Unsettling Endings
(If you don't want to know anything about the movie because it might spoil it for you, then don't read this entry).
I recently saw P.T. Anderson's recent masterpiece There Will Blood, a story about a man's quest to strike it rich in California's oil rush early in the 20th century. The end of the movie leaves many of its viewers disgruntled, because of the story's lack of resolution. Most contemporary films end with great resolution. The villian is captured, the hero exalted, the shamu finally makes it to the ocean, the homeless man makes it to Wall Street, etc. Justice prevails, wounds begin to heal, and all the characters have learned great lessons. Typically, even when movies end on a sad note (e.g. the hero dies), there is still a sense of resolution. There is typically a calm funeral scene, with beautiful music in the background, giving the viewer the confidence that though the hero has died, his/her death was not in vain, their memory lives on, and our moral universe is still intact.
Suffice it to say that There Will Be Blood does not end with the sort of resolution previously described. And thus, it is unsettling. When watching a movie or listening to a story, we need resolution because we need to know that the world is safe, manageable and understandable. By not resolving, stories like There Will Be Blood suggest that the world is not secure and predictable. Truth does not always win out. Characters do not always experience redemption. Oppressors are not always brought to justice. The world is not safe, but hostile.
Though I believe that resolution and restoration is more real and determinative than irresolution and disintegration (because of the resurrection of Jesus), I still think there is significant truth in movies like There Will Be Blood. Perhaps we are kidding ourselves when we act as if in this life there will always be the kind of resolution the typical movie portrays. Perhaps the world is not as safe and manageable as we are told over and over again in stories ranging from childhood classics like Little Red Riding Hood to modern movies like James Bond or The Gladiator. Perhaps the wrong people win. Perhaps the two twenty-somethings don't end up falling in love. Perhaps we can't be so confident that our lives will be fulfilling, secure, and happy.
posted by Ryan @ 3:11 PM
5 Comments:
ryan, nice to see you throwing up another blog. let me add my contention with your interpretation concerning movies endings such as There will be Blood (I have not seen the movie yet). You seem to imply that the traditional hollywood movie ending functions to bring a sense of safety and security concerning the world in which we live, whereas less traditional movies with unsettling endings function as a sort of counter voice which may in fact actually be more true to life than the dominant voice of the traditional hollywood ending. While I agree that this is certainly the case, I would want to inquire into the dialectic between these two voices. I personally think that movies are a necessary counter voice to each of our individual experiences of life. We need stories to critique the dominant voice of life and the world which we experience everyday, lest we no longer be able to cope with life. Now I am sure that we would both agree that the means and content of the eschatological voices of the dominant hollywood ending must be challenged. So those were some of my initial thoughts. Let me conclude by saying that i am not entirely sold on the point that we need a movie to remind us what life is really like (you may disagree with me here). Movies that simply collapse us back into the present and do not risk an eschatological ending do not seem as daring and true as i think that you are implying.
Thanks for your comments. I think you're right that we need both voices. I actually think that one of P.T. Anderson's other films (Magnolia) is a great example of a movie that suggests redemption is possible (redemption turns on an act of God - frogs actually falling down out of the sky...which in my opinion makes the movie quite Barthian).
Your statement that "movies that simply collapse us back into the present and do not risk an eschatological ending do not seem as daring and true as i think that you are implying" may be true, but I don't think its actually relevant here. The movie doesn't "collapse us back into the present" anymore than Jeremiah's call for exilic Israel to weep and mourn collapses them back into the present. The reason it doesn't is that it takes Jeremiah's grieving voice for the people to know they are really in exile. It takes the voice of Ecclesiastes to let us know that life under the sun is a chasing of the wind. Without these voices, we wouldn't know we were in exile. So I think the movie is daring precisely because it tells us what none of us wants to admit.
Hi Ryan, it's Phillip Baker. Steve told me about your blog.
First of all, I'd like to say that I love everything about There Will Be Blood. It is the most engaging and challenging movie that I've ever seen. I think the ending is genius in the way that it makes the other aspects of this movie seem real and believable.
I have to argue against this talk about there being no resolution. I think there is some pretty definite resolution, it's just not where one would expect it to be. This movie is a psychological character piece about a man's deterioration, so much of the conflict is internal. It's true that this conflict goes by unresolved. On the other hand, much of the external conflict of this movie revolves around Daniel's son, H.W. In the end, this conflict is resolved. H.W. regains his use of communication, has a loving wife and a bright future, and rejects his father's path of self-destruction without looking back. It's a classic Hollywood ending. It's really beautiful, and the fact that it's intended to be overlooked and overpowered makes it even more beautiful.
But that's not what this story is about. This story is about Daniel Plainview's deterioration. Throughout the movie, his love for his son is the only thing that holds his humanity intact. When he rejects his son in the end, he is excluded from this resolution, making his deterioration complete. He becomes a monster. His situation is hopeless. For him, there is no resolution or redemption.
I think this ending is true to the story that's being told. It's a commentary on American life and heritage, the story of the American dream. As human beings living in a broken world, we long to see redemption take place. As an individualistic culture, we hope to bring about this redemption by our own hands and our own designs. This involves recognizing our emptiness, and attempts to fill that void by carving out an identity through man-made things, whether as a producer or as a consumer.
This movie reveals the dark reality behind the American dream. Daniel Plainview is an extreme case. He's not afraid of hurting or exploiting people in the name of his Machiavellian campaign. On a really simple level, his story shows how greed destroys people. This movie goes beyond that, and challenges us on a more complex, universal level, speaking directly to us. We think we can wash our hands of the actions of people like Daniel and still manage to live in accordance to this story that's been given to us, but the truth is that as consumers we inadvertently and unavoidably partake in the atroscities that happen behind the scenes. People like Daniel Plainview are necessary to the story that we live by. This story may be therapeutic at best, but is ultimately hopeless and has a mean streak. This movie conveys that reality beautifully.
People place hope in the story that they are enculturated to live by. Hope is necessary to life. Today's movies rehearse this story and this hope. The ending of this movie is so difficult for people to process because it's not easy to separate between the story that they have be told to trust and the hope that the need in order to live. In response, we can either abandon hope, or we can began to find hope in something else. This is where the Christian worldview comes into play, but not even that goes by unchallenged. The authenticity of our faith and of our religion is called into question through Eli Sunday's parallel story. Like Daniel, he uses his spirit and charisma in order to manipulate people. Yet his development as a character stands in direct contrast to Daniel's. His story starts with his spacey inhumanity, and his true humanity is only seen in the very end. This story is nearly as compelling as Daniel's, but may be even more sensitive and challenging to us. I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this matter. There's just so much to this movie.
Philip,
Thanks for joining the discussion. I agree with most of your points, except that your description of the movie as a "pyschological character piece" seems to be not the best description. The movie never really portrays much of an internal struggle within Daniel Plainview. He seems to know what he wants and everything he does lines up with that. True, he says that line about "competition being in me", but aside from this, are we really brought into his psyche? I think this movie is better described as a sociological piece - about how the values incarnated in Daniel and Eli affect the society around them. And I suppose we are working with different understandings of what counts as resolution. A man's complete deterioration is not resolution in the typical Hollywood sense, and I found the younger son's success that you mentioned to be overshadowed by his father's rejection of him...think of how the son leaves his father's house. Can we really see that as a beautiful Hollywood ending? This doesn't just make the "resolution" subtle, but it draws it into question. Especially considering P.T. Anderson is always dealing with the father-son theme, this ending of their relationship is harsh and bitter, particularly in contrast to the "resolution" that Tom Cruise's character experiences with his father in Magnolia. Your thoughts?
Did Daniel Plainview love his son? This is the psychological struggle of his character. The way you answer this question affects how you would interpret his character tremendously, adding layers of complexity of ambiguity.
I think the most likely answer is this: He surely loved his son at times -- regardless of his being a bastard -- while there were times that he did not love his son. If his love was conditional, what determined when he did and didn't love his son?
This is so important because Daniel's relationship with his son often stood in opposition to his business agenda. It affected the way that he dealt with people. Remember those death threats he gave to those other businessmen when they started asking about his son? That certainly wasn't good for business.
This is what makes Daniel's character so unpredictable. If H.W. was a way of humanizing himself to manipulate the locals, why did he take him back as a deaf, being more trouble than good? Was he manipulated by Eli into doing so (an interesting thought)? What were his original intentions for caring for H.W.? How deranged was Daniel to begin with when he found H.W. abandoned in the desert? Was all that mess a lie in order to finally rid himself of H.W.? If he was a sociopath to start out with, did H.W. end up humanizing him? Was his insanity caused by society? What really drove him crazy?The questions can go on forever, and depending on how they are answered, lead to many different internal struggles. These struggles keep Daniel's development as a character from being overly linear and predictable. The psychological aspect of the story is this struggle between Daniel's love of his son and his love for business. While they seem to fit together initially, things get really difficult for Daniel when H.W. loses his hearing, sparking his psychological breakdown.
While there are certainly sociological, even allegorical aspects to this movie, these internal conflicts keep Daniel from being a simple characateur or symbol. This is where we recognize within him our condition as people. Eli exists to parallel, contrast, and therefore intensify Daniel's character, but H.W. is where the real human struggle takes place. It takes place in an opposite agenda that can not exist alongside of Daniel's selfish campaign. How we make sense of this affects how we would go about making sense of everything else. If we simplify it, the story becomes an allegory about the America dream -- which it is in a great sense -- but then the characters suddenly lose their depth and believability, regardless of how crazy and over-the-top they are. That's what's so interesting about this movie. There are so many dimensions to it. It was probably wrong of me to try to fit it into some category.
As for my understanding of resolution, well, here it: Resolution is a character's progression from a stable system --the world of pre-deaf H.W. to a chaotic system -- deafness, boarding school, neglect etc. -- to another stable system -- marriage, independence from his father. I felt a sense of closure when it came to H.W.'s ending. His story fits this explanation, and has many elements of a Hollywood ending. Wrong people do not win in the end, in the case of Daniel and Eli -- unless you call their ends winning situations. Two twenty-something-year-olds do end up falling in love and getting married, in the case of H.W. and Mary. Sure, it's not a Hollywood ending per se, but that's largely due to Daniel's point of view. This movie would probably look very different if more attention was given to H.W., both in relationship to Daniel and independent from him. But we're looking at this from the way that we want and expect resolution to happen. We want to see the individual responsible for his own redemption. That is downfall of the American dream that this movie captured.
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