Cinema Sonnets #4 - There Will Be Blood - featuring Joseph Roman
Three sonnets based on There Will Be Blood by Paul Thomas Anderson, featuring Joseph Roman
*This is the fourth installment of Cinema Sonnets, a series where I ask fellow substack poets to pick a film, which we will both subsequently watch, meditate on, and use as inspiration for poetry.
Cinema Sonnets episode 4
It’s time for another set of Cinema sonnets. For this fourth installment I’ve asked
from to create sonnets based on a film of his choice.Joseph decided we should watch Paul Thomas Andersons’s masterpiece There Will Be Blood from 2007.
We approached the collaboration in the following way
First (as chosen by Joseph) we watched There Will Be blood
Secondly we created a sonnet each
Thirdly we read each other’s sonnets
Lastly we commenced creating a joint sonnet: writing alternating stanzas.
There Will Be Blood
There Will Be Blood is a Period Drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, based on the 1927 novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair. The film follows Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day Lewis, a silver miner turned Oilman who embarks on a ruthless quest for wealth during the Californian oil boom between the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The film explores themes of religion, materialism, and greed and is visually stunning, featuring gorgeous cinematography and incredible setpieces, most notably the famous oil rig explosion scene.
Surprisingly when Joseph proposed the film, I actually hadn’t seen it yet, though it had long been on my list of things to watch — and the movie sure didn’t disappoint. There Will Be Blood is an incredible film that is engaging and tackles some challenging and ambiguous themes.
The film is also worth a watch alone for Daniel Day Lewis’s marvelous performance that landed him a well deserved oscar for best actor, as well as the mesmerizing original score by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood.
There Will Be Blood is a dark and uncompromising tale of greed and brutality, so it definitely provides a solid foundation to base some sonnets on.
Read the result of our attempt to adapt this cinematic masterpiece into sonnets below:
First There Will Be Blood Sonnet:
There Will Be Blood
by Rasmus Rosenkrantz
Gentle whispers are the loudest prayers—
From beneath the earth they reach heaven's stairs,
in shadows they arise, in light they sink;
Lately in the earth, faith's been lingering.
Is it ignorant to blindly believe
in a God who so cunningly deceives?
Are these miners mighty minds and spirits
still tied to beliefs of hate and wreckage?
Oil is: the blood of the lamp, the blood of
men and children, the dead and the living,
Oil is: the blood of Christ, the blood of love.
The final sermon has come to an end —
As long as someone’s digging, oil will flood,
as long as God's above, there will be blood.Second There Will Be Blood Sonnet:
The Quaking Darkness of the West
by Joseph Roman
I made my way to the west, on horseback,
with ambition and a small purse. Dawning
old sand bluffs, I rode a dry ridge track—
ferric grounds of nailed derricks sawing.
In the daylight they loomed like obelisks;
the men sat wearing rude oil veneers,
eaves of sand beneath them corroding black;
seething, men frowning their bloodblack tears.
That was long ago; my mind is bleary.
Now, I am in here, unable to go,
unable to bear the sun, my mind is weary.
Lifetimes of blood quenched—a fire to sow.
Bled into the dark, to which I appear;
the light I lay, writhing in the abyss.Third There Will Be Blood Sonnet:
The Mask by Joseph Roman (1st & 3th stanzas) & Rasmus Rosenkrantz (2nd & 4th stanzas) The mask, like all things, veils the black lake; his mad face watched the omnipotent fire. The fire itself—the face of the masked snake— the raged figure that knows the unknown dire. The blood, like oil, and all that is liquid, flows prosperously through veins of the wealthy; Who beg and pray, but never on their knees, who worship a God, approving of the wicked. In the dark he wakes in those pools of blood, where in light the workers lay in the pews, and mechanically work in sands like duds. Behind the mask there's a forgotten face— Once tender pupils stuck on diamond eyes, oval features forming a hollow place.
Final Reflections:
Joseph:
How Could I Say No?
When Rasmus first approached me with The Cinema Sonnets, first I was like “me?” Mainly because I’ve never written a sonnet before. But soon the real challenge was trying to pick a film. I wanted to bring a very cinematic film and put it into words; and, upon Rasmus’s supportiveness and my procrastination, I chose There Will Be Blood.
What was so great about this experience was to convey to others who haven't seen the movie: a side of the old American West (even though I’ve never stepped outside my time zone) and the vampiric nature of the early modernist era.
Furthermore, the project itself felt very natural, and from what you see—we didn't change anything really from our drafts we first showed each other. In short: It was an honor to work with Rasmus, and just a fun time.
Why There Will Be Blood?
I love history—and realistic depictions of it—including Upton Sinclair’s book Oil! (at least the first two hundred pages) of which the movie is based on, and Giant (1956), one of director Paul Thomas Anderson’s favorite films and inspirations for There Will Be Blood. PTA himself has said that the main inspiration for Daniel Plainview was Dracula, which is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of an oil magnate.
As I mentioned before: the old American West was brutal, but, not much has changed—shown in Neo-Westerns like No Country for Old Men and Sicario. Though there may not be tens of thousands of oil derricks drilling throughout California anymore, the idea of the American Dream is a polluted afterthought, and the oil boom very much reminds me of Silicon Valley; knives out, everyone fighting for the top spot, no matter what. And oil, in and of itself, one of the most sought out and still very profitable business today.
The idea of the American Dream, American Capitalism, religion—all shrouded in greed. It’s a warning: a prophet for the transition between modernity and post-modernity for all of the above themes. I’m sorry if these ramblings seem pretty bleak.
Rasmus:
A great advantage of doing this series is it pushes me to seek out certain films that I’ve always wanted to see. In this case Joseph chose a modern-classic that adapted itself perfectly to poetry.
Tackling a work like There Will Be Blood is no easy feat. It is a complex and ambiguous film, with a multifaceted main character and quite bleak underlying themes.
I’ve been reading Joseph’s stuff for quite some time, and I really enjoy the musicality of his poetry. So I thought he would be a great pick for this series, and also because he and I had discussed cinema in the past.
Him and I made a coinflip as to who should write respectively the first and last stanza of the collaborative sonnet. He won the honour of kicking off the poem, and therefore took the lead.
Writing a sonnet in this way is very fulfilling, for it turns writing poetry into a conversation between two people. I tried to both mimic and complement Joseph’s themes with my stanzas, and honestly had so much fun exploring his writing and fusing my own style with his.
The end result I am very happy with. So a big thank you to
for finally getting me to watch this incredible film, and partaking in this project. It’s been a pleasure.I hope you enjoy our sonnets!
*Cover art and all media used in this post was taken from There Will Be Blood from 2008 by Paul Thomas Anderson. Production companies: Paramount Vantage, Miramax Films, Ghoulardi Film Company, & Scott Rudin Productions
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Brilliant writing by Rasmus and Joseph! Great movie too.
Great Job guys! Really interesting to see as always how both styles mix and stretch to fit each other and the movie!