American Gangster and There Will Be Blood
(Spoilers ahead!)
If there was a theme to this year’s best movies, it was definitely blood. But more than that, what I saw in these two films anyway was a more pervasive critique of American-style capitalism, embodied in a drug kingpin and an oil tycoon.
Frank Lucas and Daniel Plainview both appeared to amass money simply because they liked money itself. They didn’t care who they stepped on to get more of it. And both of them, at the end of the film, kept you cheering for them, even if you know that everything they stand for is rotten.
It’s pretty transparent what Lucas stands for in the film, as he even talks about it—“We sell a product that’s better than the competition at a price that’s cheaper than the competition.” He brings his family into his business, like the Mafia, but he controls more than the mafia, and he’s brought down by the one time that he ostentatiously shows off his wealth.
And the cop who’s out to get him is a failure as a father and husband, but is just as showy about being an honest cop—he finds a million dollars and turns it in rather than keeping it like most of the rest of the drug cops in New York seem to do.
Like Plainview in There Will Be Blood, Lucas is not quite likable—volatile and violent and yet he keeps his family around as the only humanizing influence on him in the face of unfettered cash. While Plainview exploits religion, Lucas takes advantage of the war in Vietnam.
Both Plainview and Lucas embody values that are seen as good, though, in the business world. Were Lucas not selling drugs, he’d be a hero to all of Wall Street—but no one could buy stock in his business, though the dirty cops try to force their way in.
I couldn’t believe that the ending of American Gangster was “based on a true story.” It seemed too unlikely, but like the end of There Will Be Blood, it speaks to the fact that we do, after all, value the gaining of wealth over caring for others—even though Fisher doesn’t keep the cash he finds, neither is he capable of being a father or a husband.
Lucas and Plainview both provide for others, but Lucas has more concern for others than Plainview. Plainview is engaged in totally legal enterprises—oil is, after all, the backbone of our economy—but his practices are completely unethical. Lucas, aside from the occasional random act of violence, is far more concerned with the well-being of his community, yet his money-making enterprise is criminal—he sells heroin.
There’s something so seductive about both characters, when it comes down to it. You want them to get away with it—you want them to punish people who infringe on them—you want them to win. And that implicates you in the whole fucked-up system. Which is the real brilliance, particularly of There Will Be Blood, but of American Gangster as well. The real gangster is the system.
I also thought these were interesting movies. The fact that one protagonist is white and one is black seems to matter too. I’m surprised you didn’t mention that.