1. Daniel Day Lewis, duh. Somehow he topped his performance from Gangs of New York. This is what they call a “powerhouse” performance. One for the ages. What a beast. His character, Daniel Plainview, is an absolute monster. It’s amazing to watch but he is a legendary asshole. He is a hard man living a hard life. In the opening scene, he is looking for gold and silver by himself in a deep mine. A hole, really. Since this was long before safety requirements, he falls down the hole and breaks his leg. When he wakes up, he has to pull himself up on a rope. It’s an excruciating few minutes. That’s our introduction to him: a man willing to risk life and limb for his business. For the rest of the movie, he has an awkward limp, which makes him somehow even more intimidating.
2. For me, this will always be connected to No Country for Old Men. They came out the same year and competed for a bunch of awards. More than that, I watched them within a week of each other, and they have a similar feel. They take place out West, the central focus is a powerful, terrifying, villainous character portrayed by an incredible actor, they are directed by legends, and they both share a dark, world-weary tone. I was a little upset that No Country won the Oscar for best movie, best Director and best Screenplay, but I probably would have been upset if this won and that lost. Both movies deserved all those awards. Daniel Day Lewis got best actor so they got that right no question. Regardless, these are two great movies to have mentally connected.
3. Intensity. Obviously, Daniel Day Lewis is intense. He’s a stone man made of pure fury. But it’s more than just his performance. It’s a good story and cool, sometimes even shocking things happen, but it’s not exactly an action movie. It’s also long. And yet, every moment is riveting. Between Daniel breaking his leg in the opening, and when the pipe lands on the guy’s head with a sickening thud, there’s a sense of impending doom that doesn’t ever leave your gut. Every element of the movie comes together in unison to create a sense of urgency. The constant, almost piercing music, the cinematography, the realistically portrayed dangers of the job, Daniel’s performance, all combine for a mesmerizing work of art.
4. Cinematography. This deserves a big screen viewing. It’s a beautiful film about rugged men doing dirty work. There are extended shots of the landscape, with the beautiful mountains and plains of early 20th century California, interrupted only by newly built oil wells. The shots inside the wells are great as well (ha). They are claustrophobic and dark as opposed to the shots of the open landscape. Everything looks crystal clear and sharp and feels authentic. It is a perfectly crafted visual world that sets the foundation for Daniel Day Lewis to do his thing and helps draw the audience in to the characters and story. Like any great movie, the camera transports the viewers to the time and place depicted in the story.
5. Music and sound. Tense music plays almost throughout the whole move. It’s just constant, eerie, high pitched strings, all the time. He’ll be drilling for oil or making a business deal or getting off the train, and you’re on the edge of your seat because the music is a continuous crescendo, serving to heighten the true danger and insidiousness of it all. Because it’s the oil business; it was and is incredibly insidious.
Sound is a really important and cool element of the film, too. The sound of the oil pump. The train’s whistle. The men screaming. Daniel and Eli’s booming voices. Wind on the plain. Then there’s the lack of sound after the boy’s accident. Again, it all works to put the audience in the characters’ shoes. The kid can’t hear, so for a few moments we can’t hear, either. Then, when we can hear again, the sounds are intensified.
6. Fatherhood. The relationship between Daniel and the child, HW, is the heart of the movie. That’s why the ending feels like ripping out a beating heart.
After a man dies when a machine part falls on his head—because again, this was early 20th century—Daniel adopts the man’s infant son. He was in the well with the guy at the time of his death, and it was his well, so he likely feels guilty. At this point, he seems to still have feelings for other humans and genuinely cares for the kid. However, whether or not it was always his intent from the beginning, he essentially uses HW to grow his company. The “family man” angle helps him close deals.
After HW goes deaf, the relationship between him and Daniel starts to fray. Daniel doesn’t have time to learn sign language and teach HW, which frustrates and angers the boy. The budding relationship between Daniel and his “brother” Henry doesn’t help, either. One night, HW lights a fire in their cabin as Daniel and Henry sleep. Daniel wakes up and chases him. The lighting of the fire, Daniel chasing HW, and then carrying him back to the cabin, is all done in essentially one long tracking shot, and I can’t stress enough how much that contributes to the intensity of the film. Daniel then sends HW away to a school for the deaf. He can’t take care of him and run the business efficiently. He never admits it, but this affects him greatly.
At the end of the movie, it is sixteen years later in 1927, and HW is getting married to his childhood friend, Mary. HW visits Daniel’s office and tells him they’re moving to Mexico. HW wants to open his own oil company. Daniel gets angry and tells him that he has become competition. He calls HW a “bastard from a basket” and mockingly explains his true origins. It is cruel. It is brutal and heartbreaking, and it completes Daniel’s evolution into full villain. Once HW leaves, Daniel gets fall down drunk and flashes back to all the times they shared. He is clearly distraught. He chased away the one person that loved him.
There’s also the relationship between Eli and his father. Eli has contempt for his father for “selling out” to Daniel (even though that’s literally what Eli did). After Daniel beats Eli, Eli beats his father. But we can’t feel too bad for the father, because it was revealed earlier that he beat Mary, Eli’s sister and HW’s eventual wife. At one point, Daniel threatens the man if he continues. After that, Mary clearly looks to Daniel as a father figure, which makes his attack on HW at the end even more heartbreaking.
7. Brotherhood. This is another one of the several themes in the film, and it is manifested in two sets of people, yet only three actors. Paul Dano plays twin brothers, Paul and Eli. The brothers clearly don’t care much for each other and they are never seen together (which also leads to some mystery about whether Paul really exists. He does). Paul goes to Daniel to propose an offer for his family’s land, which he claims has oil under it. They make a deal and Daniel heads to the land with HW. They meet Paul’s father and twin brother, Eli, who knows what they’re up to and wants in on the profits. Ultimately, Eli wants funding for the church he’s starting. Later, Daniel uses Eli’s frayed relationship with his brother against him to insult him further.
About midway through the movie, a man claiming to be Daniel’s half-brother (brother from another mother) Henry shows up. Daniel doesn’t trust him at first but eventually they get close, which hurts HW’s feelings. When Daniel sends HW away, Daniel and Henry start running the business together, and Daniel even opens up to his brother a bit. He says, “I see the worst in people. I can’t keep doing this on my own with these ...people” and then gives this sinister laugh. Daniel is even scarier when he’s in touch with his feelings.
Ironically, Daniel didn’t see the worst in Henry and regrets it later. Actually, Henry regrets it because Daniel can’t forgive the dishonesty and murders him. Daniel is not his fake brother’s keeper.
8. The intersection of Capitalism and Religion and the evils of both. This takes place during the Industrial Revolution and we see the cutthroat nature of the oil and railroad industries. The business men are in nice suits and talk in polite, civil tones, but they are still evil. Daniel is just more honest and open with his ruthlessness. He accuses Standard Oil of owning the railroads, and he’s not wrong. Far from the benevolent “job creators” that these “captains of industry” are generally portrayed to be, they are ruthless businessmen who don’t care about their workers or the common man. They are monopolizing two industries, both of which are literally deadly. Rail workers didn’t exactly get insurance. And oil workers had it worse. Daniel breaks his leg. 2 guys die. HW goes deaf. The oil industry involves lots of machinery and lots of big holes with lots of bad things happening in them. Capitalism is portrayed as the brutal, uncaring system it is.
Religion doesn’t come off much better. We see how the two intersect to maintain a system of inequity. Daniel is incredibly (and hilariously) uncomfortable with religion. At certain points, he’s amused by it, other times he’s disgusted by it. He has open contempt for Eli and it is great. However, even before Eli opens his church, Daniel sees the benefit of placating the religious. Wherever he drills, he donates to or helps build churches for the towns. He understands the sense of community it builds and that it keeps the workers happy. On the other side, the churches need the oil money to build and to stay open. When Daniel starts drilling near Eli’s family’s land, they build a temporary tent city near the new oil derricks. Eli tries to and successfully converts the oil workers. Later, Daniel has to concede power and stature to Eli and the church to get what he wants for his business. And of course, Eli then humiliates himself to try to get money for his church from Daniel. Whether it’s in the name of Business or the name of God, the ethics involved are the same: Anything for a buck.
9. Direction. I’m a huge PT Anderson fan. Boogie Nights is classic. Magnolia is one of my favorite movies and one which I can honestly apply the phrase “It changed my life.”
There are like ten scenes in this movie. There are no jump cuts to catch our attention, there are mostly long, uninterrupted tracking shots. We get one continuous perspective of the scene, and that makes the audience feel a part of the action. We see things unfolding as if we are there watching it. Also, the pacing is perfect. There is absolutely no filler. Everything is vital to the story or to character development. There are long, important conversations, followed by quick, brief action sequences, then silent moments focused on something subtle, like the intensity of Daniel’s face. It all serves to keep our attention without any gimmicks.
There are so many powerful, perfectly crafted scenes. One of my favorites is when HW loses his hearing. One of Daniel’s wells strikes oil, and it shoots up violently into the sky. HW is standing on the derrick and gets blasted by the force. The oil is shooting up uncontrollably and it catches fire, so there’s a giant column of oil and fire and smoke, while HW lays almost unconscious near it. This crazy, trippy music starts, as one of the workers rushes to tell Daniel what happened. He starts running toward the derrick, and the camera runs parallel to him. It’s a long, beautiful shot of him running; it’s daytime and the Southern California scenery is moving behind him as he remains in the center of the camera. We see all the other workers frantically running behind him, too. Daniel finally reaches the derrick. HW is deaf. Daniel grabs him, brings him down, and runs all the way back to his cabin with HW in his arms. He sets the boy down and gets back to work. He runs back to the derricks. He starts chopping down the cords that prop up the wooden beams. The men are at work for hours, and the background turns from sunny day to dark night. The fire lights up the pitch black sky as the men continue to fight it. When the derrick falls and they finally contain it, Daniel lets out a smile. They just struck it rich. One of his coworkers asks if the boy will be all right. “No, no he will not,” replies Daniel, stone faced. It’s a big, beautiful, elaborate, emotional, intense scene, and it’s fucking amazing.
In another scene, PT Anderson shows how important subtlety and imagery is to telling a powerful story. After HW is sent away, and after Daniel spends some alone time with his “brother,” he starts contemplating his situation. He is at the beach with Henry. We see them enjoying the clear blue water. Then the camera focuses on Daniel. He is floating in the ocean, we see his head above the water, and his body below the water. He is divided, conflicted. Again, this loud, suspenseful music plays. His dark eyes and his mouth and the distorted view of him and the music make it all feel so sinister. This is supposed to be a celebration! They just made a huge sale! But Daniel isn’t exactly a celebratory kinda guy. He’s also suspicious of Henry because his story is not adding up. After the relaxing day at the beach, Henry wakes up to Daniel with a gun in his face. He knows Henry is not really his brother. He confronts him and finally gets the truth. It seems like he’s contemplating his options, but Daniel goes with the only solution he ever really considered: he shoots him and buries him. Cue the orchestral strings.
10. Subtlety. In addition to Anderson’s expertise and ability to balance the subtle with the elaborate, the actors have the same ability. Before Daniel opens the new oil derrick on Eli’s family’s land, Eli asks to address the people and bless the derrick. Daniel initially agrees, but only to get the deal done and get Eli out of his face. At the opening, Daniel addresses the crowd, and then calls up Eli’s sister, little Mary, to help him bless the derrick. Eli looks on in silent rage. Daniel doesn’t even acknowledge him but he knows exactly what he’s doing. Later, another oil worker dies when a machine part falls on his head (no subtlety there). Eli then visits Daniel and mentions that the guy might not have died if Daniel let him do the blessing. Eli is now subtly jabbing Daniel for his actions, playing on his guilt.
There’s also one scene where Daniel is talking to guys from Standard Oil. He brags about the 3 wells he has, and the way he holds up his 3 fingers and says, “3” is just so perfect and hilarious and menacing. There are so many small moments like that.
11. Over the top ridiculousness. That sounds negative, but I mean it in the best way. When he’s not making small gestures loaded with meaning, Daniel is losing his shit. Honestly, Daniel Day Lewis probably does the best job of mixing subtle with over the top acting that I’ve ever seen. He yells and rages better than anyone, and he also expresses an entire spectrum of emotion with just one eye brow better than anyone. Paul Dano is no slouch, either. Working opposite Daniel could not have been easy, especially for such a young actor. He plays Eli as a mostly sniveling little weasel, albeit one who stands up to Daniel occasionally, but he also breaks into these fiery sermons. He is Pat Robertson on meth. Both he and Daniel have numerous memorable lines, some of which are utterly ridiculous on the face of it, but with their masterful deliveries, the ridiculous lines work. When Eli is preaching, he starts screaming and shaking and sliding around the church. He is screaming at the devil, saying “as long as I have teeth, I will bite you! And if I have no teeth, I will gum you!” What? That’s objectively absurd, but it is meant to show how absurd Eli is, and it succeeds. Anyone in their right mind would not take this guy seriously, and only Daniel seems to understand that. Of course, Daniel has his own ridiculous streak. When he breaks the unfortunate news to Eli that the oil Eli thinks will make him rich is gone, he utters the infamous line, “I drink your milkshake. I drink it up!” It’s silly and ridiculous, but Daniel gives this elaborate production explaining drilling techniques to Eli that really sells the line and turns it into a cruel taunt. The line makes no sense outside of this particular scene, and yet it became a common phrase, splashed across t-shirts and referenced in pop culture endlessly. That’s a damn good line. Even though it’s ridiculous. Or because it’s ridiculous? Either way, it doesn’t matter. It sticks with you, largely because of Daniel’s delivery.
12. Insults. Daniel is a piece of shit, but man, he has the best insults. After HW’s accident and the other oil worker’s death, Eli publicly confronts Daniel about money owed to him. Daniel bitch slaps the shit out of him and knock him to the ground. Then he pulls him by the hair through the mud. Eli is screaming the whole time. Daniel pins him down and sits on his chest. “Can’t you make my son hear again? Aren’t you a healer.” He keeps slapping him. Then he fills Eli’s mouth with mud and tells him, “I’m gonna bury you underground Eli. I’m gonna bury you underground.” I hate to cheer for a bully, but it’s fantastic.
When he is at a business meeting, Standard Oil offers to buy him out. They tell him they’ll make him a millionaire. He asks, “What would I do with myself?” And one replies, “Take care of your son?” That doesn’t go over well. They mention his boy a couple other times, and he’s not having it. This is right after he sent HW away, so he’s a little sensitive. He says, “Did you just tell me how to run my family?” Then he casually tells the guy, “One night, I'm gonna come to you, inside of your house, wherever you're sleeping, and I'm gonna cut your throat.” Jesus.
After HW comes back, Daniel takes him to lunch and runs into the same guy from Standard Oil. He puts a napkin over his face so HW doesn’t know what he’s saying (or because he’s insane) and starts yelling at the guy, bragging about a deal he just made. Then he walks over to the table and asks the guy if he sees his son. “I’m taking care of him now so…you look like a fool, don’t you?” The guy seems to not really know what the hell is going on, but he knows he’s getting chumped. He replies, “Yes.” Daniel excuses himself, drinks the guy’s whiskey, and walks away. Mic drop.
But the absolute best insults are saved for Eli. The bitch slapping scene is great, but the final scene is the stuff legends are made of. Besides the “milkshake” line, every line in the scene is perfect. After getting Eli to humiliate himself, he twists the knife. He tells him, “Your brother was the real prophet” because Paul was the one that first came to Daniel. He says, “you’re just the afterbirth, Eli.” Damn! “You slithered out of your mother’s filth. They should have put you in a glass jar on a mantelpiece.” Fuck! “Where were you when Paul was suckling at his mother's teat? Where were you? Who was nursing you, poor Eli? One of Bandy's sows?” Shit! Just devastating. Then he explains that he has already taken the oil. “Drainage! Drainage, Eli, you boy.” The only thing Daniel is better at than running an oil company and ruining his own personal life is ruining Eli’s life.
13. Parallelism. The themes of brotherhood and fatherhood are paralleled between characters. The themes of capitalism and religion parallel each other. And more specifically, two of the best scenes parallel each other in many ways. They are incredible scenes on their own, but the combination….*chef’s kiss*.
After Daniel kills and buries Henry, he wakes up to see William Bandy, the owner of the one piece of land he hadn’t purchased yet. Daniel wants to build a pipeline through his land. Bandy agrees, if Daniel agrees to be baptized.
Of course, it’s Eli that will baptize him. Eli savors the opportunity and puts on a big show. He really gets into it because he knows Daniel hates it. Eli has finally won. He calls Daniel a sinner. He tells him to get on his knees and accept Jesus. Daniel reluctantly does everything he is told. It’s a really special scene, with two actors at their best. It’s a beautifully shot scene, too. The clean, almost shiny wood of the pews and the bright white background frame the action. Eli tells Daniel to repeat everything he says, and Daniel does, but when he gets to “I have abandoned my child,” it’s too much. Daniel pauses and stutters, but he says it. Again and again, until it feels as if Daniel is no longer just placating Eli. He feels intense guilt for sending HW away. He yells out “I am a sinner. I want the blood…I’ve abandoned my child.” As Eli delays the baptism, drawing out the discomfort, Daniel gets impatient. “Give me the blood lord,” he snaps. Eli slaps him across the face. Daniel smirks and asks for more. The scene is out of control. The holy spirit has taken the wheel. The priest pours water over Daniel. He smirks and mutters, “There’s a pipeline.” Anything. For. A. Buck. He stands and shakes Eli’s hand, staring him down. He walks back to his pew and the whole crowd loves him. Little Mary runs over and hugs him.
Sixteen years later, after Daniel has built an empire but destroyed his relationship with his son, he is passed out in his own bowling alley. It is a similar setting as the church, with the clean, shiny wood of the lanes and the white walls framing the action. He wakes up to find Eli, who tells him that Mr Bandy is dead, and Eli has the rights to his property. Bandy’s son and Eli want Daniel to drill the land for them. Daniel says he’ll do it if Eli admits he’s a false prophet and that god is a superstition. Eli is disgusted by the suggestion but quickly gives in for a shot at making some money because he’s in serious debt. Daniel makes him say it over and over. He tells Eli to say it like one of his sermons. Put his heart into it. After Eli really lets it rip and denounces his life’s work and entire belief system, Daniel tells him the land is worthless because he already took the oil underneath it. He drank Eli’s milkshake. He drank it up! Daniel has proven the fraudulent nature of religion and the dominance of cutthroat capitalism. Eli is defeated, but it’s not good enough for Daniel. He throws bowling balls and pins at Eli and chases him around, eventually “baptizing” him on the head with a pin. He wins again. Capitalism wins. But at what cost? Religion may be a fraud, but what does capitalism offer instead? Death, destruction, the obliteration of family, loneliness.
The butler calls out, “Mr. Daniel?” And Daniel, sitting on the floor next to the body of the man he just murdered, replies, “I’m finished.” Classic closing line to a classic movie.
I Love You All...Class Dismissed.
