There Will be Blood from Jesse James in a Country Unsuited for Old Men

I may be behind the curve in making this post, but last night I finally finished the trilogy of 2007’s macho Oscar contenders. They are so similar in content and style that you could easily mesh them all together into one Gone With the Wind-esque opus, or a mini-series about violence and American culture.

1. No Country for Old Men

The Coen Brothers are by far my favorite directors, and this is not even close to their best work. (It isn’t their work at all, in fact, rather an adaptation of a novel.) I had planned to see it for months but never got to until it was re-released after winning the award for Best Picture. After leaving the theater, I felt heavy. Not heavy in the I just ate Chilis kind of way, but heavy as in the feeling like life just wallopped me in the gut. To say that No Country is dark is to say that the Austrian incestor is eccentric. Personally I felt that the sleep-deprived killer represented a force of nature, rather than a man himself. He wears all black and kills pretty much everyone he comes into contact with. At the end, we are reminded by a weary Tommy Lee Jones that after this life, our father will be waiting for us ahead. It’s a poignant ending, but not enough to override the previous 2 hours of nihilistic slaughter. Out of the three, I rate No Country the lowest. (Which doesn’t mean it’s not amazing.)

2. The Assassination of Jesse James

At times the narration accompanying the action is a distraction; and you get the feeling you’re watching a PBS special on the life of rather than a big screen adaptation. However, the monotone voiceover does little to dull the thrill that this cat-and-mouse story provides. Robert Ford and Jesse James (both played extremely well) are entangled in a web of jealousy, cunning, and brutality that will keep you engaged so long as you have a pulse. The legacy of our obsession with outlaws comes out into the light here; even to this day Jesse James is canonized on the same level as a Thomas Jefferson or Abe Lincoln. Brad Pitt is able to capture a sad sense of invulnerability, and even as both he and the audience knows what’s coming, we can’t help but watch.

3. There Will Be Blood

Mesmerizing. There was little chance that Daniel Day Lewis’ performance could live up to the hype that the media generated, and yet that’s exactly what he did. After the viewing, my girlfriend and I discussed the possibility of Eli Sunday and his brother Paul being the same person; a split personality. Ordinarily such ambiguity would sour my opinion of any story, but There Will be Blood is so rich that either possibility wouldn’t take anything away from the film. When we had settled the issue (is there anything Yahoo answers can’t solve) I started imitating Daniel.

“I will drink your orange juice.”

Such is the level of brilliance in the performance that despite being completely horrified by the man, his words, and his actions, you’re tempted to want to BE him.

It’s so much deeper than just one incredible performance. (Three, if you count H.W. and Eli.) There Will be Blood is an examination of the two faces of America: greed and religion. No time except the present was a better example of the conflict between the two than the golden age of industrialism. Try as we might, they are of course, incompatible. At first I was upset by the clear victory for capitalism in the person of Daniel over the admittedly hypocritical Christian Eli; but then I realized that this was a true story. In America, oil has conquered the blood. Though we still pretend that worshipping both the dollar and the cross represents no conflict of interest, for the time being, the dollar has won.

I think Paul Thomas Anderson is due for a make-up Oscar.