The Absurdist roots of the "Milkshake!"

When I reviewed Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood back in December, I noted that while it had all the trappings of a more conventional historical/social epic, it was in fact an "absurdist, blackly comic horror film."
I still stand by that, only I wonder if I mightn't have put a capital "a" on "absurdist."

Even then I had a specific antecedent in mind, and now that—potential spoiler alert—"I drink your milkshake!" is in seeming fact becoming a cinephile catchphrase of sorts, it might be an opportune time to get into it.

Which isn't to say that I'm going to get into what I think of catchphrases as a general phenomenon, how I feel about Paramount Vantage's exploitation of this putative catchphrase as a marketing/publicity scheme, or any of that. I will say that I think my friend Jurgen Fauth was entirely astute in making "I drink your milkshake" a domain name for his There Will Be Blood discussion website. (Got him a mention in USA Today and everything!) And that's it about that.

But I do want to get into what makes "I drink your milkshake!" so different, so appealling. Well, for one thing, like "Here's Johnny" in The Shining, it's a blast of unexpected, inappropriate humor in a horrifically tense scene. And even though Paul Thomas Anderson lifted it the bit from a real-life source—the testimony of Senator Albert Fall during the congressional hearings in the 1925 Teapot Dome scandal—as an analogy, or metaphor, or what have you, it's a complete non-sequitur. This room-spanning straw that dips into other diners' milkshakes. Ridiculous. As Anderson says, "an insane concept."

Watching the scene play out, it's head-spinningly nuts, and I was reminded, once I had time to think about it, of the Eugene Ionesco play The Lesson (which I acted in in high school back in 1972, but that's another story). The Romanian-born Ionesco was one of the founding fathers of the Theatre of the Absurd, and his main themes were, by my lights at least, dementia and language. (His best-known play, Rhinoceros, is putatively about conformity, but I always perceived it as being about conformity as a form of dementia.) The affinity the finale of There Will Be Blood has with that of The Lesson convinces me that Anderson's film is, finally, a masterpiece of Absurd Cinema. I offer as evidence of this affinity two swatches of text, the first from Ionesco, a bit leading up to the final conflict between the Professor and his female pupil:

Professor: […] Tell me now, by simple deduction, how do you say “Italy” in French?

Pupil: I’ve got a toothache.

Professor: But it’s so easy: for the word “Italy” in French we have the word “France” which is an exact translation og it. My country is France. And “France” in Oriental: “Orient!” My country is the Orient. And “Orient” in Portuguese: “Portugal!” The Oriental expression: My country is the Orient is translated then in the same fashion into Portuguese: My country is Portugal! And so on….

Pupil: Oh, no more, no more. My teeth…

Professor: Ache! Ache! Ache!...I’m going to pull them out, I will! One more example: The word “capital”—it takes on, according to the language one speaks, a different meaning. That is to say that when a Spaniard says: “I reside in the capital,” the word “capital” does not mean at all the same thing that a Portuguese means when he says: “I reside in the capital. “ All the more so in the case of a Frenchman, a neo-Spaniard, a Romanian, a Latin, a Sardanapali…Whenever you hear it, young lady—young lady, I’m saying this for you! Pooh! Whenever you hear the expression: “I reside in the capital,” you will immediately and easily know whether this is Spanish or Spanish, neo-Spanish, French, Oriental, Romanian, or Latin, for it is enough to know which metropolis is referred to by the person who pronounces the sentence…at the very moment he pronounces it…But these are almost the only precise examples that I can give you…

Pupil: Oh dear! My teeth…

Professor: Silence! Or I’ll bash in your skull!!

So. Anybody out there who's not familiar with The Lesson care to speculate on how the one-act play ends?

Here's There Will Be Blood's milkshake business, with a bit of surrounding context.

Plainview: Stop crying you sniveling ass, stop your nonsense! You're just an afterbirth, Eli, slithered out from your mother's filth. They should have put you in glass jar on a mantlepiece. Where were you when Paul was suckling at your mother's teat, where were you? Who was nursing you, poor Eli, an abandoned sow? That land has been had, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s gone, had.

Eli Sunday: If you would just---

Plainview: You lose.

Eli Sunday: Take this please, Daniel--

Plainview: Drainage! Drainage, Eli you boy. Drained dry, I'm so sorry. If you have a milkshake. And I have a milkshake. And I have a straw, there it is, that’s the straw, see, watch it. My straw reaches across the room and starts to drink your milkshake. I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE! [slurps] I drink it up!

Eli Sunday: Don’t bully me Daniel!

I find the similarities incredibly striking; the philological nonsense spouted by the Professor certainly doesn't find a precise echo in Plainview's rant, but the pedagogical bent and the bullying strike me as sharing the exact same key. I don't know if Anderson's necessarily familiar with Ionesco but it's clear to me that both artists are tapping into the same dual-pronged rage—that is, their own, and that which they concoct to bestow on their creations.

Comments

[bill]

Hmmm...well, the difference, it seems to me (someone who has never read Ionesco, mind you) that in "The Lesson" the Professor becomes frustrated by what he sees as his student's distracting complaints. In "There Will Be Blood", Daniel is toying with Eli. Yes, he's full of rage which gets out of control, but he's okay with that.

Also, unlike the blatherings of the Professor, what Plainview says about milkshakes actually makes sense. It may be a slightly weird metaphor, but it actually quite clearly illustrates Plainview's point about drainage. That doesn't seem very absurd to me.

If you want a better line with which to make your case, how about my favorite: "I TOLD YOU I WOULD EAT YOU!" See, because he doesn't actually eat him, and I'm pretty sure that, prior to that moment, he'd never said he would. Anyway, you get my point.

[bill]

I'd like to add one more thing: you call the milkshake concept a complete non-sequitor. How so? And if it is, wouldn't that make comparing, say, dawns to rosy fingers equally absurdist?

[lazarus]

A good point, Bill. Glenn your comparison is interesting, but it seems to become even more absurdist right at the point you left off. Is Plainview simply making fun of him, or attempting to act as some kind of giant fist of justice? Look at Anderson's actual screenplay and note the additional dialogue:

DANIEL
I took what I wanted when you weren't looking and the blood of the lamb is in my pocket. Do you think God is going to balance your investment? God doesn't save idiots, Eli. You are broke and you are lame and you are done for.

Not only is Plainview rambling in this kind of evangelist style (a nice character switch from their first meeting as Eli is trying to talk him into some kind of business deal), but he's throwing Eli's own harsh words towards his own father at him, "God doesn't save idiots". Plainview wasn't even present for that, so it's bizarre that he reprises it. Is he simply making fun of Eli's hell of a show, or actually believing himself some kind of giant fist of justice? After telling Eli "I am the one that god has chosen!", he concludes with:

DANIEL
I am the third revelation! I am the third revelation! I told you I would eat you up. I told you I would eat you. How dare you come to me? How dare you?

And in this version, after the final bloody stroke, Plainview hurls him down the lane, where he crashes through the pins and falls into the cellar through some chute, not unlike how Sweeney Todd disposed of his victims.

It's really OUT there.

[Glenn Kenny]

Bill, maybe to say that it's a complete non-sequitur is a bit of an overstatement...but Plainview's image is not the first thing that a rational person might conjure up when trying to make an analogy, analogies generally being drawn from actual situations, as opposed to a fantasy construct like a room-spanning straw. The "rosy fingers" of dawn certainly can be said to make literal sense if one counts the rays of the sun as it comes up as digits. Or not. I mean, Homer was blind and all.

[bill]

But a rational person DID conjure it, remember? At least, we can reasonably assume that Senator Fall was a rational person.

I'm just a little perplexed about all the attention this particular line is attracting. I think it's a terrific, bizarre film, but the only thing that strikes me as bizarre about that line is how Day-Lewis delivers it. Were Plainview behaving more calmly, I think more people would have heard the line and thought, "Oh, so THAT'S how he got the oil!" There are far stranger things about that scene than the milkshake analogy.

[Andrew]

I agree with Bill's last statement. I do think the analogy serves its purpose viz. an explanation of drainage. But I think the more central point is that Daniel is gloating. "You lose", he tells Eli. That's it. That is what lies behind his furious rendering of the analogy. To cut Eli down is of greater importance than explaining how drainage works. While I read the Professor's anger - or more precisely, his impatience - stemming from his inability to explain his concept and hold his pupil's attention, I think Plainview doesn't really care if Eli grasps the concept of drainage. Everything in his character and in that scene points to his boast that he has won. He tells Henry about the competetition in him, and this final scene is a perfect portrayal of that. As I watch him scream at Eli, I see unbridled joy underlying his pomposity. He revels in this last chance to one-up Eli, especially in the face of Eli's attempt to propose business. His "milkshake" speech is an apt representation of his feelings for Eli.

[Andrew]

Thinking about my response, i'm not sure I actually responded to the idea of the Absurd in Daniel's statement. I agree, Glenn, that the "milkshake" idea is a bit ridiculous, and even though someone actually used it in real life - if Congress be so named - Daniel's image of a room-spanning straw is even more so. I found an interesting article on absurdist theatre, and I think the absurdity of Daniel's remark is explained nicely here: "Absurd dramas are lyrical statements, very much like music: they communicate an atmosphere, an experience of archetypal human situations. The Absurd Theatre...presents a pattern of poetic images."

However, in that same article, we read: "There is no dramatic conflict in the absurd plays. Dramatic conflicts, clashes of personalities and powers belong to a world where a rigid, accepted hierarchy of values forms a permanent establishment." I think this is a great summation of the milkshake scene between Daniel and Eli. They have been in conflict since first meeting. Their 'clash of personalities' drives the film, at least for me. I don't see in this scene the absurdist focus on the insufficiency of language and logic. Then again, the analogy is way beyond a plain and conventional explanation. If anything, I think the "milkshake" speech could be the Absurd piece in a somewhat conventional conflict. Or maybe i'm completely missing the point? If I am, sorry.

Reading that article reminded me of reading "Waiting for Godot" in college, and as much as I disliked it then, I find this exchange pretty amusing in connection with the "milkshake" scene:

ESTRAGON: What is it?
VLADIMIR: He's about to speak.
POZZO: Good. Is everybody ready? Is everybody looking at me? (He looks at Lucky, jerks the rope. Lucky raises his head.) Will you look at me, pig! (Lucky looks at him.) Good. (He puts the pipe in his pocket, takes out a little vaporizer and sprays his throat, puts back the vaporizer in his pocket, clears his throat, spits, takes out the vaporizer again, sprays his throat again, puts back the vaporizer in his pocket.) I am ready. Is everybody listening? Is everybody ready? (He looks at them all in turn, jerks the rope.) Hog! (Lucky raises his head.) I don't like talking in a vacuum. Good. Let me see.
He reflects.
ESTRAGON: I'm going.
POZZO: What was it exactly you wanted to know?
VLADIMIR: Why he—
POZZO: (angrily). Don't interrupt me!

[Glenn Kenny]

Well put, Andrew. It's clear to me now that I was overstating my case at the very least. But I still see thematic and tonal affinities here, although they in fact are used for different dramaturgical ends. I do wonder, idly perhaps, whether Paul Thomas Anderson is conversant with thee stuff we're citing. I'm betting yes.

[Andrew]

I wouldn't doubt it.

[Chad Channing]

Of course PTA is familiar with Beckett. Everyone knows that Boogie Nights was a free adaptation of Endgame, while Punch Drunk-Love was pretty loyal to Krapp's Last Tape, what with Barry always listening to himself, mumbling incohrent jibes at the stupidity of the words that come tumbling out of his mouth.

Don't stretch too hard. Y'all might pull something.

[Andrew]

Glenn,

Saw the film a third time this weekend. This time around I intended to focus on Daniel Plainview, the monster. And a monster he is, more so than I had realized. But I really found myself concentrating on something altogether different: the abusurd - or just downright fanatical - religion of Eli Sunday. In fact, his last name should be a good indication that he is defined by his own brand of religion.

I think it's really important to view Eli's religion, and his "Church of the Third Revelation" in the context of American Christianity, which was largely defined by the "Great Awakenings". In fact, the Third Great Awakening actually occurred in the very time period in which the bulk of the film takes place, around 1850-1900 or so. American Christianity at that time, and since the time of the First Great Awakening in the mid-1700s, was defined by revivals. From Edwards and Tennent, up to Charles Finney, et al., religion was characterized by revival meetings, healings, and bombastic sermons focused on religious experience. Take a look at the new religious sects that cropped up in the "burned-over" district in New York: Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventist, Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses. And then there were the many splintered Christian churches with roots in congregationalism, puritanism, etc.

With a proper understanding of this history, especially the revivalist tendencies and characteristics, Eli's church makes perfect sense. He can be seen as an enthusiast, a religious zealot fascinated and taken in by the revivals and camp meetings of his time, wherein the congregation was often captive to the preacher's grandiose sermons. They swooned, they fainted, they wailed. All of this would be very appealing to a young, religious man like Eli who has a great desire for attention, devotion, even adoration. We certainly see this in the pure pleasure he takes when his congregants follow at his feet and kiss his hands as he departs on his 'mission'. Thus, we also see how Eli is a reflection of Daniel's absurd behavior. Both are the extreme, the fanatical portrait of their respective worlds. Eli and Daniel are driven more by pride than by piety and profit, respectively.

Anyway, just a thought and an excuse to keep discussing the film. I certainly came away this time with the feeling that there is way more to it than "Religion vs. Capitalism". Rather, I think the story here is the competition between two fanatics, two monsters who exceed the recognized bounds of their occupations.