Saturday, January 12, 2008

Since you're probably tired of linking over to this thing and seeing Richard Mulligan (RIP) and his Empty Nest "I'm not comfortable with the men my daughters are seeing" look, I will say that last night I saw There Will Be Blood, and it's pretty fucking incredible. I don't normally like overtly serious American films, but PT Anderson's films encompass enough of the range of humanity that can come through the screen- frailty, vulnerability, delusion, among many other things- to pull off a film like this. And then there's Daniel Day Lewis, whose character is almost like this half-corporeal essence glaring out of the film at you. The more an actor can do with little- facial expression, posture, a menacing gait, annunciation- says something about what makes them worth watching, no? Something I've noticed about PT Anderson is that his films can be both as austere as Kubrick and as open and allowable to human frailty as Cassevetes. It's always kind of a jarring juxtaposition, but jarring in a good way. I guess I'm thinking here of Magnolia which I heard accurately described as something like a huge, messy, flowering of a film where everyone ends up covered in frog blood but also of this film. And one of the amazing things about TWBB is that, unlike Magnolia's glorious messiness, there's nothing I can think of that's wrong with TWBB. I might have to see it again, after that I might not think it's an absolutely perfect film, but for now that's how I feel.

2 comments:

Robert J. said...

wow. coupled with our conversation a few weeks ago at the P.Falcon, i remain surprised at how much you enjoy Anderson's films. i mean, i love them all to a one, but i'm emo.

Mike Hauser said...

Are you saying that PT Anderson's films are emo and thus it's surprising that I like them? Huh? But yeah I like em all too.