There wasn’t anything specific in the diary that caused HW to set fire to the shack. All he really saw was an ad for rifles that had been torn out of a magazine. I’ve never heard anyone speculate what that might have meant to HW. I still don’t even know why he set fire to the shack. Either he figured Henry as a fake (though I can’t see how he even figured why Henry was there in the first place. He didn’t read lips and didn’t know anything about the “I’m your brother” conversation) or he just didn’t like him. Either way, setting fire to the shack was a dangerous thing to do. Even if he killed Henry, he could have also killed his father, and that makes no sense either, since HW and Plainview loved each other. HW might have been angry that Plainview left him to go tend to the fire, but he’s a smart kid, I think he understood why Plainview had to leave.
One interesting bit about reading the diary, he was holding it upside down, which was a good tipoff that HW couldn’t read. After the first time I saw it I had wondered why they didn’t just write notes back and forth, but it makes sense if HW couldn’t read or write.
I got the feeling that Plainview’s feelings for H.W. were more than a bit like the title character in Dexter who said (I think in the first episode) “If I were capable of love, I would love her the most”. I don’t think Plainview does love H.W. so much as he wants to love someone.
Did anybody else think his affection towards Mary Sunday (when she’s an adolescent) was a bit on the ‘overly affectionate’ side? He’s never seen with a grown woman in the entire movie and has no problem in church saying “I’ve lusted after women” since he’s acting anyway and there’s no evidence he has lusted; only the “I abandoned my son” hits home in the least.
I haven’t seen Dexter, but that’s a good quote and I think would work well with Plainview. I do believe he loved HW, but he just wasn’t very good at it.
Regarding Mary, it could be seen as kinda creepy, but it didn’t strike me that way. I think he was truly upset that Abel was hitting her. I loved how he was warning Abel to keep his fists to himself while talking to Mary, repeating “No more hitting” to Mary, with Abel sitting right there. I get the idea that Plainview was hit a lot while growing up. There are other clues that he didn’t get along with his father and that might be a reason. The movie was very careful to stay away from the “he was an abused child” to explain Plainview, but it works for me.
About women, I remember reading somewhere that Plainview was impotent. Perhaps someone was quoting the script? (which I still haven’t read). There’s at least one clue that Plainview used to go out with girls as a younger man, when Henry says “We could get some food, and some women” and Plainview says “take them to the Peachtree Dance…I said get them liquored up and take them to the Peachtree Dance” which was also the point where he realized that Henry wasn’t his brother.
Maybe his accident left him impotent. It also could cause his drinking. (If I’m not mistaken, most of the treatments for back injury in 1898 were probably worse than ignoring the injury.)
The Peachtree Dance statement was one where you almost wanted to tell Henry “Dude… just grin, look lascivious, and say ‘Peachtree Dance’ in a suggestive voice.” (I totally didn’t recognize the actor from The Mummy and Steel Magnolias in that role, incidentally.)
I know! He’d been playing along so well up until then. A smarter person would have realized that the “Peachtree Dance” had to have been a pretty big deal in a small town like Fon du Lac, generating anticipation for months prior and lots of anecdotes for months/years after. A mild “yeah” would not suffice.
Who did he play in Steel Magnolias? It’s been so long since I’ve seen The Mummy that I wouldn’t remember even if you told me.
Darryl Hannah’s boyfriend (later husband). He also played the sleazy assistant who becomes The Mummy’s slave and had one of the most memorable scenes in the movie (holding up a crucifix and praying to ward off the mummy, then a Buddhist emblem and those from other religions with prayers in each language until finally a star of David and praying in Hebrew gives the Mummy an idea.)
Speaking of John Huston and Pentecostal ministers, this movie reminded me a lot of Huston’s film of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood (and of O’Connor in general to some degree, if she’d been nihilist instead of Catholic). There’s an old cliche that “depression is 20/20 vision” and I think that’s a key to understanding Plainview, if there is a key to understanding him. I think it greatly helped the movie that you know nothing of his past save what he lets you know; to give his background probably wouldn’t explain him that much anyway (he was probably always much like he is at the beginning of the movie, a misanthropic solipsist opportunist who realizes he’s more intelligent than most people and has little compassion for them- we’ve all known those people) and would risk “Hannibalizing” him (the gerund from the way Hannibal Lecter was destroyed as a great villain when he was “explained”).
I didn’t realize until I wiki’d Sinclair’s Oil how loosely the film is based upon it- hardly at all really. That said, you make your own ending as to whether or not he gets away with murder (in 1927, I mean), or to explain why he goes from living in a shack in his fields to a rambling posh mansion (presumably in L.A.- does it say?) at some point even though he’s never seemed to care about luxury before (just space).
One thing I didn’t quite get: is he paying the people of Little Boston royalties for their oil wells, or just buying their mineral rights outright? I know his deal with the Sundays was different since it was the first, but I’m talking about the ones after they learned he was an oil man.
Any idea how long it takes for an average oil well to run dry? I was curious how many of his wells in Little Boston would still have been “pumping… pumping… pumping…”* 16 years later.
*Campy SUNSET BLVD reference- Norma Desmond discussing her fortune says “I have oil in Bakersfield… pumping… pumping… pumping…”
(I think that was Equipoise–forgive me, I’m in Lynx and it ain’t
real easy to tell.)
A couple of possibilities spring to mind:
He’s obviously stopped being so hands-on with his business, so he gets
a huge mansion to keep from going stir-crazy
He realizes that he’s rich and everyone else is poor (of course, we
don’t know if the Depression had already started by the time he bought
the mansion), and that owning a mansion is a good way to maintain his
obvious superiority over everyone else
Hell, it’s just plain cinematic–the milkshake thing and the final
blow wouldn’t have been the same in an apartment or a ranch home.
I got the feeling throughout the film that H.W. was very, very good at reading people, and that Plainview was aware of it. In the scenes when the two of them first get to Eli’s house in Little Boston, there are a lot of silent exchanges between H.W. and Plainview that gave me the impression that Plainview trusted H.W.'s impressions of people. I was not at all surprised by what I thought was H.W.'s distrust of the “brother,” but was shocked that Plainview didn’t seem to catch on.
(teach me to have tons of windows open, including 5 or 6 of The Straight Dope. This sat in Preview for two days. I thought I’d posted it.)
Ah thanks. I need to see Steel Magnolias again. I love that movie and it’s been far too long. I don’t know that I’m up to seeing The Mummy again just to find Kevin, but if I come across it I’ll look for him.
I saw Wise Blood years ago. What a disturbing movie! I’ll bet Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis watched it too. Dano himself only had 4 days to prepare for the role and he said he didn’t do much research. No time, plus he wanted to bring his own take on the character. After all, Eli was isolated in Little Boston and probably wouldn’t have seen a whole lot of other evangelical preachers. Since this was set in 1911, it would be almost as if other preachers got inspiration from and built on Eli Sunday (does that make sense, considering that Eli is a fictional character?) especially after he went on the radio. I’m going to need to read Oil! at some point, even though only the first part of the book went along with the movie. I don’t even know if the character of Eli Sunday is in the book, since I do know that the book is more concerned with H.W. and politics (and, I’ve heard, Hollywood back then).
That’s funny, “if O’Connor had been a nihilist instead of Catholic.” Good one.
I like that “depression is 20/20 vision” quote. My god, that could be my motto. I agree with the rest of what you say. I too was glad that the movie didn’t try to explain Plainview, though hints were dropped, which makes him even more interesting to me.
This is going to mark me as a bad bad person, but I almost hope he did get away with it. I assume not. The fallout just wasn’t shown (butler realizes what it is he’s seeing and what’s happened, runs to ring the police, police come to take Plainview away, Plainview is tried and convicted, sentenced and jailed, the media has a field day, HW comes back and takes over the family business). But sometimes I can’t help but think of a difference scenario (butler realizes what he’s seeing and what’s happened, goes to fetch Fletcher Hamilton who is still loyal to his boss and starts the cleanup/disposal of Eli’s body, swears the butler to secrecy which wouldn’t be a problem because the butler is also loyal to Plainview, Eli’s car is taken and disappeared in a bog somewhere…but then, what happens to Plainview? That’s where it gets murky. The loyal-employees-clean-up-the-mess-and-cover-up doesn’t fit with the Tragedy of Plainview’s life. He has to pay for what he did. To have it covered up would just leave him in the same spot as before. I don’t know.)
It doesn’t say where, though earlier when Plainview was talking to Henry about a house he liked back in Fond du Lac he said he might build a house near the ocean. That conversation held a lot of clues beyond Henry’s betrayal. Plainview had a favorite house as a child, one he wanted to live in, clean, raise children in, but that if he saw the house now it’d make him sick. I took that to mean that the house was actually small (things look bigger when you’re a kid) and he’d prefer a mansion. He didn’t care about luxury but he wanted a big house where he could get away from everybody. Who doesn’t want a living room to do target practice in? Ok, maybe no one besides Plainview.
The elder Doheny is one of the inspirations for Oil! and There Will Be Blood. He’s even from Fond du Lac (I keep spelling that wrong in other posts, forgetting the “d”)
I believe he bought up all the land outright (the scene with the real estate man: “Can everything around here be got?” and the scene with him later “Why don’t I own this?” regarding Bandy’s tract). It never says, but I just assumed he either didn’t buy the land directly under these people’s houses, or he just let them stay there. There had to be a town and people to populate it, and people to work the farms. I don’t know how it worked/works in real life and the movie doesn’t explain that I caught.
Nice Sunset Blvd. reference! I don’t know how long it takes for a well to run dry. Asimovian, I think you’re absolutely right. HW was good at reading people so if he caught on, the fire was a cry for attention? Because a fire that killed Henry could also have killed his father. Your impression also gives a clue as to how much Plainview needed family, wanted to have a brother, that his normal savvy was turned off.
The Kern River field was discovered in 1899 and is still producing today, albeit with tricks unknown in the 20s like steam injection. The first well was abandoned in 1996 so wells still producing sixteen years later is no stretch at all.
There was an anachronism that took me out of the movie for a moment. Daniel mentioned in 1911 having a well at Signal Hill. “Wait a minute,” I thought to myself. “Wasn’t that later?” Not being sure, and it being irrelevant, I immersed back into the movie, but I was right – 1921 Wiki says. Maybe it was a reference in Oil! that nobody bothered to vet.
Like I said back in post #36, great cinematography, great costume and set work, and a great performance by Daniel Day Lewis, but that’s all the credit I’ll give it.
To answer the question, no. They gave There Will Be Blood 8 Academy Award nominations. It won two of the most important, Cinematography and Best Actor. It lost the other two most important awards, Directing and Picture to another classic, No Country For Old Men. It was a great night at the Academy Awards.
I think Daniel Day-Lewis was great and deserving of the Oscar, but his performance didn’t save a truly boring movie. I might liked it better if they’d shaved 45 minutes off it, but other than that, I thought it was a real let-down. I loved the score, though. Different and very effective.
Finally got to the theater to see this tonight, and thought the movie was outstanding.
But the one thing i really *didn’t * like about it was the score. It was great in places, but at other times it was far too intrusive, far too predictive of the action, and overall just far too obvious, especially in the first hour of the movie. It settled down fine after that, but in the early scenes i found it quite grating. Two friends who saw it with me said exactly the same thing. But then, maybe No Country for Old Men spoiled me; i love the extended silences in that movie.
Day-Lewis was incredible. Not only was it an amazing performance, but the guy was in just about every damn scene in the whole movie. It was sustained brilliance.
I wanted No Country for Old Men to win the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director, and now that i’ve seen There Will Be Blood i still feel the same way. It just didn’t grip me in quite the same way that the Coen brothers’ film did; i didn’t find it quite as compelling, despite its excellence. In plenty of other years, it would have walked away with just about all the major awards. Except, of course, best actress. There was hardly a woman to be seen, except as background.
