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- [00:16]
A
I'm Sean Fennesee.
- [00:17]
B
I'm Amanda Davis.
- [00:18]
A
And this is 25 for 25, a big picture special conversation show about There Will Be Blood and I have abandoned my child. We're going to talk about why this masterpiece from Paul Thomas Anderson starring Daniel Day Lewis, Paul Dano, Kieran Hines, a great number of other wonderful actors is going to be on our list right after this.
- [00:41]
B
This episode of the Big Picture is presented by Amazon Prime. You know how in every great holiday movie there's that last minute scramble to make it all come together. From gifts to hosting essentials. Prime's fast shipping is always there for you during the holidays, especially when it's last minute and just can't wait. So if you need fast free delivery that saves the day, it's on Prime. Head to Amazon.comprime to shop now.
- [01:04]
A
Okay.
- [01:06]
B
Well, here it is.
- [01:07]
A
It's the Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Yeah, we've been waiting a long time. It's not number one.
- [01:12]
B
Listen, it's not. It's not. It was never going to be.
- [01:18]
A
Are we sure about that?
- [01:19]
B
Are we sure about that? I'm sure about that.
- [01:21]
A
Okay.
- [01:22]
B
And I think that most people who have engaged in the sport of guessing what the final movies on this list would be and the order in which they would be arranged.
- [01:34]
A
Yes, They've been saying number two, There will be blood. Number one, boss baby.
- [01:37]
B
Yes. They have figured out that there is a different number one. And I guess close observers of the show will understand that this is a list between us. And so this is, you know, this got bumped up from three to two In a different world. It could be number one. Maybe on your list it would be number one. But this is a collective list.
- [02:01]
A
It is.
- [02:01]
B
I do also want to reiterate, as we have said for the past 10 to 15 to 25 episodes, we have like past the point of numbers, you know, we are beyond rankings. Yes. We are just here swimming in pure cinema.
- [02:17]
A
This is vibes. These are only vibes. There's no greater vibe than There Will Be Blood. To me, if this were my list alone, this would be my number one. This is to me the absolute pinnacle of 21st century filmmaking. Great many reasons for that and we can talk about them here. Today. This film is shot as many of the PTA movies from this period were by Robert Elswit. The music is by Johnny Greenwood. It was a modest financial success. It made $76 million on a $25 million budget. It came after a long period off for PTA. He took a five year gap between Punch Drunk Love and this film. And you can see it as a kind of evolution, a change in tone and style that I think kind of carries through today to the film that he released this year. Couple of data points on this movie. It is sort of based on oil by Upton Sinclair, a novel about the rise of the oil baron and oil proliferation in this country. Paul Dano originally only supposed to have a small part in this movie, which I think is very notable for a variety of reasons we will talk about in this episode. But he was just supposed to play Paul Sunday, the character we see early in the film. And the two brothers were not meant to be twins. And after the actor Kel o' Neill was fired from the movie, Dano slid into both roles. Pretty critical twist of fate there, I would say. I'm not saying the movie would have been unsuccessful if that had not happened, but I do think we see it a little bit differently.
- [03:43]
B
Yeah.
- [03:45]
A
Dano had four days to prepare for the role of Eli. That sounds hard because he's playing an evangelical preacher opposite Daniel Day Lewis.
- [03:52]
B
They are different characters. There are a lot of words in those speeches.
- [03:55]
A
Yes. Dylan Frazier, the young boy who plays H.W. plainview. Daniel Plainview, the oil barron's young son, not a professional actor, plucked out of a Texas school, never acted again. This is the only time he's ever been on screen, which is fascinating. The movie itself. I think most people listening know the story, but I'll share the shape of it just in case you have. If you haven't seen There Will Be Blood, I cannot believe you listened to this show. Candidly ruthless silver miner turned oil prospector, Daniel Plainview moves to oil rich California. Using his adopted son H.W. to project a trustworthy family man image, Plainview cons local landowners into selling him their valuable properties for a pittance. However, local preacher Eli Sunday suspects Plainview's motives and intentions. Starts a slow burning feud that threatens both their lives.
- [04:42]
B
Mm.
- [04:45]
A
So there's the obvious stuff about why this movie is considered a masterpiece and a thematic well full of black gold. Like there is a lot of pun intended. Yes. There is a lot of seepage on the surface. Right. There is these two twin powers of the idea of America. There's money and industry and then there's God and religion and the clash.
- [05:09]
B
Yes.
- [05:09]
A
And I like those things about the movie. I think they're well drawn. I think they're properly over dramatic, you know, big, grand at times silly and preposterous. It's not my favorite thing about the movie. And I don't think it's the thing that distinguishes the movie, but you need something this big, I think, to leaven it with all of the other things that make the movie so enjoyable, in my opinion.
- [05:36]
B
Yes, it's taking on. I mean, this is Paul Thomas Anderton's capital. I like important movie. And it is taking on the themes of, you know, America and capitalism and ambition and fathers and sons that and, you know, California and like everything that is potent in his work, but also in, quote, unquote, important film history. The legends loom large in, like, in this setting and in this movie. And it's a direct, not even response, but it is Paul Thomas Anderson cannibalizing all that came before him and making his own version of it. And so it needs to not just wear the clothes of everything that came before it, but hit all the notes of great cinema for it then to be able to tweak it in all of the ways that Paul Thomas Anderson does and to make this movie not just, you know, a grand treatise on, you know, ambition in America and money, but also just a, like, really discomfiting, like, fucked up gets under your skin movie about, like, a person and maybe a person who lurks in all of us, but also like, maybe a person who doesn't. And there is, you know, whether you respond like there's. There's an alienation to it that I think is a very powerful part of the film as well. But it has to be weird for. And it is weird. Despite being in the grand Western tradition.
- [07:19]
A
That's right. I think it has a lot of hallmarks of those kind of settler town Westerns and those big, important period films about the evolution of something critical to the country. But it also is basically a gothic horror film and a comedy and him very comfortably mashing those things up. I think you're right. I think he's ingesting John Ford and D.W. griffith and John Huston and Terrence Malick and Michael Cimino. All those directors and the vision of America that they had, the way that they saw the west, is a part of this. But I don't feel their tone or their sense of characterization in the same way. I think it's very different. I think there is something simultaneously very funny and very malevolent in this movie. There's like a real darkness. One thing that struck me last night, though, if we're just staying on some of the heavy theme stuff. I'm not sure if I personally ever read this movie as a post 911 movie, but I think it makes a lot of sense in that context by making an oil movie while we're entrenched in all of these foreign wars in the aftermath of 9 11. And I'm not sure how much of that was Anderson's intention when he was putting the movie together, but his previous four films before this are all either relatively recent history or contemporarily set California, Louisiana, family stories. And this movie is much bigger, much more politicized, much more potently politicized about systems. You know, like Boogie Nights kind of is a system movie, but it's all. It's like this much, much more of like a clubhouse family movie. And so it's interesting because he's like, in the first. Through those first four films, he was so garrulous in interviews, and he would talk so much about his movies and his intentions and what he was thinking.
- [09:10]
B
Right.
- [09:11]
A
And he kind of just stopped explaining himself when this movie came around. And so I think it lends itself to a lot of interpretation. And I do think there's something about oil being this, like, the ultimate corrupting force in the history of the country, that in terms of its modernization and in terms of the rise of a specific kind of capitalism throughout US History, there is a long history of socialism in certain segments of the population. And once this starts to happen at the turn of the 20th century, a lot of that stuff starts to get scrubbed out of our society. And so I don't think that that is necessarily the overarching point of the movie, but I do see it in a slightly different way than when I saw it in 2007, where I was just so swept up in the. In the grandeur, in the majesty. And, like, great movies can withstand this kind of thing, you know, where you're like, look at it from a slightly different person. Even when I. When we did the Rewatchables episode about it a couple of years ago, I wasn't really thinking about it that way. And maybe I see it a little bit differently in the light of day.
- [10:11]
B
I mean, do you think that it has anything to do with the fact that the last movie on our list was 25th hour and is, you know, the 911 movie and in question. And we are thinking about, without spoiling, the last movie, though, if you've been paying attention, you can guess it. You know, we've been thinking about them as a trilogy about our country and about America. And this, again, this is a very American list. We are children of Hollywood in the 80s and 90s. Like, we're sorry we're sorry both for that.
- [10:40]
A
I'm not sorry.
- [10:41]
B
I'm sorry for America. Let me just put that out there right now. Yeah, you know, I think it was.
- [10:46]
A
I would say that we had, like, half intentionality, but also just half kind of assumed intent around this trilogy of movies. And this is the movie about the past, right? This is a movie about the original sins and how we kind of got to where we got. And we saw 25th hour as the kind of like the contemporary version of it when we were coming of age in New York at a certain time in our lives. And then the next film will be about the future, but. And it. And It's Blade Runner 2049.
- [11:15]
B
Dennis makes the cut.
- [11:17]
A
Congratulations to him.
- [11:19]
C
This episode is brought to you by Viori. Look, I'm not a big let's hype up workout clothes guy, but Vuori, I gotta say, total game changer. Been wearing a lot. If you see me power walking around Los Angeles, probably gonna see me wearing some Viori Sunday performance joggers that they have. It's made with four way performance stretch fabric, one of the most comfortable things you own. You will wear them everywhere, I promise. All you have to do is go to Vuori.com Simmons and you get 20% off your first purchase with Vuori. V u O-R-I.com Simmons. Enjoy. Free shipping on all US orders over $75, plus free returns. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions.
- [12:01]
A
It's a really fun movie to kind of pick over because the story of America is unsettled. You know, like a movie that wants to be this big can handle it.
- [12:13]
B
But, I mean, it is a movie about America's past, but it is, you know, forever applicable.
- [12:20]
A
Well, you said something interesting when you said that this man who's in the movie, Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day Lewis, who is this incredibly shrewd, evil, highly ambitious and accomplished oil magnate that they're like, we. Maybe he's inside of us. Or maybe he's like. To me, he's more like. He is the American character. You know, that's the thing of, like, you're kind of. You're preached this, you know, unrelenting drive to succeed, to grow, to do more, to encroach upon literally more and more space in the world.
- [12:56]
B
Yeah, well, you are the American man. Is. Which I do think, you know, there is. This is a very, very male movie.
- [13:02]
A
What about the CEOs, what about the girl bosses? Are they not encouraged to do the same?
- [13:08]
B
Yeah, with like 40 years too late, you know, and then, and then as soon as anyone read their slack messages, we got told to go away again.
- [13:16]
A
Yes. Not a lot of women in this film. No, it's not something. But you know what? Probably accurate to the setting.
- [13:23]
B
I'm not saying it's a very male movie as a critique, but I do experience it as a, like, you know, I, I don't, I don't watch this embodiment of the American ideal and think like, yeah, that's what I like was taught to be. And maybe some of that is, you know, socio political of, you know, my gender and time and, and some of that is just me being like, that's. That, that's a little much like, calm down, sir.
- [13:50]
A
Yeah, but. But I mean, he's a rageful, murderous psychopath.
- [13:54]
B
Well, not at the beginning.
- [13:56]
A
Well, we don't know. That's part of, that's part of the ingenious design of the movie. And we've been having conversations over the last five years about horror movies in particular and the way in which they feel the need to explain the events that will take us to this point. And one thing that I find so rich about Daniel Plainview is we don't get a flashback where he gets bullied at nine years old, or we see that he's a closeted gay kid and he can't express himself so he has to take it out on the world. Or we. There are all these different ways you could be, well, this is why Plainview is the way that he is. The movie is not interested in that. That would be a little bit too simple for a movie that I think has this kind of ambition in terms of what it's trying to communicate about its characters in the world at large. I really like that about it.
- [14:41]
B
I do as well.
- [14:41]
A
I really like that it doesn't. And in Paul Thomas Anderson's head, he may know everything. Or in Daniel Day Lewis head, when he was preparing the character, he may have his idea of what it was. And the movie even gives us moments where characters talk about the past. You know, when he says, like, I was working at geological research in Kansas and I had to get out of there and I don't like to explain myself. And then he stops talking. And it's one of the only times we really hear about his past in the movie. I like the idea of, you know, Lucifer just kind of landed on this country.
- [15:15]
B
And though, I mean, I do as well, and I really, really appreciate the lack of explanation or really, I mean, that's just a responsive Critique Right. To five, 10 years. Not just in horror movies, of us having to watch, like, the flashback, original trauma scene. And we're like, mm, yes, it's very sad. Your dad was, like, mean to you. And I'm. I'm pretty sure that Daniel Plainview's dad was mean to him based on everything I've seen in the film. But I don't need that shown to me.
- [15:43]
A
One assumes I don't need to. Literally, his dad was really cool. Just like. And he just wanted to be Daniel's friend.
- [15:50]
B
Yeah.
- [15:50]
A
You know, and he was just like, you want to go surfing?
- [15:52]
B
Right.
- [15:53]
A
You know, but.
- [15:54]
B
So when I was rewatching last night, I did. Well, can we. We'll come back to surfing in a second. I was watching the scene of him on the train with the. With the baby in the basket, and the baby is just grabbing at his facial hair. And there is a. I was like, is he evil right now? There is something very tender about that moment.
- [16:18]
A
Yes.
- [16:19]
B
And very. And to me, is meant to lay the foundation of that this character feels something for this child. And there are a few other moments like that that, to me, suggest that it's not, you know, deus ex or, like, Lucifer ex machina that. Well, but, you know, that's my interpretation, based on watching it last night and wondering about it.
- [16:42]
A
I think there's no doubt that Daniel Plainview has love for hw, his adopted son. That he shows him affection in a way he shows no other person. That the only time he shows affection to another person is Mary, because HW shows affection for Mary. And so the only person that he really has time for emotionally is his son. So it's not that he is Satan himself. I shouldn't say that. But I think what that's meant to show us is just how corrupting this level of power and wealth is, that he ultimately rejects his son and loses his son. And that even though that love that he feels for him is not enough to sustain this just deeply disturbed and angry person. And I think that's pretty powerful because one hw. Adorable.
- [17:27]
B
You know, I mean, heartbreaking.
- [17:29]
A
Really cute character. Yeah.
- [17:30]
B
It's funny that you find this a funny movie. Cause I find all of the HW stuff so upsetting that I just, Like, I can't laugh throughout any of it. Like, I. Not. Not once.
- [17:40]
A
Yeah, yeah. No, I burst into tears last night. The scene when HW is on the derrick and it explodes with the gas, and then it leads to the fire, which is just truly one of the most extraordinary set pieces in Movie history. I do not understand how they made that work. They built that from the ground up. There's tremendous effects work in that scene, but when you see that it's HW who's the one who's blown off. And then the sound cuts out of the film and we. We know pretty quickly that HW has lost his hearing. And eventually his father retrieves him and carries him back to the mess hall and he lays him down and he's trying to communicate with him and he can't hear. And he says, I can't hear my voice. And then when he gets up to leave, to go look at the derrick, and he says, don't leave. Don't go. That's crushing. But I think that's the. That is the sign, ultimately, that what's most important to him is outside that it's what HW is not the most important.
- [18:33]
B
Like, he. Yeah. Or he, like, makes the choice in that moment.
- [18:36]
A
Yes. And to me, that's, like, great thematic storytelling that. That is without explaining, like, I need to go see my. Well, you know, like.
- [18:42]
B
Yeah.
- [18:43]
A
It's much more about what the characters are doing without discussing it and showing us where their priorities ultimately lie. I find PTA to be extremely good at this in his movies, of using character action to explore and explain how they're feeling and what they're motivated by. Yeah. So I do think that the movie is very emotional. And you're right, Plainview is not pure evil, but he's like a vessel for what can happen.
- [19:05]
B
Right. And that's the moment of him turning, and he keeps turning. You know, you wrote that you're also very affected, as am I, by the scene of Daniel leaving HW on the train when he goes off to school. And it's like. And it mirrors the shot of them arriving in Little Boston where you are on the train and watching them drive through the town. And then this time, you're on the train and you suddenly are with Daniel in the car watching the train go by. It's. I mean, it's really, really, really upsetting. But then I basically lost it at a scene, like, a couple scenes later when the Kieran Hines character comes back from dropping him off. And Daniel's like, how big is his room? How big is his room? How big is his room? Which is incredible writing that communicates that there's, like, still. He's still concerned about something, but what he is concerned about is, like, an expression of what he values at the same time. So he can't quite let go. And it's just a person losing their grip on, like, on their value system in real time.
- [20:15]
A
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the idea that he feels that his son deserves accommodations, but he can only really understand it by way of dimensionality. You know, like, there's not really. It's very powerful. When Paul came on the show, on Bill Simmons show, and I talked with him then with Bill, he explained that he had a newborn child when he was making this movie. And I find that a lot of the relationship between Daniel and H.W. is informed by that crazy making feeling when a baby just drops into the middle of your life. And that's how this story is explained.
- [20:52]
B
Yeah.
- [20:52]
A
You know, H.W. is the son of a man who's killed working alongside Daniel, and Daniel just adopts him. And that is kind of what it's like when you have a baby. I don't. Especially for somebody who didn't carry a baby. Yeah.
- [21:03]
B
I was gonna say it's very different.
- [21:05]
A
But, yes, first you were. You know, there was no you, and then you're here.
- [21:08]
B
Yeah.
- [21:09]
A
And it's. It is the most important thing in the world to you. And, like, these are ideas I find that are not explored about this movie as much like, I opened this conversation with the America and oil and God. But I think I'm most moved by it and continue. It persists for me beyond that feeling I had where I was like, oh, my God, I love this so much the first time that I saw it, because it just gets deeper and deeper. Like, you get a little bit older and some of the things still feel more powerful.
- [21:35]
B
Like, cue two parents talking about, you know, parenthood in movies. But no, it is true that rewatching this a couple times after having kids, it. What's funny, what's important, the. The points of emphasis, like, do shift. And that's. That's completely natural. It's. It's interesting, though, this. To me, you're right that there is a literal, like, baby dropped into your life. You know, it is like, you know, baby boom, but for oil.
- [22:05]
A
And also a film about industry and commerce.
- [22:08]
B
Sure.
- [22:09]
A
I was gonna say, and ambition and success. Great double feature.
- [22:13]
B
And I think that you're right that this is a pretty apt experience of what it's like to become a father. And this person just shows up. But at the same time, this film, to me is still. I still feel like it's written by a son rather than a father, if that makes any sense. Or at least someone who's still. Who's most of his experience with that relationship is Being the son instead of the father. And there are like three different son figures who are in there trying to figure out what's going on with Daniel. And they can't quite. And obviously Magnolia is, you know, the father son relationship from the son.
- [22:51]
A
Same with Boogie Nights. Dirk Diggler and Jack Horner.
- [22:53]
B
Yeah, this is the flex point. And really the master is the flex point. And then. But it. But it was interesting to think about that because certainly one battle after another. But his most recent movies are like, from the other.
- [23:08]
A
They're father movies.
- [23:08]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's. It's interesting to like to watch it shift.
- [23:13]
A
Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's also because the movie is so biblical. There's literally an Abel who is the father of two boys. You know, like, there is this. There's a lot of these threads of this. The difficult relationships that grown men and their young children have and the ways in which they disagree and thrash and the way that that has, like, tremendous consequences on everyone around them. The movie is very clever about that. And it's also clever about, like, kind of the duality in all people. The idea of Eli and Paul being twins and what's split between them. And some of that is, like, happenstance. You know, the movie wasn't written to be that way. But then when you watch the movie, you're like, oh, this is. Actually deepens my understanding of some of this stuff. So even if you just put aside all this big, heavy thematic stuff that's coursing throughout the movie from a purely moviemaking perspective.
- [24:01]
B
It'S quite good.
- [24:02]
A
It is two thumbs up. I'm trying to think of what's the right correct hyperbole. Like, I wrote down Total Cinema, and we've been making a joke about Total Cinema, baby, for a long time. But when you consider the production design and the Greenwood scoring the film and just kind of going to another level. This is his first film without John Bryan as the composer. And the long stretches, the building of the train and the derricks and the idea of the church operating in the shadow of the oil. And then you consider the cast and we can talk a little bit about Daniel Day Lewis and maybe what this means. We did do the Daniel Day Lewis hall of Fame earlier this year with David Sims. And this was an auto green for him. Obviously. He won an Academy Award for this performance. I believe it is the performance of the 21st century.
- [24:52]
B
That's fair.
- [24:53]
A
I do think you could make a case. Tell me what you think about this. That this is like the end of a certain style of acting or a certain style of acting, Persona, communication. The person who completely turns themself over to something. And in not being ripe for mockery, it sounds like Daniel Day Lewis was challenging on the set of this film because he was trying to embody Plainview all the time. And I think back to that New Yorker piece that Michael Shulman wrote about Jeremy Strong and how Jeremy Strong just kind of gets pilloried for being too serious. And this was a time before pretension was mocked in the same way.
- [25:36]
B
I don't think it's the last time that Daniel Day Lewis gets away with it because, you know, the Lincoln and talking like a read and then.
- [25:43]
A
But there was like a jokey ness around the Lincoln thing. Sure. And then to the point of cr. Developing the bits, you know.
- [25:51]
B
And then I guess Phantom thread is just. It's a lighter performance and so.
- [25:56]
A
And feels closer to maybe just how he sounds and looks in the world sometimes.
- [26:01]
B
I guess so though he was like a 50s couturier. It's not, you know, it's. I mean that's closer to him disappearing and making sure boots for a while.
- [26:09]
A
It is. But I just mean in terms of like speaking voice and the. The energy that he's emitting as a creative person, like this is like a, you know, mustachioed American demon. Like it's a very different. It's very far from who he actually is.
- [26:22]
B
Well, forever, forever after this, you're always just. There's no performance that is gonna like exceed it. So you're always just in the shadow of it and it's like someone doing their DDL and Phantom thread, you know, and like. And that's probably very good. But this performance looms the largest.
- [26:39]
A
It really does.
- [26:41]
C
This episode is brought to you by CarMax. When you buy a car with CarMax, you call the shots. You want to test drive every car in the lot. Want to shop while you watch the game? Want to match your car color to your sports team? Want to shop online, in store or both? It's your move every step of the way. And support from their helpful no pressure associates is there. Whenever you need. Want to drive CarMax? Shop now@carmax.com this episode is brought to you by EA Sports FC 26. Play your way this holiday season with an overhauled gameplay experience powered by community feedback. Enjoy festive upgrades and ultimate team with winter wild cards. Take on holiday themed challenges and manage your career like navigating the busy Christmas period and team up with friends and clubs with new tournaments and Live events. The club is yours. Give the gift of football with EA Sports FC 26. Rated E for everyone. Includes in game purchases Includes random items this episode is brought to you by Salty, Cheesy Cheez It Crackers. Should this whole podcast just be me eating Cheez It? That would be a top notch podcast. You could hear them crunching my mouth. You could think about how salty and savory and delicious they are. You can just get Cheez it on the brain. Oh man, those Cheez it cravings, they get you. Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah. Oh, Cheez It. Yeah, Cheez It Crackers. Go check them out.
- [28:06]
A
Ambition. You mentioned that men are taught this.
- [28:10]
B
Yeah.
- [28:13]
A
I'm not sure if that's true. I think maybe it's communicated by the world.
- [28:18]
B
Yeah, maybe that's it.
- [28:20]
A
But no one sat me down and was like, what you need to do is try really hard to succeed.
- [28:24]
B
But then maybe it is just communicated to your generation and the generations before. But yeah, I do feel, feel, you know, as we do this project of this podcast together as well as 25 for 25 and also just observing, you know, you and, and, and, and my husband and all the other people, there's, there's something expectation wise about like ambition and, and, and chest beating that is, that is communicated to you that it's not that I'm not competitive and it's not that I don't want to be great, but there, it's expectation that I guess was not built in for, you know, for women of my age. And so I feel freer.
- [29:09]
A
Your expectation was barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. I get it, I get it.
- [29:15]
B
Or marry a doctor, which is, you.
- [29:17]
A
Know, that would have been great. I would have married a doctor.
- [29:20]
B
I don't, I don't feel that I would get along constitutionally with a doctor.
- [29:26]
A
You know, well, we know you couldn't speak to a dentist. So that's off the table completely. As far as Daniel Day Lewis communicating the ambition stuff, I think that he is incredibly good at showing this relentless drive and then not knowing really what to do with that drive. And so of course he becomes an alcoholic. And he is constantly looking for another person to use and another person to, you know, yell at and become frustrated with. He does have a few moments where he's kind of more vulnerable. The man who presumes, who announces himself as his brother comes into his life and he feels like he has someone for a moment that he can confide in and be a little bit more vulnerable, even if he's Explaining how he doesn't like anybody in the world during that amazing scene. That scene is still so brilliant. But the men will build an oil empire instead of going to therapy thing. It does apply here. This is a person who maybe if he just had one person he could really talk to, might be doing a little bit better.
- [30:32]
B
Yeah, I guess so. But then it's not a good story. You know, that is the thing. Like, therapy is the enemy of good cinema.
- [30:37]
A
It's very, very, very true.
- [30:38]
B
It's great for us, but it's really not helpful. And again, that's maybe if he even understood, you know, I suppose a therapist would be like, we do need to locate the childhood scene. You know, we need to understand going on.
- [30:51]
A
Yeah, I don't want that filmed. Yeah, I don't want his therapy session filmed for my entertainment. I think also in terms of the movies that PTA was making before this and after this, really, like, he's a master synthesist. He's very similar to a lot of his contemporaries. Tarantino, Soderbergh, these guys who have, like, watched 75 years of film history and read a lot of books and understand story at a high level. And so they're constantly pulling things in. This is the rare case of literalizing, adapting a novel, or at least parts of a novel. Basically the first hundred pages of oil. And then you've got the Doheny family, this very powerful California family that kind of established a huge stronghold in Beverly Hills at the really during the real rise of this city. And a lot of specific details are culled from real life events, which I find fascinating. And it's something that he has done again here and there. But Inherent Vice is an adaptation of a novel, and One battle is a semi adaptation of a novel. But this is interesting to see him so distinctly pulling almost line for line. For example, I think the most memorable thing from this movie is I drink your milkshake. To me, I drink your milkshake is one of the first memes. Mm. It's one of the, I think, genuinely very few lines of dialogue from a 21st century movie that is on the level of here's looking at you, kid. You know, it's something that when you say that you know exactly where you.
- [32:23]
B
Are and you even. You see the exact shot of the bowling alley.
- [32:27]
A
Yes.
- [32:27]
B
And the way that it's framed.
- [32:29]
A
Exactly. You can. In your mind's eye, you know exactly what. The moment that it happens. That's hard to do. I think part of that is. Cause just like the Internet has allowed for us to see those images and those ideas more often, more regularly.
- [32:41]
B
I take it back. I drink your milkshake. It's funny. I don't laugh at that point, but it's really funny.
- [32:48]
A
But what's so interesting about that to me is that that is pulled directly from a real life testimony during the Teapot Dome scandal. A person actually said that. He explained this idea somewhat similarly to what Plainview says about drainage. And if I drink your milkshake, I pull it all the way over there to my land. And so, you know, like, that's a feat of writing to me, to kind of bring all those real life ideas and pull them into the space and still make that, like, entertaining, you know, and really funny. There's a lot of other really funny moments to me in the movie. You know, I'm very fond of saying, yes, I do, which is how Plainview talks when he's being baptized in the Church of the Third Revelation. Plainview being absolutely hammered when the Standard Oil guys show up to the restaurant when H.W. has returned home.
- [33:31]
B
Oh, that's really sad.
- [33:33]
A
But. But I guess, very funny. It's a physical comedy, and he's, like, dropping the napkin on his face. And it's played for gags. You know, the first 15 minutes of the movie is not funny, which is this incredible silent exploration of a person failing and being literally at the absolute bottom of, you know, society. Their own mentality, they're just like, on the lowest rung imaginable. And what do you do when you're born into the lowest rung imaginable is like crawl your way out. Crawl your way out of the darkness. So, you know, I think for all these reasons, the movie is incredibly special. I do want to talk about Paul Dano. You know, he's been in the news.
- [34:16]
B
Sure. For this performance.
- [34:18]
A
For this performance. So Quentin Tarantino went on Brady's Nellis podcast and he talked about how this movie was on his list.
- [34:25]
B
That's how all great sentences start.
- [34:27]
A
Absolutely. I'm just putting context around this discussion, but I do think it's worth having because. And I've long held this, as many people have, clearly, based on the feedback that Paul Dano's been getting. Quentin went on the pod, said that this movie might have been number one for him if not for Paul Dano, who his performance, he felt, was very weak. The weakest part of the film. I don't see it that way. We've talked about it a little bit since then, and it's obviously created this overreaction. Of people being like, how dare you? Paul Dano is one of our great humans. Yeah, I'm not here to say that, but I think the idea of placing someone like him, who is a younger, not inexperienced, but relatively inexperienced, opposite Daniel Day Lewis figure, into this role. Also, the idea that Eli Sunday is this sniveling representation of a certain kind of aspirant person who uses a different version of people's weaknesses and frailties to take advantage of them and take their money is extremely effective as, like, the two polarities of masculinity. And so I think he's, like, phenomenal in this movie.
- [35:32]
B
I think that he's great. I think he's very, very good. I. You know, it kind of comes back to the fact that, like, I just don't care about religion as much as. And I understand its historical significance in this film. And also that the weakness is the point, because whatever's going on with him is just not gonna compete with whatever is on with Daniel Plainview. And. And with money. And. And. And money and greed went out every time. And. And you really got to play the game at the highest level. The. The wolf in sheep's clothing that is like an evangelical preacher being like, I need another $5,000 or whatever is like, is. Is pointless and never had a chance and is meant to be seen as, like, weak and lame. Like that is that this person is just a loser who is not gonna compete. I guess the point. But it does. But there is an unevenness to it.
- [36:34]
A
There is. I think the idea is ultimately that money and brute force conquers all. You know, that religion is nice as a way to kind of quell the masses, and that keeps people in line. And it has utility to a businessman and the way in which he is, like, kind of falsely obsequious to Eli and Eli's flock as a means to getting what he wants, I think is very compelling as a concept. But in the end, money literally bludgeons faith. You know, that it literally makes it impossible to believe in something that is greater than the system that we operate under and to be.
- [37:11]
B
And also, you know, faith gets outsmarted every time. I mean, he didn't see any of the drainage or the stock market crash coming, which is still one of the great. I was misinformed about our current economy.
- [37:27]
A
Yeah. His costuming in that sequence with the cross around his neck is so amazing. One other thing about this movie is that it's hard to convey doom in a movie. And you can do with music sometimes you can do it by Making your film seem very dark. You know, that the lights. There's very little light. This movie is in broad daylight. Was. The whole movie is bright. Yeah. In the, you know, Western vistas of California. But.
- [37:58]
B
So it was filmed in Marfa.
- [37:59]
A
In Marfa, Texas. Yeah. But it's hard. It's hard to walk to like, make a movie that makes you feel like everything is bad and there's no hope. And yet there's something funny about that, like the macabre sense of humor that the film has.
- [38:19]
B
I think that the Brahms violin concerto cue, which is used twice when, you know, right after the Blessing, when Daniel gets his first comeuppance on Eli and steals his thunder. And then at the end, which is like, everything is very dark. And I laugh at that jubilant, virtuosic music cue.
- [38:42]
A
Yeah. The other movie that I would probably draw in a similar lineage to, this one is Barry Lyndon, where you. Very similarly. Huge world production design, the frailty of masculinity, very similar themes, but also consistently using music cues like that or costuming choices to convey the kind of silliness and the kind of false upbeat in this world that is super smart, you know, you mentioned Marfa, Texas. This film was shot, I guess, roughly 10 miles away from no country for Old Men. And it came out in the same year.
- [39:13]
B
It did.
- [39:15]
A
This is also the same year as a number of other great movies, including Michael Clayton, which is on our list. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward, Robert Ford, Juno.
- [39:25]
B
One woman.
- [39:27]
A
There was a woman in these movies. You know, it's a huge year for American movies and a legendary year. There Will Be Blood was nominated for eight Academy Awards. It won two. We mentioned Daniel Day Lewis won. Robert Elswit also won for cinematography. It lost picture director and adapted screenplay to no country for Old Men. It's a little hard to quibble with, you know, I think no country for Old Men is fantastic. I really have nothing bad to say about it. I love it. Just kind of a Thunderdome situation. Interesting sliding doors as we kind of ease gracefully into Paul Thomas Anderson's Oscar moment. How different.
- [40:07]
B
Don't jinx it. Is this real wood? I don't know.
- [40:09]
A
I don't know either. I'm not jinxing it. But, I mean, we're sure, you know?
- [40:13]
B
I know. Don't count your chickens, okay?
- [40:15]
A
Well, they're not my chickens, okay? They're Warner Brothers chickens, I guess. So I have no access to those chickens. The film also lost editing and sound editing to the Bourne Ultimatum.
- [40:25]
B
Okay.
- [40:27]
A
Just.
- [40:27]
B
Well, hi, Chris.
- [40:29]
A
Sure. I mean, editing to the Bourne Ultimatum.
- [40:32]
B
Which one is Bourne Ultimatum?
- [40:35]
A
I want to say that's the second one. Oh.
- [40:38]
B
When it cuts at the end and he's. He's watching Glenn Close and the. The Mobius.
- [40:44]
A
I honestly don't remember it. Lost art direction to Sweeney Todd. You seen Sweeney Todd? The demon barber of Fleet Street?
- [40:51]
B
Oh, yeah, No, I skipped that one.
- [40:53]
A
Okay. Sweeney Todd and Plainview had a bit in common. It could have been boys.
- [40:57]
B
Sure. I mean, facial hair.
- [40:59]
A
Yeah. They might have enjoyed a whiskey together. Reviews at the time. Manola Dargis wrote a bang on classic review of this movie when it came out. This is something that she wrote in her review. There Will Be Blood is very much a personal endeavor for Mr. Anderson. It feels like an act of possession, yet it is also directly engaged with our cinematically, Cinematically constructed history, specifically with films Greed and Chinatown, but also Citizen Kane that have dismantled the mythologies of American success and in doing so, replaced one utopian ideal for another, namely, that of the movies themselves. That's an interesting insight that in a way, you can't really ever make a movie about history again because there have been so many movies about history. So any movie about history is invariably a movie about movies. And this is very much like a. I have synthesized, again, all of these grand visions. Chinatown. Very interesting. I wrote a piece about this movie in 2017 and drew a lot of allusions to Chinatown as well. And the idea of John Huston, who plays the villain in Chinatown, who directed Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which is Paul Thomas Anderson's favorite movie, and him playing Noah Cross, a water magnate, a sort of powerful man in Chinatown, controlling natural resources to.
- [42:11]
B
And redeveloping California.
- [42:13]
A
Yes. To control the future. As he tells Jake Gittes, Chinatown and this movie are in a little dance about the history of our city and power and guys who are trying to get in control of everything.
- [42:30]
B
I mean, Citizen Kane is also a pretty important reference.
- [42:34]
A
It is.
- [42:35]
B
And the. I guess, like the rubric through which we try to understand our history and the quote, unquote, great men of our history.
- [42:45]
A
Yeah. This movie doesn't seem to have as much interest in the media, which is kind of notable. Like, even a lot of the tycoons of this time tried to manipulate their image, some of whom bought media companies like Charles Foster Kane. A lot of those guys insisted on a certain kind of, like, the rise of yellow journalism is in part driven by tycoons who own newspapers. This movie's not really interested in that. Like, Plainview is much more interior, like he literally says, I want to make enough money so I can get away from everyone.
- [43:15]
B
Right.
- [43:16]
A
And I can relate to that. This movie is number three on the New York Times top 100.
- [43:24]
B
Okay.
- [43:25]
A
It's number four in the reader's poll for the Times. It's number one on Rolling Stone's top 100 movies of the 21st century.
- [43:32]
B
Okay.
- [43:32]
A
Number three on the BBC's 2016 21st century critics poll. Are you sensing a trend?
- [43:38]
B
People like this?
- [43:39]
A
This is a consensus top five film of the last 25 years.
- [43:43]
B
Yes, it is.
- [43:43]
A
Any misgivings about that? You're a little. You're usually a little, little resistant to consensus.
- [43:48]
B
Sure. And it's. It's not my favorite Paul Thomas Anderson movie in my personal rankings. I think it's. What is it? Three fourth. What do I. Because I got Phantom thread one battle and the Master over this. So let's talk about which Paul Thomas Anderson we picked. This was ultimately your decision.
- [44:05]
A
Yes.
- [44:06]
B
And I support you and I stand by you. And I think it's the quote, unquote, right decision. I was needling you up until the very end to do the Master because I think that that is the fullest expression of pta and this is like the fullest expression of cinema, I guess.
- [44:30]
A
And I was, I think that's right.
- [44:31]
B
More interested in the fullest expression of pta. But, you know, sometimes on my personal rankings, sometimes you gotta be obvious. Sometimes you got. It's not even obvious. Sometimes you gotta.
- [44:41]
A
I'm say, this is my truth. This is my truth. My truth is that this is my favorite PTA movie and the Master is my second favorite and that they are a critical pairing. They are like him taking the next step from virtuosic, fast talking, cool guy in his 20s to grown man trying to elevate himself with his art. And the Master is much more mysterious than this movie. This movie is thematically fairly straightforward. I don't think that that makes it any worse. I don't think it makes the Master better to be mysterious. I think a lot of critics will favor the Master because they'll say that there's more to kind of consistently unpack and explore. And I respect that. I understand that. I love to read about the Master. I think it is endlessly rewarding. I just saw it again this year on 70 millimeter at the Egyptian. An amazing experience. I will watch the film many more times before I die. I think it's a beautiful love story, perhaps his most beautiful love story. I also think it's a movie about America. As you say, certainly a movie about masculinity and faith and men and, you know, what we look for when we have an absence. You know, I think that movie also very smartly, doesn't show us too much about its two main characters and their past. It just kind of insinuates a lot. It's like a trick that he picked up that you can also project onto him because he doesn't talk about himself anymore, and you can almost feel him floating in and out of these strong male characters in all of his movies. I love the Master. If we could have had two movies from one filmmaker on these lists, I would have fought hard for it to be top 10. So it's not a bad call by you at all. He has made several movies this century. He's got Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, the Master, Inherent Vice, Phantom Thread, Licorice Pizza, One Battle After Another. Now, you would advocate, presumably, for both Phantom Thread and One Battle After Another, if this were your solo list.
- [46:36]
B
Yes.
- [46:36]
A
What do you think? Would you think Phantom Thread would come first?
- [46:39]
B
I don't know. I mean, it's hard. I always try to counterweight the recency bias, but I do think One Battle's pretty spectacular. And One Battle brings in a lot of what is great about There Will Be Blood.
- [46:56]
A
I agree.
- [46:57]
B
And then brings in both, like, some of the emotionality, some of, like, more characters, more worldviews, more women, for sure. I mean, you know, some of it is. I watched this movie at a distance, and maybe it's meant to be experienced at a distance. I don't think you're, like, supposed to necessarily be cozy with Daniel Plainview. I think that it's, I mean, intimate, though.
- [47:22]
A
The movie is very intimate with him, sure.
- [47:25]
B
But it is. It's also, you know, shot, you know, sweeping and wide, and it is not every movie has to be, like, something that you personally relate to. Right. And so certainly. So even though I find more to connect with in Phantom Thread or, Or. Or One Battle, I like, I. I understand this, but I think One Battle balances everything. That has really jumped out to me from the last 10 years of Paul Thomas Anderson's career and big ideas about America and parenthood and, you know, and, And. And men. And men working together to achieve something that. That There Will Be Bloodhouses. So, you know, I guess it's personal preference.
- [48:18]
A
It is. I find One Battle After Another similarly not very mysterious. And I think that's one of the reasons why it's resonating in the same way that there Will Be Blood Dead. These are the two movies that have gotten the most rapturous response that he's made since Boogie Nights. It doesn't mean that One Battle After Another is going to be acclaimed forever as a masterpiece for all times. It has plenty of detractors. It's going to get even more detractors, presumably when it wins Best Picture. That's inevitable. I'm sure at some point I will be retracting certain things. You know what I mean? It's just like, through the arc of the experience, you can't help but be like, well, does this work or does that work? I think it's a great movie. We've made nine episodes about it.
- [48:59]
B
Yeah, we're going to make more.
- [49:00]
A
Yeah. It's just like, it came out two and a half months ago. I know. So I just don't. I don't have enough distance from it.
- [49:05]
B
Well, we'll talk next week about the offer that you made me.
- [49:08]
A
Great. Okay. That sounds wonderful.
- [49:11]
B
I didn't accept it, obviously.
- [49:13]
A
You've mentioned that, like, five times on a podcast that you did not accept an offer.
- [49:17]
B
You gotta come with better offers.
- [49:18]
A
Just want you to know what that sounds like to the world when you say that. That you're a woman of strong conviction is what I'm implying.
- [49:25]
B
Yep, that's correct.
- [49:28]
A
Should we have done licorice pizza?
- [49:29]
B
I really like licorice pizza.
- [49:31]
A
I do, too.
- [49:31]
B
You know, I stand by what I said, is that I like it even more now that it doesn't have the weight of being like yet another great. You know, like one of, like, the magnum opuses. It can just be.
- [49:43]
A
It's his Linklater movie.
- [49:44]
B
It's a great movie.
- [49:45]
A
It's a great hang.
- [49:46]
B
People contain multitudes, including Paul Thomas Anderson.
- [49:49]
A
Yes. Although perhaps not Daniel Plainview.
- [49:53]
B
Yeah, I guess so.
- [49:55]
A
Debatable. Recommended, if you like. I mentioned the Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Manola. Dargis mentioned Citizen Kane. I wrote down the Night of the Hunter. The severity of violence and religion in our society and culture. I mentioned Barry Lyndon already. Anything, obviously. All of the.
- [50:11]
B
I was gonna say any other Paul Thomas Anderson movie.
- [50:15]
A
You know, we don't need to recommend people see something in case they haven't seen There Will Be Blood. They've seen There Will Be Blood. Right? They've seen it.
- [50:23]
B
If you haven't seen There Will Be Blood and you listened this far, I don't want to know about it. Keep it to yourself and then go watch it.
- [50:28]
A
Okay.
- [50:30]
B
You feel good?
- [50:33]
A
Well, I think we've made the right choice. And I feel good about it.
- [50:36]
B
Yeah, I do, too. I do, too.
- [50:38]
A
We're almost done.
- [50:40]
B
Yeah. I'm excited. I saved my number one rewatch for a little treat because I have to budget.
- [50:47]
A
When are we doing that? Monday.
- [50:49]
B
Yeah.
- [50:49]
A
Okay. Yeah, first I gotta rewatch it first.
- [50:53]
B
Yes. Before things really devolve.
- [50:55]
A
Yeah. Okay. That'll be exciting.
- [50:56]
B
And then. Wait, how is it possible that this is. Oh, when is this running? Oh, I see. Okay, I get it.
- [51:06]
A
It's a complicated release schedule here. We're recording many episodes concurrently.
- [51:10]
B
Well, I know, but. So we are recording our number one, and then we're recording the episode that listeners will hear next.
- [51:18]
A
Yes.
- [51:19]
B
Which is.
- [51:20]
A
The next episode that you will hear is a breakdown of two more certified American masterpieces. I'm referring, of course, to Anaconda. Anaconda, Anaconda and the Housemaid. That's going to be our second to last episode of the year. Right, and our last episode of the year will be number one. We'll see you then. Foreign.
- [51:51]
D
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