that means: to a man who would be one, to men who would be around one, and to those of us who don't know what one is, yet live in a world made of oil - how did this happen? who made this happen? *isn't* it villainous?

Read the whole thing. Good stuff. Why'd she get the last word?

Anyway, when I read your descriptions of Lewis, I immediately thought of Dr. Hervey Cleckley's definition of a sociopath's mask of sanity: "Cleckley describes the psychopathic person as outwardly a perfect mimic of a normally functioning person, able to mask or disguise the fundamental lack of internal personality structure, an internal chaos that results in repeatedly purposeful destructive behavior, often more self-destructive than destructive to others. Despite the seemingly sincere, intelligent, even charming, external presentation, internally the psychopathic person does not have the ability to experience genuine emotions."

This is the description of a "Conflict Psychopath" as stated at www.sociopathic.net: "Often successful and intelligent in his field, he can masterfully fake his abilities and credentials. He exploits others, and must be in absolute control. He relies on his intellectual manipulation, and charisma. His eye on the boardroom, he backstabs his way to high positions. He ruthlessly abuses his power. His bad judgment has adverse affects on many levels of society. He places others in problem or failure situations. This professional bully has no social conscience, and is often suspicious and paranoid. Others may support him to further their own objective."

Whether or not DD-L is a genuine psychopath or not, I don't know, but aren't these qualities you find so negative in him perfect for the role of Daniel Plainview?

You say, "I was distracted by something I can best describe as a feeling of preening inauthenticity. His presence feels to me like a cold, clammy handshake. Aggressively firm, determined to make an impression, but disingenuous and unconvincing" = Daniel Plainview, the two-faced con man seen often aggressively trying to persuade the rubes.

"Rather than being 'in the moment,' I often get the feeling that he's about five seconds ahead of the moment, planning and preparing what he's going to do next, having already left the present behind" = Daniel Plainview, the scheming, calculating villain.

Plainview has observed enough human behavior to know exactly how to feign benevolence, consideration, and concern, yet it's...awkward, because he's playing all the right keys, but without the music. Isn't it profoundly creepy to see him stop little Mary Sunday and sit her down and brush her hair and do his interpretation of tenderness? His grotesque solicitude in this moment reminds me of a gargoyle cooing at an infant: he means well, but you want that baby out of his arms pronto! It's creepy 'cuz it's a copy of an imitation of what a real person would do.

"Day-Lewis plays a puppet master playing a man." Exactly!

Nice debate above--really well-conceived on both sides, I think, and I look forward to reading the rest.

It must be the topic du jour: I dunno if you've seen it yet but Stephanie Zacharek has an essay on Daniel Day Lewis over at Salon. (http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2008/02/20/daniel_day_lewis/)

I've only had a chance to skim it, but found the following points interesting considerations of the performance, at least, that I don't think I would necessarily disagree with.

"Day-Lewis portrays Daniel Plainview as if he were playing to a mirror, not an audience."

"His performance in "There Will Be Blood" is wrought, not felt: It shows the grit of discipline and forethought but lacks spontaneity, fire, life."

Yet I'm someone who happens to side a little more with Ms. Murphy's reasoning. Consequently, Ms. Zacharek's remarks force me to wonder whether these criticisms are criticisms at all. The narcissism she hints at in the first quote and the flatness in the second, seem, to me, appropriate choices in the part and, really, only apply to certain moments in the performance. Granted, there are scenes in which Daniel Day Lewis is ACTING, seemingly for himself alone. These same moments could generally be described as two-dimensional, "lifeless" bombast. These moments--like the one you refer to above, Jim--seem to be the ones to which Zacharek is pointing.

Yet there are quieter moments (the flashback to Plainview and HW towards the end, or the magnificent scene on the beach, or even Lewis's reading of the film's final line) that throw those brash moments into relief. For me, that makes those moments that many people find problematic less problematic. They're performed so purposefully, I think, to make them even more un-ignorable. You're supposed to notice them, and the acting is supposed to bother you. Maybe it's some type of Brechtian maneuver, I'm not sure, that, as you say, forces you out of the film to what seems like your dismay. It doesn't really grate so much on me (which then brings us back to the matter of taste you brought up recently).

And it seems to keep with the overall film, which is one of the few films that I could refer to as Manichean without using the word pejoratively. It's a film of light (bright light) and dark (really dark), with little gradation in between. And the swing back and forth between those two poles seems to me to be something that is central to the film. I'm not sure to what ends Anderson intends this violent swinging to serve, but it's discomfiting to viewers who generally prefer their cinema a little more blended, a little more stable, and a little more naturalistic.

"There Will be Blood" is not a film that I would say that I LOVE. But it's a film that's done something to me, and it's a film that I will likely continue to probe in free moments, which is not something I can say for other movies that I've seen over the past year and that I would consider to have preferred over this flick.

I see this discussion as a continuation and a specific example of the previous discussions on 1) what makes a particular viewer like this and dislike that movie, 2) what is taste, 3) what makes for good acting and filmmaking.

The acting decisions made by Day-Lewis in TWBB and the artistic decisions by PT Anderson cannot be clearly separated. I have to assume this "great" acting is also what Anderson intended for. Indeed, other choices in the film -- including the Paul Dano character and certain plot device -- convince me that the problems with Daniel Plainview's character is not necessarily rooted in Day-Lewis' deliberate acting style.

I don't think the movie has more of a predetermined course than other movies, and I don't think the theme is necessarily about descent into the conventional concept of madness.

I can only speculate on Anderson's intentions and psychology. What I sense is a struggle within himself. "Should I show more of his humanity or madness?" "Should I get into the(falsehood/longing/fear) family themes more or less?" "Can I even bear to dig deeper into the father--son conflicts?"

What makes me disappointed about the movie as a whole is the insufficient humanity shown in all of the characters. Take for example Eli Sunday. The best scene about him is his beating up his father at the dinner table and calling him a loser -- what curious yet realistic family dynamic! The best scene about Plainview's fake brother is his narration of being in a chain gang and life on the road. The best scene about Plainview is the moment when he climbed up on the bench and lay down next to his deafened and frightened son and held him.

For me at least, no amount of cleverness and profound philosophy and social commentary can match a drop of authentic humanity in art. One must, must, must have it to breathe life into a story. I see glimpses of the urge to instill sympathy and humanity into these characters and hints of extremely raw emotions, but somehow Anderson smothered them with other elements. For example, the cycle of insult and revenge between Sunday and Plainview is so ... ideological and inorganic, almost mechanical. Also mechanical are the old farmer who sold him the land in exchange for his religious excursion and the tiresome device of a fake brother. They don't give me even a faint ring of emotional truth. They are didactic and dry.

I said before that the excessive exposition in this movie lowered my respect for Anderson's storytelling skills. Please show me, not tell me, what kind of a person Plainview is. I cannot say for sure that he is not able to instill life in his characters, however, because I almost suspect that something in him that prevents him from looking deeper into characters through family conflicts and their emotional battles. I feel like he is still keeping a distance to protect himself from the subjects that could make him great and explosive.

I'd venture to guess that PTA's photography "takes you out of the movie" at least as often as DDL's performance does and that, therefore, both are fully intentional moves. Two examples:

1. The oil that splashes, at its discovery and Daniel's adoration of it, onto the camera lens.
2. That self-aware Tracking Shot, which starts as a gaze west with railroad tracks dimishing toward the horizon, continues as the train/cart the camera is on moves east, then ends as the camera pans right to settle on Plainview's car as it parks next to the station. Most movies make darn sure you never see the tracks they've laid down.

For the record, I side with Ms. Murphy, but an increasing number of people whose opinions I respect, including Mr. Emerson, are expressing a lot of ambivalence about Daniel Day-Lewis' portrayal.

I'm trying to understand why some people eat it up and others are turned off by it. Is it because it breaks from the naturalism we're all so used to? Too theatrical?

In the previous thread, many of the performances that chewed scenery but got a free pass were comic. Part of what works about Daniel Plainview is that so much of what he says and does is funny to me. He tears into Eli with such relish. Even the final scene right up to the final terrible moment makes me smile.

The humor helps carry the broadness for me where in another context it might be fingernails on a chalkboard.

Finally I think the movie needed this performance. If Day-Lewis had turned it down a few notches, this long, talky, single-character movie might've fallen on its face.

Jim, I agree with most of your points but do take issue with some. I agree that there are some truly great things in TWBB, notably the first hour and a half or so (while everything from the baptism on is nearly worthless). And the guy that played Henry should've been nominated for Supporting Actor, I thought he was the most interesting character in the movie. But I actually am a fan of Daniel Day-Lewis. I liked him in "In the Name of the Father" and "The Age of Innocence" and loved him in "Gangs of New York" and "My Left Foot", but I never believed him in "There Will Be Blood". I think he does a decent job, but I was always aware that he was "acting", and never once thought I was looking at a character. In contrast, some of his fellow nominees this year I did believe. You mentioned Clooney and you were absolutely right about him, he's sadly underrated as an actor and "Michael Clayton" has his best performance since "3 Kings" or "Out of Sight". But I would personally single out Viggo Mortensen for "Eastern Promises. Unlike DDL's performance, I never once questioned that I was looking at Nikolai and not Viggo. He just seemed to BE the character instead of acting the character, which as I said was my biggest complaint about DDL.

Jim,
even though i disagree with your assessment of DDL's performance, I have to say that it's exciting to read about what is happening in American film lately.

What is happening right now, between TWBB and NCFOM, and other great works recently, hasn't been happening since the re-rise of Indie film in the 90's.

And frankly, a lot of the debate and discussion and intellectual PASSION that surrounds these films in particular...well frankly, I'm 25 years old and I've mostly only read about this sort of thing in books and essays written in the 60's and 70's.

This sort of intellectual vigour surrounding our cinema. Let's pray that 2007 has marked a beginning of something new, and not a fluke.

Focusing on Plainview's later rants disregards the "arc" of the character and the performance. Don't forget: we meet the man in silence -- a reel's worth of quiet, human moments that foreshadow the deteoration ahead.

It was a fantastic debate, and a great read. There was one point Kathleen made in particular I want to jump off on, though:

Plainview embodies D.H. Lawrence's description of the "black, masterless" men who invaded the New World: "The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted."

The thrumming I hear in the very ground and air of "TWBB" grows out of Lawrence's insight that, from its founding, "America [was] tense with latent violence and resistance." We're talking metaphysics here, the stuff that made this country, dream and nightmare.

I think I had a similar response to TWBB as you did, Jim, in that I could sense the outlines of these themes Kathleen responded to so vigorously, and yet I just didn't feel them in the same visceral way.

But those themes Kathleen wrote about resonated with me, because I immediately recognized them as central to another western: Deadwood, a show that, the more I think about it, got so much right that TWBB got wrong. Both are set around the same period, both are about the bloody, corrupt nature of American expansion that still impacts (and very much exists in) the country to this day, and both feature greedy, misanthropic bastards (if Daniel Plainview is blood-brother of Ahab, they each have a cousin in Al Swearengen -- or perhaps more accurately in the gold-obsessed George Hearst, who's entire life revolves only around finding "the color"?).

The main difference, I think (besides the obvious difference of format) is that Deadwood managed to make its points more subtlety and with greater precision (and more eloquently, although they have another similarity in their style of peculiar, deliberate language). I think TWBB's failing may be one of a lack of focus -- it didn't work for me either as a commentary on the cutthroat nature of American expansion and obsession with greed, nor as a character study of a misanthropic bastard descending into madness. The bastard distracted too much from the commentary, and the character study was, well, just too damn distracting. Deadwood, meanwhile, was pitch-perfect in every scene -- while still managing to paint a number of wonderfully monstrous portraits.

I agree TWBB is a must see film. But ultimately I think it's a film where the experience of watching it was better than what I ultimately thought of it once it was over.

Overall I’d side with you one the movie, but Kathy on the role itself. I think you misread the scene where Plainview "reveals" himself to his brother. Is this DDL or is this one on PTA...it is obviously the later. It isn't like DDL wrote the thing and created the story arch. It is his job to fill that arch and I think DDL is amazing in a short sighted wanna-be epic. It isn’t that Plainview is a BIG character, though he is, but that he is an intensly calculating man. A deliberate man you should distrust, dislike. The movie is made by a man reaching just beyond his grasp. For instance, the score works on a level of intesity that the filmmaker can't reach and I think this disequalibrium highlights the directors inadequacy, while DDL manages to rise to the occasion. I literally walked out of the theater thinking "Capitalism...is that all it was about?" I still haven't come up with much else.
I also found it interesting that you say that NCFOM doesn’t call attention to it’s technique…but it does. I can think of so many scenes from it are so deliberate scene after scene. It calls so much attention to itself, but if I remember correctly you refused to talk about the Coen’s craftmanship. Coen brothers draw attention to their technique continuously. Usually the cause of someone being in capable of getting into a movie is that they bring bagage to the movie, even if that bagage I simply good taste to hate a poorly made movie. I think you brought a little of you baggage to TWBB, but then again we all do.

"Iagree that there are some truly great things in TWBB, notably the first hour and a half or so (while everything from the baptism on is nearly worthless)."

Kyle, I don't know if you meant this comment to be a deliberate provocation to those of us who admire "TWBB," but provoke it did. Surely you must realize how severely you belittle your own thoughts on the film by making such sweeping dismissals with no supporting arguments. If you insist on reaching grossly reductive conclusions, why don't you elaborate? Otherwise, your opinion on the film has no legs to stand on. Your contribution boils down to "That, like, totally sucked."

Major spoilers below.

As others have said, I tend to think the trope-style overacting of Day-Lewis in this role is quite necessary. The film isn't one that contains a lot of "characters", but only symbols. While I don't consider this a fault, some might. Nevertheless, it's worth mentioning that, if the characters are meant to be largely symbolic as I say they are, then it's in grand theatrical tradition that they behave the way they do.

One thing that I think a lot of people overlook is that Plainview isn't just a portrayal of a single man at a single point in time, but rather a portrayal of the growth of a man who is trying to decide once and for all what his real nature is. Is he the man who seems to want to care, the man who looks at HW on the train with what can only be genuine warmth, the man who weeps at old photographs of his family in private, the man who takes pity (after a fashion) on an abused young girl, the man who doesn't hit his son, even when that son tries to set him on fire? Or is he the man who wants to wash his hands of all the ambiguity and heartbreak, the people who fight amongst themselves for petty reasons (consider the crowd at his first "ladies and gentlemen" speech), the people who lie to him after he confides in them (the fake brother)? Is he the man who wants to turn his talent into a barrier between himself and the rest of the world, the oil man with the silver tongue?

To me, that's what the portrayal and the conclusion are all about. Eli comes to Plainview, hoping in many ways to appeal to Plainview's human side, even though he's seen before that it's in dangerously short supply. Where Eli has fallen, to see compassion from Plainview might restore his destroyed faith yet, it might give him some confirmation of what he's looking for. In a way, Plainview is looking for the exact opposite: confirmation that man is at heart spiritually bankrupt and that there is no reason for him to shy away from his baser, animal-esque instincts. Having already been crushed and pushed towards the edge by the loss of his son (in more ways than one), Plainview puts Eli to test, to see if he, who claims to be the absolute guardian of those human values that Plainview himself is questioning, will cave in for the other side, sacrifice his spirituality in favor of material gain.

It turns out that he does, and in that moment, Plainview's question is answered, and he's able to fully abandon the ambiguous side of his nature forever, sealing himself off from humanity with one brutal blow after another. He puts it best: he's "finished".

Great stuff, Jim. My response got too long, so I put it here.

Great dialogue between you and Kathleen. The more I think about TWBB (I really do need to see it again), the more I think I side with Kathleen in her reading of the film and DLL's performance. What you say about DLL resonates with me in the way I feel about Tom Cruise--he's one of the most self-conscious actors I've ever seen. Kathleen says about Lewis "He hardly knows how to act naturally, with his brother or anyone else." and this is how I feel about Cruise. Just as Kathleen seems to think your description of DLL's acting style fits the character, so I think Cruise's best role is in Anderson's Magnolia. He makes Frank Mackey work because they are two self-conscious characters. Instead of "acting," you can see Mackey/Cruise "pretending" to be the character they are playing.

Jim: Great, insightful stuff on both sides of the debate.
It wasn't until I got to the comments section that I started getting upset.

"Capitalism... is that all it was about?" As if capitalism were a small subject...

Here's Steven Shaviro's take on how Day-Lewis's performance is precisely about capitalism:

http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=623

I humbly disagree with both of you although I really dig the debate. To me, there is some humanity in him until his "son" is deafened. I think that is the part of the film where he actively chooses to let his inner bastard take over the wheel completely.

I am a lawyer and I know many people like this. They inhabit this profession egomaniacs inhabit show business. You have heard people say often, "He's a jerk but deep down inside, he's a good guy". Plainview is the opposite. He is ok, yeah a bit of a con, yeah a money grubber but think of the time setting of the film. When his son is injured, we see what was there all along. The hole in his soul. The scenes where he and the boy are camping would have no meaning at all if we are not to believe that there at least a spark of humanity in him. I guess for that reason I agree with Jim a little more.

As to the performance, I think you are engaging in self-fulfilling prophecy. You don't like him, so you are seeing things that are simply not there.

Curiously, I think this film has spawned alot of this reaction. I think the ending is very polarizing and people who dig the film rationalize it and people who think it's flawed skewer it. The same with ddl's performance.

I think the worst you can say is that he falls into a trap the Johnny Depp falls into; imitation over performance. I think Depp sees in a character a person he knows and imitates him. (Keith Richards, Michael Jackson/Mr. Rogers, etc.)

I agree with Mr. Ebert that there is a strong dose of John Huston in the performance. It startled me when he is Baptised, as his "real" voice emerges, almost as if the pure emotion of that truly great scene made him forget where he was.

For me, he was a hoot and the film was good. It had greatness in it, but like many films this year, it skated up to the border of greatness and turned back, like the bright light of it all was too much to handle.

Most of the arguments against TWBB boil down, it seems to me, to, "It isn't subtle." I understand if people have a visceral reaction to a style of film-making that they are not used to, but that is not an argument. I tire of those who want impose a style upon meters for quality, as if to be great a film has to only be able to exhibit some qualities and not others. Is Michaelangelo's "The Last Judgment" any less great because of its lack of subtlety? We shouldn't try to force a particular style on any form of art by limiting the styles which one is allowed to see as valuable.
I was interested in this debate originally, but now it is making me sad. 2007 was such an incredible year for movies; it's rare I want to own even one film for a year on DVD, but this year I want to keep and cherish four. I think that the abundance of quality we've seen this year has had the odd effect of forcing some of us who care about film as an art form to "invalidate" some in order to bring one clear winner to the top. Why do we need to do this? Why can't we have two or three or four films that are all equally great, each in there very different ways. Subtle in NCFOM, or overt in TWBB: to be honest I love them equally, and can't choose between them. And I don't want to.

Xerxes, my comment was not meant at all to inflame or provoke anyone; it was just my personal opinion of the movie. I didn't elaborate because I didn't want to take up a bunch of room (it isn't my blog after all), but since you asked I'll oblige a bit.

It’s the same way I felt about “Boogie Nights” (but it’s been a while since I’ve seen BN so I don’t remember the exact turning point). I felt like in both movies PTA had a great handle on the story with pacing and characterization being very good. However, in TWBB after the relationship with Henry ends and we then go on to the baptism is where PTA lost me. The baptism was at such a right angle to everything that preceded it that it took me completely out of the movie. Though some people in my audience found the first scene where Daniel beats Eli into the mud humorous, I didn’t; I found it fascinating and it worked for me I didn’t think of it as comedy. The baptism didn’t work for me in the slightest because there was no other way to take than as farce, which completely ruined the tone and atmosphere that PTA had built up to that point. The movie had been losing steam for a bit, but it hadn't completely lost it until then.

I don't think I could explain my feelings about the penultimate scene (between Daniel and H.W.) any better than Jim did, so I won't try.

The final scene seemed to be just a continuation of the baptism scene in all its ridiculous idiocy. I have no clue as to why the milkshake line has become so popular, I was literally cringing during that exchange. The point had long been made and PTA was simply beating an uninteresting dead horse. I can't even remember another movie that I physically cringed at, but I did during that scene. Daniel Day-Lewis played that scene so big that I can imagine Tony Montana thinking "Dude, seriously, that's a little over the top". Continue with such broad "comedy" that it felt like a Farrelly brothers movie, and by the time it got to "I'm finished" all I could think was "Finally, it should've ended while it was still good". I don't know what the minute mark is when Henry exits, but the movie felt like it went on for at least an hour afterwords.

Re: Matthew

You write, "Most of the arguments against TWBB boil down, it seems to me, to, 'It isn't subtle.'" I won't pretend to speak for anyone else you think is making this argument, but I did say in my comment that I thought Deadwood was more "subtle" in making its points, and I want to elaborate. Maybe "subtle" wasn't the right word -- Deadwood is often anything but subtle.

A better way of saying it would be Deadwood was less unwieldy, and it goes back to the lack of focus I wrote about. Is TWBB really a "commentary on captialism"? You can certainly read it that way, but I still feel the over-the-top nature of the film (in DDL's performance, in the musical score, in the unrelenting pacing that devolves into a small, bizarre ending) undermine whatever points you could have taken away from it.

Deadwood isn't necessarily any more subtle than TWBB, but it is more balanced in its elements -- and therefore, its barbs hit their targets with far greater precision. Deadwood, to me, is about the blood and corruption that ran through much of this country's early development (for better and worse). TWBB, to me, is about an odd, wretched caricature, and any other commentaries it makes are ancillary.

Kyle,

It's not your blog, but as Jim said in another post about commenter reactions, "Reach deep within yourself. Don't hold back...." I don't think anybody will mind an additional qualifying paragraph or two.

As for your evaluation of the Baptism sequence and the Bowling Alley scene, I had the same response initially. But I was such a fan of the rest of the film, that this inability to praise it as a whole nagged at me daily. I saw it a second time. The Bowling Alley scene still seemed unintentionally hilarious. So I saw it a third time, and finally realized that the amplifying of the hysteria to ludicrous levels was *deliberate* on Anderson's part. I've said elsewhere that Plainview's ridiculous outburst is intended to be a perverse kind of comic-horror show, to exaggerate Plainview's insanity. The direction over the acting in the bowling alley scene is incongruous to the style of the rest of the film, which is why it's so strange and seems so out of place. Plainview doesn't just lose control, the film loses control. Just as a narrator in a Faulkner novel loses his grasp on sanity, so too does the prose become fragmented and disorienting.

As for the Baptism scene, you were probably reacting to Paul Dano's shrieking and flailing. But that's exactly how he acted when he "exorcised" the arthritis "demons" from the old woman's hands during his first theatrical sermon/epileptic fit. You say you felt the Baptism scene was a farce, yet you don't mention thinking that this scene was a farce. The Baptism scene is no more wacko than the first time you see Eli in action.

Harlock Hero, the third paragraph in your post is excellent analysis, and points out things I'm embarrassed to say I didn't think of. Daniel *wants* Eli to prove his integrity! Even though he is an agnostic cynic, he secretly wants to see merit in Eli's ostensible altruism. Eli's exposed venality is the final blow to his faith in humanity, as even Eli's idealism is a fraud. Eli is even worse than he is.

And I'm sad to say I agree with Mike that to some degree Jim's knee-jerk disgust for Daniel Day-Lewis renders his judgment of the man a self-fulfilling prophecy. It seems Jim will not be able to like Daniel Day-Lewis in anything he does. "Review 'There Will Be Blood.' Review, with extreme prejudice."

Just kidding, but not really.

Harry Lime, I actually don’t think of the first exorcism scene as farce. It is over-the-top, but if you think about the classic saying (which I’m sure I’m not quoting correctly) “Comedy is filmed in long shot, drama is shot close-up” then that’ll give you a bit of a clue as to how I view those sequences.

The first exorcism scene is shot relatively close, and I viewed it much as Daniel did “One God damn hell of a show.” I viewed it as fake, but not farce. While if you look at the baptism scene, other than the close up of Daniel’s face, it’s shot in relative long shot with Paul Dano (who’s performance I didn’t care for, you were right about that) jumping around and slapping DDL while screeching at the top of his lungs. Later while DDL is throwing around bowling balls and pins, it’s also shot relatively long. Naturally it’s not completely in long shot, but that’s the way I remember it. If the first exorcism scene played as farce I think that was unintentional on PTA’s part, while the baptism and final scenes seem meant to be taken that way due to how it was shot.

I also admired a lot about the movie, but PTA seemed to be losing his grasp on it (like I felt he did towards the end of “Boogie Nights”), and these scenes kind of broke the camel's back and ruined the overall experience for me.

Jim,

You feel Day Lewis got in his own way...I feel Anderson got in his own way and forgot to deal with the characters honestly throughout certain sections of the script. And I'm not talking bout no baptism (best scene in the movie), I'm talking about the father/son scene. Dreadful overacting and overwriting. Yes, we get that he's driving everybody away.

Otherwise, I really want to agree with Kathleen because she's really hip, but I also to a large degree agree with you.

Kris Pigna:
Good points, and your rewording clarifies much of your own argument (though not those of others). Your comparison of TWBB and Deadwood makes sense. I'd like to add, though, that while they share themes of capitalism and the creation of this modern place called America, there are important thematic differences to consider as well. For me, TWBB is about the intersection of industry and religion, and about how in their use of each other they destroy themselves. TWBB is broad, baroque, and more allegorical than anything else. The comparisons to Kubrick are apt, I think, since Kubrick seemed more concerned with types than with rounded characters. Deadwood is more about the intersection of human needs and fears and desires that created the country, driven by the capitalism of Swearengen, true, but that capitalism is itself driven by his own issues and conflicts.
To sum up, they have different styles that match their respective thematic values, and so they are, to me, still too different to really make a qualitative comparison. They are both great, but great in different ways. To make a literary analogy, Deadwood is Lord Jim, but TWBB is Heart of Darkness.

In agreement with Kris Pigna, I strongly recommend seeing Deadwood, especially the portrayal of George Hearst, in comparison with There Will Be Blood. I think anyone who has seen Deadwood would be inevitably disappointed with TWBB.

PTA may be an extremely talented filmmaker, but he still pales in comparison with David Milch in handling the complexity of the emotions, in finding the right tone for the narration, in describing the human condition, in balancing the personal stories and the larger social, philosophical concerns, and most important in penetrating the hearts of the characters.

A quick anecdote: my better half, who is not a cinephile in any sense, didn't want to see TWBB because he generally hates any movie with what he considers affected acting (that includes pretty much anything before Method took over as the dominant acting style). He came along grudgingly, and was surprised just how much he enjoyed Day-Lewis' performance. These debates about whether Plainview is an effective symbol are fun, but for many viewers (myself included) it really doesn't matter: it's really just enjoyable as hell to watch him rip into the scenery in a way that's charismatic and electric rather than off-putting.

Naturally some people found it off-putting. We can't really argue that point; a chacun son gout.

I made this point on an earlier post, but I'll repeat it briefly here: I found TWBB a much better and more convincing character analysis than Grand Statement about America. As a allegory the movie is disappointing; as a story of an obsessed man's relationship with his adopted son I was completely absorbed. The scenes of his farewell to HW on the train, his baptism, and his sudden explosion during the meeting with Big Oil execs are all beautifully conceived and much more complex than they initially seem. And because of that, I didn't find the ending to be an abrupt change of tone at all, but a pretty natural offshoot of those particular scenes.

Just my two cents.

I disagree completely with the criticisms of the movie and DDL. I thought this was an excellent movie, near perfect. This will be on the greatest-ever list eventually. Remember that many (if not most) of Kubrick's films were not well received commerically or critically at release.

Regarding DDL, the post above about psychopaths nailed it. To rephrase a quote, DDL was playing a man playing a human. Yes, there is warmth and caring in him, but for the most part, these things are a means to an end. To miss that is to miss the power of that role. He is not human. He is a monster with no major character as foil. What is the audience to do with this? He is not hero or antihero, he is not a villain we are used to seeing. Or at least in a situation we are used to seeing. There is no good vs. evil. The only dark vs. light is in the cinematography which I think is meant to juxtapose the discordant intentionally myopic examination of evil. American audiences are not used to this. There are no answers in the film as in life. Had there been a protagonist with which to battle, DDL's villain would go down (by these same critics) as one of the best.

If you think the preacher's theatrics are over the top, check out some of the "main stream" TV preachers some time. I'm not sure I agree with the climax as Plainview hoping for salvation based on Eli's earnestness. I read it as simple torture. Kicking a dog just b/c he can. Revenge at having him(Eli) being the only man who was able to get the better of Plainview if only momentarily. He delighted in systematically crushing everything Eli had only then crushing the man himself. Material, spiritual, and then physical murder.

The movie was beautifully shot, and near 20 minutes without (much) dialogue at the start of an American movie. Brillant. While the opening scene starts slowly, the audience is immediately thrust into the life of one of the most driven men depicted on screen. There is no preface and no epilogue. Think about that next time you watch an epic spanning decades. Planview battles everything that is not him, whether rock or human from the beginning to the end.

This movie works on so many levels. Capitalism; yes. Human drama; yes. Epic western; yes. Character study; yes. I watched it with a friend who didn't even catch the Capitalism/America symbolism. The coming ecological disaster. Oil at the top even when everything else falls. The power the wealthy hold. The violence that industry was/is built upon.

A single piece of art should not make every person fell the same thing. Art should challenge us to think in new ways. I completely accept that some people didn't like the film or actor(s). Everyone is entitled. But this movie is undeniablly art. The following quote is not meant to be pejorative towards those who found the film/actor lacking (I personally think the MonaLisa=blah)

"Ah miserable dog, if I had offered you a package of excrement you would have sniffed at it with delight and perhaps gobbled it up. In this you resemble the public, which should never be offered delicate perfumes that infuriate them, but only carefully selected garbage."

The article itself was great, and I appreciate both sides of the debate. PTA is one of my favorite directors and has been since I realized Hard Eight was someone's first film. Boogie Nights is one of my top 5 favorite pictures and a masterpiece of the highest order. With that in mind, I was very excited to see TWBB.

In all honesty, I walked out of the theater disappointed. I couldn't put my finger on the reason why, but my first impression was to blame my relative ambivalence on the fact that DDL was a bit of a ham. Upon a second - and third - viewing, I changed my mind.

It is true that his performance was at times over the top. I remember the jarring effect that I experienced upon hearing Plainview's first words (which came after quite a long silent portion of film). His voice, although almost fitting for the time period, was just too gruff, the words too perfectly enunciated. At first, I chalked this up to DDL taking a risk interpretting a character. After all this was the midwest at the turn of the century. But we find out his is from Massachusettes, and the accent doesn't fit there either. In fact, the people who invest in his sound a certain way, the country bumpkins he buys land from sound another way, and his "brother" who is presumably from the same area, sounds set anothe way. None of those sounds are anything like Plainview's. He (Plainview, not DDL) has concocted this accent in an effort to be everything to everyone.

The voice is only one example, and I use it because it has not been brought up elsewhere, but it can be substituted with many other aspects of DDL's performance that seems to bother people. They are supposed to bother you. I don't mean to insult your collective intelligence by suggesting you are missing the fact that Plainview is a monster. What I mean by the performance intentionally grating at your senses is that you are in fact watching an actor play an actor. The Plainview that we see (in plain view, get it?) is certainly not the Plainview that began as a lowly silver miner. He is an actor, someone who is constantly wearing a mask, as made plainly evident by the fact that his first words (the ones that are so jarring to hear due to the prior long period of silence and the strange accent) are lies, telling potential clients about his relationship with his "son", whos father Plainview has, in essence, killed.

Plainview, you see, is nothing more than an actor, even with his closest acquaintences. He may be a real person, with real emotions, but all we know and see tells us otherwise. He is a character. His voice, his posture, his smile, all of his traits are simply part of a mask to fool people into helping him achieve his one and only desire: power.

This is why the baptism scene is so critical. Something about the lunacy of the scene, the anger that boils in him at being slapped and humiliated, and the shame he feels about losing his son actually crack the mask and let us peer in for a moment. We see a real person, the real Plainview. I feel that many of you have interpreted this scene as DDL forgetting to keep his Plainview up. My interpretation is that we are seeing DDL show us Plainview (close-up meant to establish intimacy with the audience) whereas we are otherwise seeing Plainview's performace.

The bowling alley scene is the end of the arc. As I have posited, the performance is one of an actor showing us an actor. The real person certainly has emotions and such, but throughout the film, we see only one: the desire for power, and the things that come with it (material goods). As someone alluded to earlier, this film is basically an allegory. Plainview is Industry, specifically oil, and we see what PTA feels about that. As we have all heard before, "power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely". As Plainview achieves higher levels of success, he loses more of his humanity. Or is it the other way around? We see that much of his success comes from his ability to lie, cheat, and kill. PTA never tells us if power is the cause or effect of more power, but he seems to raise the question. I love the picture for that reason.

This may have gone on too long, as it has been just a stream of thought that I felt I had to write down. In the end, again, I feel DDL is an excellent actor who is playing an excellent actor. In the end, he loses track of reality and becomes the character he has played for so long (a completely focused manifestation of pure evil). His desire for wealth has led Plainview to create a facade, or rather many, as he plays a good old boy for potential fundraisers, a father to the son of a man his wealth killed, a tycoon for other competitors, a monster to Eli, who threatens his progress, etc. This process is pushed along by oil, a completely corrupting force that forces people to lose their souls (but which is a stand in for all wealth, and in turn, capitalism). The last scene is significant as it plainly states that he is not the only one, as Eli also admits to wearing a mask and losing his soul in the name if money. I would venture to say that PTA has a rather bleak outlook on capitalism and what it can do to a person or a culture.

This is a complete aside, but this film make me think of King George and the Republicans, who are the sum total of evil oil men and evil faux-clerics. Plainview used Eli to get his project started (get elected and start a war to make money) while Eli used Plainview to make money and build a bigger church (push social agenda).

Brilliant last two comments. You are both really coming to a summative exploration of this great movie.
Is it awful of me to add the terrible allure of Plainview's character? Not the crass capitalism, which I genuinely disdain, not the psychopathy (I hope), but the misanthropy, which I admit I fall prey to more often than I want. I have to run a meeting today with other educators that will be difficult, and I already know I will look around and just see nothing I like. I wonder how much longer I can take these... people.
This isn't to defend Plainview, just to add to the comment above that said there isn't just one way to read this movie. Though I see Plainview as a villain, like all great villians I find it really difficult to argue against his philosophy.