The Bowling Alley: "I loathe the final two scenes with the son in 'There Will Be Blood'. "

"I loathe the final two scenes with the son in "There Will Be Blood". The scene with the napkin and the scene father the wedding.

Everyone wants to focus on the final scene (which is flawed but in an exceptional way) and skip over these two gratingly awkward scenes that really add nothing to the movie. In fact they contain leaps of logic. One second in the film the son could care less that he's with his dad the next he's begging him to understand why he has to go off on his own and that he loves him. This was the scene that lost me. It felt more like the creator of the film forcing the characters to do what he wanted them to do rather than letting them become their wily selves in the end.

I'm putting up a whole brass blog right now."

Posted by:  Phillip Kelly|February 18, 2008 10:54 PM

Read Kelly's full criticism of the final scene between Plainview and adult H.W. (a "terrible cheat" as he calls it) at:

 http://philzine.wordpress.com/

i feel like this guy hasn't seen the movie enough. he keeps referencing the standard oil scene like it comes after the baptism scene...which it doesn't. and i really don't see how HW was acting cold towards daniel, so for me the ending confrontation between the two works...and even if HW was cold towards daniel, maybe the later scene is his attempt at mending their relationship, even in the tiniest way. at the beginning of the scene, he's still under the impression that daniel is his father, and no matter how much of a monster your father may have been (and we don't really know what happened in the 17 or so years between the jumps), you can't help but still wish for some form of love from him. once he realizes he isn't even his father, he finds the courage to completely sever the bond. that's what i took away from it. maybe that's just me, because i personally LOVE the HW scene, i'd even go so far as to say it's one of my favorites in the film (aside from the derrick fire and baptism scenes)

but hey, isn't that the beauty of this film? everybody takes away something different.

yes.

what ThereWillBeBowling says.

I have to see what I think of it, second time around (tomorrow, Please God!)  It might seem completely different to me.  I think I'm being persuaded, and it is the complete severing of the only relationship that meant anything to DP.

Phil is totally off the mark. HW being hurt like hell about something his father did when he was eleven years old (sending him somewhere he could get help that DP couldn't provide, even if DP did it in a way that broke both their hearts) is a thousand miles removed from the feelings a grown man is going to have about that father 16 years later. and to say that HW isn't a driving force in the movie until PT needs him to be is stone ridiculous. HW's role in the movie is essentially DP's humanity; when HW is sent away, DP practically becomes the devil in the blink of an eye. the scene where the crazy old DP loses HW, again, is absolutely essential in illustrating why DP now feels like it's OK to run around killing people.

i enjoyed the rest of Phil's review, but his line of thinking on this subject is completely wrong.

This may sound weird, but it almost reminds me of a room as it would be described by Dickens.  You know, rooms and houses in Dickens always seem to mirror their occupants.

Beautiful shot.

I personally loved the last scene between HW and Daniel. I felt it was right on topic, and I never saw HW behaving coldly toward his father. I mean, HW had been a good, obedient son for years with Daniel. Daniel “trained” him perfectly to go along with the needs of the business, whether it was setting up the cottage house or “remember your silence”. HW was the perfect companion b/c he never questioned Daniel, never disobeyed and gave Daniel just enough love/attention/humanity to keep him sane (filling in for the emotional gaps that a normal relationship with, say, a woman, would provide). Then the injury occurs, and HW, being unable to hear, and unable to read, cannot comprehend what has happened to him. Also, with how little was known about hearing loss at that time, this became a vacuum in his life. Daniel, for all of his strengths, is a man of limited emotional capacity. Consider the scene where he visits HW in bed and then leaves him to go work, when he realizes HW still cannot hear. Or just that he has Fletcher accompany HW to school. Does Daniel really have that much work that he cannot take his son to school for the first time? I don’t think so. Daniel cannot deal with the emotion required to do something so difficult, he gets as far as the train, and then ducks out. Fine, there are lots of people who cannot deal with such things. But at the restaurant later, with HW, Daniel desperately wants to believe that HW can be helped (by his teacher, or whatever) and Daniel can get his son back. HW’s silence, I think, is simply from him learning to deal with his disability, and perhaps also, his knowledge that his father is uncomfortable. I think, with his teacher George’s help, HW eventually learned to deal with his disability in the best way that could be done at that period of time. He obviously doesn’t let it stop him from being active in their business – active to the point where he and Daniel would disagree many times. But frankly, b/c Daniel NEVER LEARNED SIGN LANGUAGE, he is blocked from an intimate relationship with his son – he must always go through a translator, and from many scenes, it is obvious that Daniel relishes private moments with those few that he actually trusts. No doubt, this just added to the distance between them. But no, I don’t think HW really harbored hate/anger towards Daniel for sending him to school; he probably rationalized it in his own way as he grew older, but I really think the state of their relationship at the end is the result of: 1) lack of intimacy due to HW’s deafness and Daniel’s refusal to learn sign language; 2) HW becoming his own man and doing things, like getting married, which Daniel has NO experience with and cannot understand; 3) Daniel’s increasing isolation, alcoholism, and paranoia.

Sorry this is so long, but that 17 year gap gives a girl a lot to think about. Please comment, I can’t wait to read them.

H.W.  didn't go there to tell his father that he loved him.  He went there to get away from him, and to move on to another life without him.  I can understand why Daniel decided to destroy his son's love for him-in a way he was making it easier on his son.  The second scene is importaint to understand Daniel, and his inability to bend. 

In the first scene Daniel has everything.  EVERYTHING!  He has his son, his deal with Union Oil, everything.  And then the waiter goes and serves the boys from Standard Oil first.   Envy.