January 25th was my one year anniversary for seeing the film for the first time.
Hey Everybody...I miss y'all, too.
I agree with Sues that Plainview's brutality signals his loss of control. Any character in a script is going to appear somewhat one-dimensional and I do think the differences between the page and the portrayal have to do with the actors and the director reacting to other human beings and situations. If DDL had played all the rage in the script I doubt Plainview would have been as interesting; and even if he is the boss he'd be hurting his business by showing the world all his unstable moments. Thus the calculated, formal cordiality. Makes him scarier and more unpredictable, too.
I'm home with an injury for the next few days...I may just pop the old film into the DVD player and enjoy. I haven't watched it for months.
Shepherdess, feel better. Enjoy that movie!
Yeah, I'm glad other people have seen the script - film differences. I realize there is some translation due to the fact that the character on paper is, literally, one-dimensional, but also some word edits, scene edits, lead me to believe that the paper Plainvew was just too cold, too brute. Very snappish at times, with people. The film version has more subtlety,with both language and action, that I think was a conscious act, in order to leave us with the feeling that there's more here, more to this guy than just the short, brute comments on paper. Which again, is why I don't buy the Plainview=evil idea. It's too simple, but also doesn't jive with glimpses we've seen of an obviously more complex individual.
Hmm, looks as though there's another lull happening. Guess that's to be expected though. Hopefully I didn't join just as everyone started giving up on the discussions. That would be a bummer. I do enjoy going through and reading all the threads though. Really interesting ideas and discussions going on around here! Smart people. I like it ;)