• Perhaps the most ambitious film, artistically, of the 21st
  • We’ve seen PT do Altman and Scorsese but I think this tends more towards Kubrick and Welles—but at the same time it’s his entirely—especially with the master backing it up as a companion piece in 2012. It makes it even greater
  • Medication on capitalism, greed, and monomania
  • Called by many the great American novel on film of the 21st century—so many of them saying “this thing will be studied”
  • There’s a bit of John Huston’s Noah Cross (damn what a villain) in Chinatown with DDL and a little of Elmer Gantry in Dano’s full of shit evangelical preacher. Clearly Anderson brilliantly weaves and out on parallels of the two and the finale, which I’ll get to, is really a ritual suicide as Dano’s hypocrisy highlights his own
  • It’s a behemoth as I said, the silent opening, the landscape architecture as character and metaphor, it’s physical and violent
  • Set in California like all his previous work
  • Another critic says “Kubrick directing Kane” and yet another says Malick directing Kane– I definitely lean Kubrick
  • It’s not an overly accessible film to mass audiences. Despite the performances and set pieces Anderson is not interested in giving easy answers or placating anybody
  • Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood’s first score pairing with PT and it’s miraculous—there’s crescendo’ing and synthesized orchestra—it echoes 2001’s opening- we’re watching early man here slowly, piece by piece, put things together like the apes in 2001– and all done without words (15 minutes here to open)—it is a magnificent short film opening. Determination. Elliptically edited. Confident.
  • Other references—filmed in the same location as Stevens’ Giant, the obsessions match nicely with treasure of sierra madre and von Stroheim’s greed
  • I think you could argue that DDL squashes the supporting cast and it could benefit from someone a little larger in any of the roles—like how Pesci plays off De Niro in Raging Bull (despite me saying it doesn’t compare as much to Scorsese this is clearly PT’s Raging Bull if Boogie Nights is his Goodfellas). Tarantino complained about Dano. I can see that. But I can also support the idea that it’s intentional that nobody can stand up to Plainview and DDL.
  • I alluded to it above but it’s a great companion to the master and vice versa
  • Tarantino’s other complaint in a video intro I saw was that there were no set pieces—and that is ridiculous. The oil rig set piece is one of the greatest in contemporary cinema. The well coming in— that scene and the score accompaniment
  • Complex relationship with son and brother (faux brother it turns out) as son surrogate—multiple layers of PT’s father/mentor obsession as an auteur
  • The score manifests itself clearly- audacious—doesn’t want to hide in the background
  • Hypocrisy and mirroring
  • In many ways there are stretches much more stylistically quiet than Punch-Drunk Love but that’s ok because it’s an epic and there needs to a little more deviation
  • The shot of DDL in water, isolation, after the “peachtree dance” test his brother fails. Pure genius.
  • DDL’s achievement here can’t be overstated. It’s the greatest performance of the century to date. He was always going to be a great actor but this puts it on a different plane. It’s his raging bull performance
  • Countless standout shots and sequences. The long tracking shot alone the pipeline with DDL reuniting with his son— both long in the length of take and long shot—
  • Biblical references all over the place- “orphan from a basket”, the Dano twins,
  • On top of all this there are a ton of black comedy moments with DDL and not just the perfect ending which absolutely smashes the viewer
  • He’s also becoming (or perhaps always was) an alcoholic but he’s clearly deteriorating as the film goes on
  • Ok it’s a little odd that Dano looks 28 years old at the end of the film when he should be about 50.
  • “milkshake”
  • Not as opaque as the master but it’s closer than I had realized—not a critique- just observation
  • At separate points both Dano and DDL make each other bow to one another—they have different paths and things they follow (like the master like PSH with his religion and Phoenix with sex/drinking) but are looking for meaning
  • It’s a bit of a stretch but unlike the bone used by the ape in 2001 to smash the head this ending has DDL with a bowling pin. It’s connected—and then the “I’m finished” with strings. Large. Bold. Brilliant
  • An all-timer. Masterpiece