The Wily Filipino

Two Movies with Nothing to Do with Each Other, #10.

Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (2007) and Ivan Reitman's Juno (2007).

It's something of a paradox to state that Daniel Day-Lewis' towering, fiery oil derrick of a performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's undeniably brilliant There Will Be Blood is both the best and worst thing about this film. His acting, as oilman Daniel Plainview, is amazing, both subtly nuanced and overpowering -- so much of the latter, really, that it tends to swallow the entire epic whole. Plainview is also impenetrably amoral, a man of few sympathies, and consequently the viewer has none in return for his character. It's a tough hook to hang an entire movie on, but the film succeeds despite of it.

We see Daniel Plainview first as a gold and silver prospector (and not a very successful one) in a nearly wordless 20-minute opening sequence. Toting along his cherubic adopted son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier), Plainview begins to buy up land, practically for pennies, from under unknowing farmers' feet. It's not a pleasant sight, and it is testimony to the power of Anderson's movie that we find ourselves cheering, at least in the first half, for this robber baron. By 1911 Plainview has become one of the most successful oilmen in the region, though (in a crucial distinction) significantly small fry in relation to the big oil companies.

Plainview is approached by Paul Sunday (played by an excellent Paul Dano), who offers not oil, but information: his family's farm in Little Boston, California, is floating on an "ocean of oil", and would he be interested in scoping it out? Father and son, pretending to hunt for quail, arrive at the Sunday ranch and find not only oil seeping from the ground, but Paul's twin brother Eli Sunday (also played by Dano), a young, charismatic preacher and faith healer, against whom Plainview wrestles for Little Boston's soul. (Full confession: when my friend Eloise and I saw this the other night, we completely missed the point about the twin brother.)

It's clear early on in the film that Plainview and Sunday's different brands of hucksterism run on parallel railroad tracks. But Anderson seems to lack the confidence in his audience to appreciate what little subtleties there are in this presentation and chooses to bludgeon us with this obviousness. The abrupt tonal shift in the last twenty minutes, as Plainview descends into Charles Foster Kane madness, simply seems different from what came before; let's just say that "There Will Be Blood" isn't just the title, but a promise as well.

There's little in Anderson's previous work that suggests the heft of There Will Be Blood, unless you count the Old Testament metaphors made flesh in Magnolia, or the scams in Hard Eight, or Tom Cruise's penis-evangelist in Magnolia. The movie is beautifully photographed, lingering over the fires of hell spurting uncontrollably from the earth, or the sere, rocky ground out of which such black bounty must be forced (and on which Jonny Greenwood's Ligeti-like score falls like rain). It's the visual antithesis, in more ways than one, to Days of Heaven.

This will be the film that Anderson will probably be most remembered for -- for its epic breadth; the conflict between God and Mammon, or of fathers and sons; the invocation of Welles, Polanski, and Huston, or of West and Sinclair; the way it has Great American Movie written all over it. But if you ask me for a favorite Anderson film, I wouldn't hesitate to name the brilliant but flawed Magnolia; despite its stylistic cleverness (and "clever" isn't necessarily a compliment), vague spirituality, and full-on ripoff of / homage to Short Cuts, there was at least something questing, something more vitally human, about Magnolia and its ruined characters. It's certainly more alive than the cold, dead heart in Daniel Plainview.

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In the last week alone, at least four people who don't know each other have been sending me links to the Stuff White People Like blog. (Did it suddenly get Dugg last week or something?) I figure that Ivan Reitman's wonderful film Juno -- with its Kimya Dawson / Belle & Sebastian soundtrack*, the Sherman-Palladino & Palladino-style banter**, the Andersonian eccentricities (Wes, not Paul Thomas), plus two (count 'em! two!) cast members from "Arrested Development" -- would certainly be on that list. [Note: as I was writing this, Ver posted a comment on my blog saying it was already on their list. That damn White People blogger!]

None of the above are necessarily characteristics of some sort of White indie-cinema aesthetic, of course. (The idea is as ridiculous as, say, a Black indie-cinema aesthetic, which would be one that encompasses both Tyler Perry and Charles Burnett.) But these are elements that perhaps resonate, even if indirectly, with White liberal middle-class audiences, as strands of some primordial genetic affinity with Whole Foods and L.L. Bean. (As a cultural anthropologist, I'm kidding here.)

But back to Juno. You probably know about the film already: a feisty 16-year old (in indie films the girls are almost always "spunky" or "feisty" -- or Feisty, even) gets knocked up, and she decides to give the baby up for adoption. But -- and I'm about to go out on a limb here because I can't quite articulate this -- the nature of the cinematic fantasy in Juno seems to be discursively White. But after all it's a White world -- a stereotyped world of charmingly kooky middle-classness and sterile (here, in two senses of the word) gated communities -- in which Juno is located.*** (There are a couple of Asian kids though, one of whom protests outside an abortion clinic and yells "All babies want to be borned.")

Juno is unreal in an odd white liberal wish-fulfillment sort of way, surely even by white working-class standards (Juno's father and mother are air-conditioning repairman and "nail technician," respectively). It's a total fantasy, really, because parents aren't generally so forgiving or practical, and such willing adoptive parents aren't found the same week, and accidental fathers probably end up facing the barrel of a shotgun at some point, and health insurance isn't a problem, and her pregnancy allows Juno to not have to drop out of school or flunk her exams. (Young women of color, especially poor and lower middle-class ones, wouldn't be off the hook so easily, as the odds against them rise exponentially.)

But back to Juno again. So can I tell you folks that I really, really loved Juno, even if I'm not white, and despite all the political iffiness? That I loved the breathless, canny dialogue; the giddy intertextuality sprouting cultural parentheses and asterisks everywhere; the musical nerdiness; the nuggets of vulnerable truth; the painstakingly cluttered production design; the glib linguistic archness -- all crammed, sometimes a little queasily, in the first fifteen minutes.

Thankfully, the film settles down after that (though I laughed really hard anyway). All the caffeinated, superficial quirkiness is peeled off to reveal a surprising, empathic depth -- not just with Juno and Bleeker and her parents, but also the adoptive couple played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner. The movie really belongs to Ellen Page; it's a performance that projects a perfectly calibrated smartass vulnerability. But Michael Cera -- who, once again, is just excellent in communicating that mix of cluelessness and discomfort -- and a great ensemble cast (including Allison Janney, Bateman, and a very good Garner) should also share the honors in this hilarious, very sweet film. Even if I'm not white.

*Though a person who counts the Stooges, Patti Smith, and the Runaways as her favorite groups of all time wouldn't really use the Moldy Peaches for the soundtrack about her life, would she? (I'm listening to the soundtrack right now and I'm deciding I'm allergic to this.)

**I mean, doesn't Kimya Dawson essentially serve the same function as Sam Phillips' "la la las" on "Gilmore Girls" -- as appropriate / ironic commentaries on the scene? (In fact, it's easy to see Juno's musical debates on 1977 vs. 1993 (i.e., what was the best year for rock and roll) as taking place in Stars Hollow, Connecticut. Remember that episode of "Gilmore Girls" where Lane (okay, she's Asian) was vinyl-shopping her way through that copy of the Mojo Collection? What indiegeekgirl hotness.)

***Come to think of it, Cloverfield was set in a rather White Manhattan as well, but that was probably because all the people of color were smart enough to get the fuck outta there.

Posted by the wily filipino at February 28, 2008 01:58 AM