Heaven & Hell In "There Will Be Blood"

Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" is by far one of the finest films of this decade. The obvious religious sub-plot and biblical references were brilliant but it was the visual allusions of heaven and hell that gave me goose bumps. When Daniel Plainview's team strikes oil on the Sunday family farm all instantly goes bad as the gushing oil catches fire and even the camera is afraid is it slowly pans out revealing an apocalyptic night landscape illuminated by fire and flame erupting from the depths of hell as we are left with a commentary on the imminent evil effects oil will have on our society. The next morning Eli the Sunday family preacher marches towards Daniel Plainview to demand his money, his reward for selling his soul to the devil. This scene is introduced as the camera itself is stuck in the mud and oil, motionless, as it focuses down on a reflection of clouds and blue sky in a pool of dark oil, a metaphor of an idealistic and, ultimately, failed road to heaven, the result of man's greed and sin, as we look down to look up.



There are not many films I would see twice in the theatre, but this is one I surely will go to again. What a relevant and thought provoking commentary on the history of a wide array of issues all closely linked to the downfall of man. In all seriousness, I would love to see a film made with the same brilliance of "There Will Be Blood" about Eli Whitney and the cotton gin that simultaneously alludes to the birth of the American industrial revolution and examines how one simple device would divide a nation for centuries to come. Ahhh, America.

When Grown Men Cry

Tonight I went to the screening of Wade in the Water a documentary by Elizabeth Wood and Gabriel Nussbaum about the first school to open in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. In the film several young teenagers talk about the violence and murders they have witnessed. On my cold walk home tonight, I couldn't stop thinking about my own adolescence and the first time I saw a body. I guess I was twelve or thirteen and it was the summer time. It was sometime in the afternoon and my brother and I were probably fighting or getting into some kind of trouble when we heard gun shots. One house over from us my friend Wesley's older brother was shot and killed. My brother and I sat on the stoop across from Wesley's house and watched the ambulance guys carry out a stretcher with a white cloth over it. They put this thing that was no longer living in the back of the ambulance and drove off quickly. But they didn't bother to put on the siren, John was already dead. Then the police carried out a gun. Then everyone drove off. Except my friend Wesley. He sat all alone on his stoop with his face buried in his hands as he cried. It was a deep cry, the kind when it hurts to breathe and your body shakes with each breath you take. My brother and I sat watching him in silence.

The Beast Has Returned

The boxing matches on TV tonight bored me so I decided to do some digging in my piles and piles of magazines, newspapers, maps and whatever various randomness has found a home in The Monstropolous Beast. Recently I have been thinking a lot about artists and the other things they did, the efforts they are not known for (this will be a future post...stay tuned). I find myself returning to Mailer. At an anniversary party for all involved in the making of the film "Tough Guys Don't Dance," in which Mailer directed the film adaptation of his own novel, Mark Singer was in attendance and observes in this Talk Of The Town piece:

""Tough Guys' turned out to be the last movie Mailer directed, but not the end of his celluloid legacy. At one point, Leslie Shatz, the sound designer, described Mailer's perfectionist quest to capture the sound of a punch in the face. 'Norman said, 'The sounds of the punches in movies are all phony,' Shatz recalled. 'He wanted me to record his own punches. He was a boxer, of course. So we were in my cutting room with a portable digital recorder, and I remember thinking at the time, I'm watching Norman Mailer hit himself and I'm not stopping him. He hit himself at least twenty times-in the face and the chest-until we finally got it right. I saved that sound effect, and I've used it in about twenty movies since. I always tell other directors, 'You hear that? That's Norman Mailer punching himself. He's in your movie.'"

It's Better To Burn Out Than To Rot

In the new film, Into The Wild, Sean Penn adapts Jon Krakauer's book of the same title recounting the life of Chris "Alex" McCandless. McCandless, a wanderer, an adventurer, one of us, is one of my heros and I find great inspiration in his life and how loyal he was to his dream. I am curious to see the reaction Their World has to Our World and how McCandless' lifestyle and ultimate death are viewed-he died living his dream. Most people don't understand the life we have, we are viewed as fools, ignorant, crazy or simply outcasts. We live our dreams, we dont work for money or to have nice things. And to live this life the only way we know how, we must jump off a cliff everyday. We must take that risk and push things to the absolute limit for the rewards...


In a letter to Ron Franz, a driver who picked up McCandless hitch hiking and who became a great friend, McCandless writes:

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty."