If this film doesn't sweep a handful of Oscars.  I am amazed you would not have seen this Brilliant film.To start it was originally set to be directed by Robert Altman.  Thomas Paul Anderson was hired to follow Altman as a safety net on their investment.  Of course, sadly, he died erly in the development process. Anderson re-wrote the script from scratch. And used the same locations as in GIANT. 

The film was based on Upton Sinclair's novel OIL,  He was one of the mukraker writers of the 1920s who investigated the corruption Big Business in America. There would never have been a gay subtext to the story.  Besides life was very different then.  Gawker is looking at it from the perspective of post-twentieth century gay life.  Two guys back then depended on each other without being sexually involved.  I am not saying it wasn't around just not in the way Gawker is inferring.

Daniel Plainview was obsessed with getting to the top and being the only one there, "I want no one else to succede."  He did not like people who got in his way, be it Eli Sunday or even his own son.  He even abused his son, who he only took in as a ruse to get ahead.  In Daniel's mind Eli Sunday had to die because he got in Daniel's way not for any sexual tension between them.

You know, after I saw THERE WILL BE BLOOD I did raise the topic for discussion with everyone I knew who had seen it, and everyone said it hadn't even crossed their mind. Apparently there are scenes in the script that explain why Daniel had no love interest (not because he was gay, mind you) which take care of him, but Eli's character is a bit more complicated. I took it that both men are too obsessed with success to care about anyone else and saw Eli's offer in the last scene to be a longshot act of desperation, not anything based in fact. And even if Eli was "shaded" as gay, it was apparently so vague that virtually no one picked up on it anyway. Awesome movie, btw.

Saw the posters. Yikes!! My heart is beating just a little faster. If I were of an age where I was still putting up posters, I would probably buy them all. The camera loves this man.  Thanks for the link.

Peace, Joy and Love
*B*

He is just SO classy. So well spoken. And just so reasonable. LOVE him on the show and really liked his dialogue with Jon Stewart.

As for There Will Be Blood: very well acted and directed. The music bothered me a bit. It just seemed so disjointed and so overly dramatic at times when nothing really huge happened. I felt like it was M. Night Shyamalan music without the alien popping out of the hole. But that's just me. I did not like the casting of Eli at all. Didn't like the character of course but didn't like the actor, either. And ... flash forward...H.W. grew up. But Eli didn't age at all. Didn't seem well thought out at all.

I didn't discern any latent homosexual overtones while watching the movie or now as I sit and think about it. I'm sure Daniel would have been a womanizer (and very good at it) but they spared us those inconsequential moments.

Oh and look for No Country for Old Men to win Oscar gold. (But watch out for a sleeper upset by Juno!)

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whoever you are, just be you