Perceptions from a Pewboy

On Presidents’ Day, Tara and I treated ourselves to a double feature of “There Will Be Blood” and “No Country for Old Men.” We are still recovering from the experience!

“There Will Be Blood” (based upon Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel “Oil”) is a story about the oil industry and its place in America during the early twentieth century. Director Paul Thomas Anderson, who revealed his flair for creating and maintaining a sense of cinematic foreboding in “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia,” puts that flair to exceptional use in “There Will Be Blood.” The film is relentless in its intensity, seductive in its measured pace, and daring in the emotional demands that it places upon its audience. Illuminating both capitalistic greed and Pentecostal fervor (and the surprising similarities between them), the film raises significant and, at times, disturbing questions concerning the impulses that motivate us and the narratives by which we define our lives.

“There Will Be Blood” never loses it focus upon the journey of its main character, a cunning oil man by the name of Daniel Plainview (brought to life with brilliance by Daniel Day Lewis). His name, as one might imagine in a film of this caliber, is not at all random. In Hebrew, “Daniel” can mean either “God is my judge” or “he will judge.” The double meaning is worth noting. Daniel Plainview lives his life without accountability to any other human soul, as though his governing conviction were that God, if such a deity even exists, is the only judge that he will recognize. Such a conviction, however, does not prevent Daniel from claiming the role of judge over the people who impede his advancement. Daniel (or “he will judge”) is his own deity in that regard. His wrath is swift and often violent.

“Plainview” is an appropriate surname for Daniel. The name itself is a linguistic reminder of the clearness and unequivocalness of its owner’s vision. Daniel himself puts it this way: “I see the worst in people. I don’t need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I’ve built my hatreds up over the years.” To be in plain view of Daniel Plainview, in other words, is to have already earned his hatred. His frightening sense of vision is just that unwavering and just that plain.

The only competition for Daniel’s sovereignty is the Pentecostal avidity of the Church of the Third Revelation and the manipulative ministry of its pastor, Eli Sunday. Eli and Daniel are locked in a bitter power struggle for the ownership of souls. Daniel’s weapon of choice is his own insatiable greed and its ability to enkindle the greed of common folk. Eli’s weapon, by contrast, is the blood of Jesus, held over the heads of his flock and dispensed only with his permission. Therein is the film’s most compelling achievement: It places the oil industry and the church side by side and allows the comparisons to speak for themselves. According to “There Will Be Blood,” both oil and the blood of Jesus can be siphoned in ways that exploit the weak and the marginalized.

The film’s title, not surprisingly, has multiple meanings. “There Will Be Blood,” in one sense, is an obvious threat of violence from the lips of Daniel Plainview. It is also a metaphorical reference to oil itself, which became the “lifeblood” of many in that portion of America’s history. As a christological expression, however, “There Will Be Blood” points to the inescapable human need for atonement—a need shared by oil men and preachers alike.

As if “There Will Be Blood” did not provide enough cinematic intensity for us, we wandered into “No Country for Old Men” with some fresh popcorn and a large diet Coke (a eucharistic meal in the sanctuary of the cinema).

I will acknowledge my bias at the outset. I am a huge fan of the Coen brothers. “The Big Lebowski” is one of my favorite comedies. I can’t bypass “Fargo” in my channel surfing without spending some time with that wonderfully creative piece of work. “Barton Fink,” “The Hudsucker Proxy,” and “Raising Arizona” should be required viewing for anyone who wants to understand how artistic balance can be achieved between comedic absurdity and social commentary.

All of these films (along with “O Brother, Where Art Thou,” “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” and “Blood Simple”) are important bricks in the road that leads to “No Country for Old Men.” The Coen brothers’ adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name is an enormously mature triumph. For my money, it is the best film of the year.

Tommy Lee Jones offers a performance that is brilliant in its minimalism. His character, Ed Tom Bell, is an aging Texas lawman on the brink of retirement. He has a passion for the law but has become weary in a culture that he can no longer navigate—a culture in which crimes no longer require motives, in which the line between good guys and bad guys is sometimes indistinguishable, and in which an old school pursuit of justice is looked upon as an antiquated ideal from a bygone age.

Bell (Jones) finds himself pulled into the messy aftermath of a drug deal gone horribly wrong. Part of that aftermath is a case full of money (a couple of million dollars) taken from the scene of the crime by a hapless local by the name of Llewelyn Moss (played with noteworthy earnestness by Josh Brolin). Llewelyn makes the mistake of believing that the money is his quick way out of mediocrity and that he can take it without consequence. He could not have been more wrong.

Chasing after the money is a professional killer named Anton Chigurh (played by Javier Bardem) whose specialty is retrieving lost goods and eliminating all loose ends in violent fashion. All three men, Bell, Llewelyn, and Anton, attempt to make sense of this country in different ways: Bell through an adherence to a system of justice that is no longer valued; Llewelyn through a system of self-advancement that is morally ambiguous at best; and Anton through a system of violence in which he can never afford to leave anyone alive. They are linked by a relentless sense of mission and by the intersection of their differing paths.

I would be remiss if I did not highlight the dark beauty of Bardem’s performance. His Anton is nothing short of horrifying in his cold-heartedness. He has the bloodlust of a Hannibal Lecter, the coin-flipping flippancy of a Harvey Dent (from the Batman narrative), and the unwavering commitment of “Seven’s” John Doe. What makes us care about him, however, is his strange sense of honor. For Anton, killing is not simply about committing murder. As he sees it, it is about being true to his distorted sense of calling and fulfilling his dark obligations. He has become so devoted to killing that it is impossible for him to envision a life without it.

“No Country for Old Men” creates an experience in which all of our artistic presuppositions concerning how movies are supposed to work can be checked at the door. In the world of this film, good guys don’t always win the day, protagonists are often unceremoniously and violently eliminated, and sometimes a story simply ends without a moral. What kind of country is that for old men who have been raised to believe in the Enlightenment idea that humankind is getting progressively better?

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