Much in the world has changed since the summer of 2007, yet the timelessness of many of the films that year has proven the staying power of immaculate cinema. 15 years ago, the world was graced, or rather cursed, with the arrival of Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood. In what is perhaps Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterwork, Daniel Day-Lewis embodies the core American ideals upon which this country was founded: greed, evil, selfishness. As 158 minutes stretches out over the course of 30 years, the infinite lifespan of greed makes itself vehemently apparent. In the 15 years since its release, There Will Be Blood has only grown in its brilliance. And, in a most genius decision, the first 15 silent minutes of this film serve as the most fitting introduction imaginable to one of cinema’s most dastardly and realistic characters to ever exist.

Daniel Plainview practically lives underground. Covered head to toe in grime, his silence speaks volumes. Through grunts, hocks of spit, and greedy mutterings of discovery, he’s indistinguishable from a creature found in a cautionary fairy tale. Only There Will Be Blood is most certainly not a fairy tale, but instead, a wholly realistic look at a specific type of individual that built the very foundations of capitalism – and all the evil that comes along with that. After literally dragging himself and his score through the dirt, we witness Plainview build himself up. He is no longer alone in some hole in the middle of nowhere, but has made enough to assemble a small team, surely all hoping to either get rich or simply make enough money to feed themselves and their families. And if Plainview’s later speeches are any indication, it can be assumed that he said whatever he had to in order to get them to dive into the depths of the dirty earth alongside him. Even the acts that could be seen as charitable are eventually torn down by his own admission. In a way, it seems as if even he is incapable of lying to himself for too long in the name of the greater good. One way or another, the reasoning behind his actions always comes out. Most telling is that it never comes out by way of fear, but instead, pride.

Daniel Plainview is a proud man. He wholeheartedly understands exactly who he is, and it doesn’t seem to scare him in the slightest. On the contrary, he appears to be excited by it. In what is one of the more iconic moments of the film, there is a fiery accident that would serve as a distinct problem in another film; yet this is no ordinary film. Bathed in oil and pitch black darkness, Plainview has a look of enlightenment on his face. As a raging fire lights up the sky and offers a glimpse of Day-Lewis’ barely contained excitement, it seems as though nothing else matters. In many ways, he appears to be the literal face of evil. As Jonny Greenwood’s score descends into a repetitive drum pattern, it feels as if the very earth cracked open to unleash the corrupt spirit that lingered beneath the ground. Or perhaps, this accident is all that Plainview felt he needed in order to be his true self, the one that has been festering just beneath the surface.

A viewing of There Will Be Blood is akin to watching a dance with the Devil. As many individuals cross paths with Plainview, we see just how easily he can take advantage of them. In his quest to prevent everyone else’s success, he will even go as far as receiving a baptism from the hands of Eli Sunday, played by a deeply impressive Paul Dano. As Plainview gets on his knees begging for forgiveness in the name of securing a business transaction, it’s difficult not to conjure images of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. As Linda Blair’s possessed Regan openly ridicules the priests attempting to save her soul, Plainview mocks the church itself and all within it. As the water washes over his head, his grin grows and the evil within him appears to become vitalized. Just as Greenwood’s score full of strings embodies a sense of new frontiers ready to cautiously be explored, there is a looming sense of danger behind every choice made in the film. Certain moments feel no different than a full-fledged horror film. After all, we are witnessing a battle for the soul of a man who is nothing if not deeply compelling. Through a more realistic lens however, Plainview’s soul was lost long ago. Perhaps we are just subconsciously hoping he is able to find some semblance of redemption.

As the years quickly go by, and Plainview has to deal less and less with “those people,” it is evident that he is becoming increasingly detached from reality. He openly admits to being disgusted by even the inspiring moments of his past, and he never resorts to opulence as a way of proving himself. Instead, it’s just a byproduct of his nature: crushing his competition. He spends his later days in a rudimentary shooting gallery in his home or sleeping on the floor of his bowling alley. Even at his most despicable, some yearn to be merely a fraction of the behemoth Plainview clawed himself into becoming. Yet, despite their desperate attempts, they quickly crumble under the morally hollow Plainview.

There are few contemporary directors who craft character pieces as compelling as PTA can, but when matched with the sheer intensity and insanity that Day-Lewis brings to the role, the impact is undeniable. 15 years later, There Will Be Blood remains one of the greatest American films to ever be crafted. And the idea of Daniel Plainview, as wicked as he may be, has only multiplied and thrived in the years since.

Say what you want regarding today’s actors and influencers dating amongst themselves, none of them have chemistry to the marriages and affairs of many decades ago. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez reunited and married? Every relationship the Kardashians have been in? Not even those who have seen their marriages last a long time have come close to one of the most internationally sought-after couples. In 1950, it was considered taboo and a clash of cultures to see two different figures together. The affair threatened to ruin their lives, but both Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini would put their love on camera in a series of films that are highly regarded today.  

A Letter To An Open Affair

Ingrid Bergman was an Academy Award-winner (for Gaslight) and starred in numerous hits by the late 1940s, ten years after coming over from Sweden. Her clean-cut reputation and screen persona made her symbolic of the perfect actress thanks to her performances in Casablanca, The Bells of St. Mary’s, Notorious, and Joan of Arc.  Roberto Rossellini was at the forefront of the Italian neorealist movement born out of the country’s ruins following World War II. His film, Rome Open City, kickstarted a revolution in storytelling which was followed by other filmmakers and admired by many viewers. Although not religious and with close relations to Christian Democrats and socialists, Rossellini was a bridge to Catholic morals in a changing Italian society separating itself from the church. Bergman was one of those admirers who loved his work and sent him a letter in 1948. It said:

Dear Mr. Rossellini,

I saw your films Open City and Paisan and enjoyed them very much. If you need a Swedish actress who speaks English very well, who has not forgotten her German, who is not very understandable in French, and who in Italian knows only “ti amo,” I am ready to come and make a film with you.

With the chance to work with one of the most beautiful and most respected actresses in the world, Rossellini invited her to Italy. In making a deal with RKO Pictures for international distribution, his next production and first with Bergman was Stromboli. In traditional neorealism, non-professional actors and locals played various roles and the movie was shot on location on the titular island with its active volcano. (During the shoot, Stromboli did erupt but nobody was seriously harmed.) The film follows a European refugee from the East who is freed from an internment camp and marries an Italian ex-POW who takes her back to his home on the island. For the woman finding a new sense of freedom, the island is harsh, the people are boorish toward the foreigner, and she becomes more isolated in her life. 

Movies By Marriage

It became obvious to onlookers that the couple, both of whom were married with children, were falling in love. The relationship bore a child, a son named Robin, nine months after filming began, and it would follow later with twin daughters, Isabella and Ingrid. They would divorce their spouses and marry each other while the international press covered the romance that banished Ingrid from Hollywood as an immoral person and was even derided in her native Sweden. One U.S. Senator even denounced her on the Senate floor as a “public concubine.” However, the two would move on with their love and collaborate on several more movies together. 

The first follow-up after Stromboli was the drama Europe ‘51 released in 1952. It was a post-neorealism story as it remained shot on location while using more professional actors, notably Alexander Knox, Ettore Giannini, and Giuletta Masina, wife of fellow director Federico Fellini. The film follows an industrialist’s wife who is declared insane after the tragic death of their son and then walks through Rome where she sees a more distressing side of life. It is political, charging the status quo with abandonment, including towards their own children while the working class doesn’t reap the benefits of Italy’s economic boom. It was too political for Italian censors, who asked Rosselini to edit several minutes of the film for general release. Years later, the restored version with politically sensitive content was shown.

In 1954, the last films they did together would be released, Journey To Italy and Fear. While the latter film is a noir attempt in capturing Germany’s own moral reconstruction, Journey To Italy is considered by some to be Rosselini’s masterpiece for this modernist turn of marriage in doubt. In it, Bergman and George Sanders play a couple who travel to Naples to inherit a home from a deceased relative. Bergman’s character, an Italian woman, feels distant from her English husband and suddenly discord between the two becomes apparent. The story is free-flowing and, to keep the actors on their toes, they were given their dialogue only minutes before they would shoot the scene. Imagery, like scenes in Pompeii where dead bodies are locked together, is unearthed, replacing dialogue. In a short time span, an odyssey that quickly tore the couple apart has seemed to be reattached.  

Splitting Up

A reversal of fortune would come for both Rosselini and Bergman that would end the relationship. Rossellini’s possessive nature prevented her from working with other directors and saw a return to Hollywood to be ruinous for her. After several years away, Bergman would make a dramatic comeback in Hollywood when she won her second Academy Award for her performance in Anastasia. Despite the affair, it was apparent now that people were welcoming her back with open arms as those who had worked with her had been on her side the whole time. Meanwhile, the neorealist movement was long gone and Rosselini would struggle to reach the heights of his power again. The latter films were not commercially successful and critics began to tire of his movies as repetitive. 

In 1957, Rosselini was invited to India to make a documentary about the emerging country post-independence. There he would begin a new affair with a writer, Sonali Senroy Dasgupta, who was married to a local film director. As with Bergman, it was a massive scandal, particularly in India, which saw Rosselini as someone who would dishonor India, forcing Dasgupta to flee to Italy. Bergman and Rosselini divorced later that year, permitting Bergman to move back to Hollywood while Rosselini and Dasgupta would marry soon after. The two would remain friends following their divorce as Bergman would go on to win a third Oscar while Rosselini, finishing his career in TV, would find himself as a cited influence to future generations of directors in Italy and around the world.

Seventy years later, the collaborative years between the two have aged well and are part of Italian cinema’s heritage. Many critics of the time blamed Rosselini for ruining her career and chose to shadow boycott any good review of later works. However, the clan from Cahiers du Cinema in France held Rosselini and these movies in high regard and more film critics looked at them with the same belief, that this was a great era for the director and his wife. Plus, Bergman always gave a performance that captured the fleeting isolation in her characters which was partly influenced by their own marriage. It ended in divorce, but the legacy of their films together is inseparable.

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Believe it or not, not all Alfred Hitchcock films are great Alfred Hitchcock films. Here’s a tit for tat featuring two worthy early Hitchcock thrillers and two of his ho-hum period pieces that miss the mark.

The Lady Vanishes

Who has or hasn’t seen the lady in question causes railcar mayhem in this 1938 mystery as travel delays and assorted languages invoke the tourist hustle and bustle. A rambling governess, saucy maids, and cranky Englishmen commandeering the phone just to ask the for the cricket scores introduce the scandalous bare legs, stoles, caviar, and champagne. Men in bed together is jolly good innuendo amid Americans getting preferential treatment, newspaper sensationalism, and intensifying continental troubles. Incognito affairs, musicians, doctors, magicians, and foreign diplomats are all interconnected. However, a hit on the head begets a kaleidoscope of confusion, unfamiliar faces, and slight of hand illusion. Some genuinely don’t recall seeing the eponymous woman; but lies, lawyers, ulterior motives, and that unreliable bump on the head cast doubt about who’s on what side. Train whistles pepper the constant travel hum, rail montages, rear projection, and black and white photography – keeping the confined setting fittingly well paced with perilous comings and goings between cars. Although some magic tricks, sardonic comedy, and humorous cargo should have happened before the seriousness and nondescript bad guys and contrived leaps help the shootouts; tea in the dining car alone and suspicious wine glasses escalate to political secrets, nationalist conspiracies, and international chases.

Jamaica Inn

Charles Laughton (The Private Life of Henry VIII) and Maureen O’Hara (The Quiet Man) star in this 1939 adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s tale brimming with nineteenth century lawlessness, shipwrecks, and the perilous Cornish coast. Blustery waters, sailor screams, and ye olde montages are well done as dangerous carriages, pub plotting, and racketeering add brutality for our spunky niece and her lecherous uncle. Who is double crossing whom and pocketing a percentage? Eavesdropping, spying from above, and perspective camera angles are early Hitchcock hallmarks along with up close knives, a wrongly accused man, and winding stairs. Potential opposites attract banter sets off the rescues, ironic twists, surprises, and enemies in disguise. Unfortunately, it’s tough to tell the henchmen apart amid chatty smuggling delays that are neither scary nor scandalous. Regency marriages are rough, and women both help or hinder the crimes as needed or just remain helpless. The usually on point Laughton’s fake nose and obvious eyebrows become Doctor Evil ham thanks to ridiculous scene chewing parody, and the inexplicably comedic villain makes the audience excruciatingly aware of the uneven cat and mouse. While suspenseful if you aren’t familiar with the story, this never fully achieves a truly gothic ominous.

Lifeboat

English playing cards and dead Germans in the flotsam and jetsam herald the nationalism, torpedoes, sunken ships, u-boats, and wartime gray of this 1944 self-contained thriller. Dirty sailors, self-absorbed survivors, famous dames, and babies crowd the tiny titular boat as multiple melodramas happen fore and aft thanks to superb rear projection, foreground zooms, background silhouettes, and strategic intercutting capturing all angles. Fog and water sprays compound the undrinkable seas, precious rain, and testy interrogations. Colloquialisms, accents, and translations set off the insinuating conversations and double meanings of repeated “Some of my best friends are…” claims. A compass, typewriter, diamond bracelets, brandy, and newspapers add tangibles to the unexpected camaraderie, for “dying together is more personal than living together.” The diverse ensemble discusses shell shock, lacking supplies, and the burial at sea prayers they don’t know as cold, wet, sleepless vignettes allow the stranded to come clean. Having a then realistic rather than evil archetype Nazi character is understandably controversial, but do they toss the enemy overboard? Strong, smoking, sexy, clad in furs Tallulah Bankhead (Devil and the Deep) is kissing or angry in the same scene, dynamic alongside violent mutinies and sudden twists. Lost materialism gives way to symbolic shoes, bare feet, shirtless men, tattoos, and amputations. Intense poker, lipstick, and flirtations increase as beards grow and tables turn amid storms, hunger, delirium, and suspicion in a no win situation that remains gripping from beginning to end.

Under Capricorn

Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca) and Joseph Cotten (Shadow of a Doubt) can’t save this overlong 1949 mystery with a clunky narration setting the 1831 Australian scene. Irish history, wealthy governors politicking, and shady land deals are yawn worthy and wooden. The first fifteen minutes of convicts turned businessmen bathing in a barrel should have been excised in favor of the newly arrived scoundrel eavesdropping on a suspect dinner at the creepy manor. Abused staff and an aloof wife discuss the past at the expense of the present, repeating what was just said amid the drinking and social shunning while others freely reveal secrets to strangers. Hitchcock uses long takes, zooms, tracking cameras, and new techniques here in his second Technicolor film. Unfortunately, the colorful Victorian frocks meets Wild West frontier carriages make for a stilted setting with seemingly shocking shrunken heads rolling at their feet that are just plain silly. Strong-chinned dull men, swelling crescendos, and fainting women are typical period piece groans. One can see what Hitchcock is attempting with characters bound to the visual frame paralleling their inescapable history, but it only draws attention to the surprisingly thin story. Despite horse chases, who really shot whom revelations, and deportation threats; the drama never peaks. Supposedly scandalous love triangles, elopements, poisons, and deaths happen off screen before an abrupt resolution. Only the divine uninterrupted tiara ball sequence captures the guilt and performance so lacking in the rest of the film.  

Though often under-produced with innate poor quality, these early Alfred Hitchcock British films from the thirties are peppered with familiar Hitchockian nuggets and all the expected suspense.

Murder!

Screams, Beethoven overtures, and Wagner on the radio accent the hysterical finger pointing and polluted crime scene of this 1930 whodunit. Messy households high and low gossip about rival actresses and the facts are secondhand – a fireplace poker, bloody dresses, a brandy flask. Wry British humor and pre-Code wit wink at the regular people in extreme circumstances and scandals behind closed doors. The back and forth domestic settings, prop doors, backstage interrogations, pantomime, and cross dressing innuendo create a stage-like design to match the caper within a caper, pomp and circumstance trials, wigs, and robes. The pipe smoking alpha male, old ladies in pearls, the cowering man, a sophisticated psychology woman, and the dirty old man who thinks a good looking actress should get a free pass divide the jury as they deliberate on our lady killer’s well bred family and a possible fugue state. There are obvious twists and clues the police miss. Women at home serving the man attitudes are dated and onscreen cursive notes feel like silent film holdovers amid roundabout exposition scenes and lagging transitions. However devil or angel on the shoulder camera cuts, voiceovers, and intense zooms set off the well edited jury interplay and doubts in the mirror. Public opinion and armchair investigators linger over what should be an open and shut case before the surprisingly modern meta and fitting circus topper.

The 39 Steps

This landmark 1935 Hannay adaptation from the novel by John Buchan features Robert Donat (Goodbye, Mr. Chips) and all the mistaken man, foreign intrigue, and Hitchcockian macguffins to come. Cheeky dance halls and marriage jokes contrast chases, gunshots, and shadow men amid mysterious maps of Scotland, missing fingers, and knives in the back. Fedoras, trench coats, newspapers, and ticking clocks accent the mercenary espionage and air defense hush hush as danger tops each scene with suspicious phone booths and perilous bridges. Police are knocking at the door and women are both helpful or harmful depending on the alias or location. Whom do you trust when no one is who they seem? A spy must always be on the lookout even in the perceived rural calm as handcuffs, hymnal twists, romance, and false arrests escalate. News travels fast thanks to trains, airplanes, and rapid waters while superb cabin car photography and railroad scenery set off the ironic parades, impromptu speeches, cheering crowds, and charismatic escapes. Filming through doors, Art Deco lines, and silhouetted figures add style to the somewhat rough around the edges production and now recognizable cliches as the winks come full circle for a great undercover adventure.

Secret Agent

General Peter Lorre (M) and Captain John Gielgud (Arthur) star in this 1936 adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s tales alongside Great War funerals, one armed soldiers, and empty coffins. The German Expressionism is Bond before North by Northwest was Bond thanks to false passports, fake headlines, a man named “R,” and double agents. Despite distant bombs, nearing explosions, and wartime scale; the hotel meetings, secret messages in the chocolate wrapper, and candlelight signals make for an intimate one man mission. Intense factories, train confrontations, and telegram intertitles with translated codes send Gielgud’s charming novelist cum spy to exotic continental casinos with button clues and more flirtatious farce with Madeleine Carroll (also of The 39 Steps). Some over the top humor, however, is unnecessary – Lorre’s exasperated quips and subtle sardonic are much better with the menage mood. Despite his bickering couple and sidekick banter, his killer hand should not be underestimated. Telescope shots, howling dogs, glum church organs, and mountain photography add suspense as do Hitchcockian staircases and on the run, reluctant heroes. Who is the rival agent we’re seeking? Have we met him already? In spite of some obvious formulaic and an abrupt end, this potboiler doesn’t talk down to the viewer as suspicions and languages build to a tense finale.

Sabotage

Not to be confused with Hitchcock’s Secret Agent or later Saboteur, this 1936 thriller based on The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad opens with blackouts, flashlights, dark skylines, and patrons wanting their money back from the down picture show. Shadow schemes and askew camera angles add to the power tampering suspicion while tense notes follow a mysterious man in black as he returns home, washes his hands, and claims innocence. Professional, public, and domestic differences are intertwined with families living above the bustling marketplace and grocers who aren’t what they seem. Scotland Yard whispers of trouble abroad, and shadowed men with their backs to the camera converse over promised payments. Creepy packages, trick bird cages, and threatening “sleeping with the fishes” messages are a tongue in cheek nod to the nature of cinema as covers are blown and men scatter. Clueless wives are oblivious to being used for information in dynamic handsome detective versus cruel husband sequences. The innocuous cinema, aquarium, and pet shop each have seemingly innocent ingredients used for making bombs, and onscreen days of the week countdown for the preoccupied public hoodwinked by what’s in plain sight. Though busy early and somewhat meandering with convenient plot points unanswered, the questions on who is behind these plans and why become eerily provocative when a child delivers a fatal ticking package in the crowded market. Delays, detours, puppies, stoplights, traffic jams, and parades culminate in a nail biting finish as the threats hit home.

Karel Zeman died in 1989, several months before the Velvet Revolution, which saw the communist regime in Czechoslovakia stand down and democracy return. It was sad that Zeman didn’t live to see the Iron Curtain come down because he would have been among the first to show his movies to a whole new generation. Called the “Czech George Méliès” by critics, Zeman saw the Frenchman, a pioneer of cinema in the 1900s, as his biggest influence. But whereasMéliès is part of film history textbooks, Zeman is a footnote despite his body of work being one of the most impressive in the history of animation.

Zeman was born in 1910 and moved to France to work in advertising in the 1920s and 30s. There, he began using animation before returning home in 1936, three years before all of Czechoslovakia was annexed by Nazi Germany, and would import his techniques for local ads. While the war was happening, Zeman met film director Elmar Klos and hired him to work in his studio in the city of Zlin. Hermína Týrlová, who is considered “the mother of Czech animation,” worked with Zeman on her short children’s films before Zeman became head of his own production company.

In 1952, Zeman would produce his first full-length feature, The Treasure of Bird Island. Based on a Persian fairy tale, he would begin his standout animation by combining two and three-dimensional drawings, including puppetry, to construct an orthodox fix that advanced what an animated film could be. His second full-length feature would start the string of work which is known as Zemanesque in his home country. Starting with Journey to the Beginning of Time, Zeman mixed animation with live-action, filming real actors on-set or on location as part of the story. In Journey, a group of kids finds themselves rowing down a river going back to prehistoric times and confronting extinct raptors. Steven Spielberg cited the film as an influence in making Jurassic Park. 

Zeman didn’t have the big budgets that Hollywood films did. He would construct his movies with an original aesthetic made from scratch. Colors, sounds, and visual gags play up to Zamel’s chaos where every shot is a surprise. He would meticulously draw up every set design, something totally different to invent another universe that had never been seen before on the screen. His follow-up, Invention for Destruction, is based on a Jules Verne novel that combines science fiction with the pirating genre. It is not a direct adaptation of the novel and Zeman provides a love letter of inspiration from George Méliès. Carefully looking at the original designs from Verne’s novel and vintage illustrations, Zeman keeps the visual style as faithful as possible while using every trick in the book for consistency. 

The Fabulous Baron Munchausen was next, playing an important role in the career of director Terry Gillam, who also started out with animation. (Gilliam would direct his own version of Baron Munchausen which ended up being a notorious flop and filled with production problems.) Zeman’s version feels like an acid trip with all the characters of different eras crossing paths at once. It does not stop altering itself with the pastel colors, either being changed by the scenes or simply melting with each other. The centuries of history are blended into one large anachronist story, fitting for the character of Baron Munchausen. His next film, A Jester’s Tale, took a slightly political tone as a satire set during the Thirty Years’ War with a tone for pacifism; The Stolen Airship is another Jules Verne adaptation shot mainly in black-and-white but did not have similar feedback as his previous films. 

1968 would be a tumultuous year for Czechoslovakia. The “Prague Spring” was crushed by the Soviets who opposed the country’s growing dissociation from communist rule and figures once part of the country’s arts and literature groups found themselves out of work and censored completely. Zeman avoided the purge, but after his 1970 film On the Comet, he was forced to scale back his projects thanks to tighter budgets and stricter script approval from the government. He went to do more traditional animation movies and TV shows, preferring cutout techniques over hand-drawn ones which were commonplace and were cheaper and faster to create. His last film, The Tale Of John And Mary, was released in 1980.

Zeman spent the last decade of his life unable to get any more of his scripts produced and was relegated to an ambassador of Czech film and animation. He was awarded the Order of the Republic by the Czech government and was allowed to travel abroad where his work was exposed to Tim Burton and Wes Anderson, both of whom had homages to Zeman in their own films. Only after Zeman died and Europe was unified with the end of communism were his films given a full retrospective by many filmgoers and critics. In the capital of Prague, a museum dedicated to Zeman’s work opened in 2012. He is, all these decades later, considered, without question, one of the greatest animators of all time.

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