A Tale of Two Movies

We don't make it to the movie theater very often (which is ironic considering that my husband has a master's degree in film and video). Every so often, Michael will drive over to Blockbusters and rent a bunch of movies for us to catch up on viewing. This weekend was one of those times.

One of the movies we watched was the Oscar-nominated film There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day-Lewis. Michael has been wanting to see this for the longest time, but it sounded a little too grim to me. I don't mind dark movies as long as they aren't nihilistic. So even though I really like Daniel Day-Lewis, I've hesitated. But this weekend I said ok.

Well, I did not like the movie. It's not only grim and dark, it's incredibly cynical. The story concerns an oilman and his attempt to gain the leases to drill oil wells on all the land in a small California town. His main nemesis is a faith healer, who has his own agenda. Neither is a positive character. Michael found it somewhat refreshing to see a movie that was a character study instead of being plot-driven, but it didn't work as a character study for me. I think the writer / director doesn't show much psychological understanding in his portrayals. There is no complexity to the people in this movie. The main character does not grow or change. Nor does he seem to have any positive characteristics. In fact, the movie is singularly devoid of likable characters. I felt the filmmaker presented a stacked deck to make his points.

In contrast, we both really liked the movie we watched the following night: Amazing Grace, which is the story of how William Wilberforce fought for years to get the British Parliament to outlaw the slave trade. In contrast to There Will Be Blood, Amazing Grace portrays very complex issues and characters. The movie makes the economic and political complexities of the slave trade quite plain. The sugar plantations of the Caribbean and the English merchants and seaman that relied on the sugar, molasses, and rum trade were all dependent on slavery. Because of the economic importance of slavery, an attack on it was seen as an attack on the British Empire itself. Yet, even though the movie gives the economic justifications, it doesn't pull any punches about portraying the absolute horror that was slavery. One thing I found quite interesting is that the film's director, Michael Apted, is a self-described agnostic and the star, Ioan Gruffudd, says that he is not particularly religious. Yet the movie respectfully portrays Wilberforce's Evangelical convictions and even shows a conversion moment without a hint of satire or cynicism. For those of you who have not seen this movie, I strongly recommend it. And if that's not enough of an incentive, Ioan Gruffudd is total eye candy. :-)

Strangely enough, a theme in both movies was how greed causes people to do despicable things. In one case, it worked for me. In the other, it didn't.