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I guess I can't ignore it any longer or at least pretend that it doesn't bother me: Roger Ebert broke my heart.  Since the debut of Paul Thomas Anderson's "Hard Eight" some years ago, Ebert more or less has been my go-to-critic that would expertly nail down what I could only try to muster out, when it came down to explaining why Anderson's films would arguably be the best films of their own years--and in celebrating the presence of a born filmmaker that is sure to rank among the greats when the time for reflection comes.  If you have read my review of "There Will Be Blood" then you know I admire the film greatly and believe it is the best film of 2007.  However, I screened the movie back in November knowing I would have to wait until the January of the new year before I could read the eloquent prose Ebert would lend to Anderson's masterpiece.

Then January came.  Ebert's review of the film--expertly written as always--lacked that enthusiasm for the material.  While reading it I couldn't help but notice that although Ebert was recommending the film (he gave it three and a half stars out of four), it almost felt that he wasn't too thrilled about it.  "A force beyond categories," he called it.  That's something.  I was more alarmed at his, "Watching the movie is like viewing a natural disaster that you cannot turn away from. By that I do not mean that the movie is bad, any more than it is good," statement.  Did we see the same movie?

Before I go on, it must be noted that Ebert was one of the few critics to actually understand and justify "Blood's" shocking last scene, "...an ending that in some peculiar way this material demands, because it could not conclude on an appropriate note..."

I suppose this can be tied in with "Blood's" omission from Ebert's coveted top ten films of the year list.  "The Great Debaters," another made for TV Hallmark classic made the cut, but the great American masterpiece of "Blood" was not even handed a special jury prize from Ebert?  Something was not right here.

Then came the juxtaposition to "Citizen Kane."  It was inevitable that Ebert would touch upon this during his review, as a boatload of other critics have already made the comparison.  Ebert said, ""There Will Be Blood" is no "Kane" however. Plainview lacks a "Rosebud." He regrets nothing, misses nothing, pities nothing..."  And for one of the closing statements, he went ahead and claimed that, ""There Will Be Blood" is the kind of film that is easily called great. I am not sure of its greatness."

The "rosebud" statement is an error.  To equate what a childhood sled meant for a newspaper tycoon with something that would matter to a relentless turn of the century oil man requires some serious rearranging of motifs and augmenting of themes.  Daniel Plainview indeed has his "rosebud."  It is in his role of his young son H.W. 

Charles Foster Kane is someone we meet in "Citizen Kane" at a very young age.  We know he goes through life longing for that lost childhood he was crudely stripped from.

Daniel Plainview is someone we are thrusted into joining, deep within the pit of the bloody earth.  We do not know where this man comes from, or what life events have shaped him into what he is.  We just know he hates people.  Why?  He dabbles in some drunken explanation.  Yet, as educated audience members, we'd rather see it than be told why.  We see it in the way he looks at people.  We see it in his disappointment with organized religion.  We see it burning in his eyes when he encounters someone pretending to be his brother.

Plainview, one of the most fascinating characters of modern cinema, was also probably stripped away from an ideal childhood--but he wasn't nestled under the tutelage of any one mentor to grow into becoming an industry success story.  He was most likely thrown onto barren lands, alone, and with odds not on his side;  we are to believe this given brother Henry Plainview's background from his diary.  This family background was not a Brady Bunch scenario, but rather a rugged, tough every-person-for-themself lifestyle--that both Daniel and Henry exemplify.  For such a barbaric force of nature to strike sudden success, it is no wonder that Daniel is uneasy around people once placed back into civilized, restrained quarters.  I'd love to see Kane not twitch his eye or mumble thoughts to himself while rubbing shoulders with the tuxedo clan of the print world after going through what Plainview has. 

So in other words, when Plainview acquires H.W. as a son, he more or less has found his "rosebud"; that artifact that connects Plainview to what he has lost--family.  It just so happens that Plainview is stripped of his "rosebud" at an adult age, and we can forgive that fact if we consider Plainview's birth (in cinematic terms) to occur once he rises, soaked in the blood of the earth, from the very well that has tied his fate to a career as an oil man.

And as a resentful old tycoon to lose his only strand to family and affection (the adult H.W. decides to leave) ultimately puts Plainview into the same room of despair with Kane.  While Kane went out with a whimper and a broken snowglobe, Plainview's final plight before doom goes out with a bang, thus aligning alongside the famous line of "Rosebud" a new wholly iconic line: "I'm Finished."