In which I wrap up this far-too-long chunk of character analysis.


ACT V: After murdering and burying Henry, DP is awoken at his campsite by William Bandy, who has apparently been looking for him to seal this pipeline deal. Bandy's price for leasing DP his land for the pipeline is that DP join Eli's church.

(DP gets woken up several times in this movie, and never to good news. First he is awoken to be told that a worker has been killed, then to find out that his son has set the house on fire, then to Bandy holding a shotgun, then to Eli telling him [hmm...] that his house is on fire.)

DP, in a corner, submits to Bandy's demand, and agrees to join Eli's flock.

(Does Bandy know that DP has killed Henry? It's hard to say. Bandy mentions DP's "sin" and DP jokes about drilling being a sin [which, I suppose, if it's a substitution for sex, it is] and Bandy responds by handing DP the gun he used to kill Henry. Did Bandy find Henry's grave, and had DP left his gun nearby? Or had Bandy merely disarmed DP in his sleep so that DP wouldn't kill him once he woke up?)

DP goes to Eli's church, which is the only thing that seems to have improved since DP's arrival in Little Boston, and submits to a public humiliation and beating from Eli, who forces DP to repeatedly shout "I'VE ABANDONED MY CHILD!" which, although I would argue is not strictly true (he has checked with Henderson to make sure the boy is being well cared-for), seems true enough for DP, since he did try to replace HW with an impostor. Otherwise, Eli's speech about DP's deeds strikes me as calculated and false as DP's speeches about family -- that is, they're both con-jobs designed to elicit a response. And Eli, the son of the abusive father, not only beats his father (in private) but now beats DP, the man who posed as a father to all of Little Boston, in public -- this, after DP promised Eli's sister Mary "no more hitting." After DP has been beaten and humiliated by Eli, Mary comes and kisses him, seemingly returning his promise to her.

(Mary exists at an interesting interstice in the movie. A true innocent, she seems to believe in both DP and Eli -- although oddly, Eli does not marry her to HW.)

The pipeline is complete, and the very next thing we see happen is that Eli leaves town -- his work here is apparently done. As though his duty was never to minister to the needs of the townsfolk, but to beat and humiliate DP -- once that's accomplished, he's ready to move on.

With false-brother Henry out of the way and the pipeline built (that is, DP's sexual needs fulfilled), DP brings HW back tout suite. HW delivers a few blows of his own to DP in revenge for being sent away, but otherwise seems forgiving and glad to be back.

DP takes HW into town, where he orders a whiskey for himself and goat's milk and water for HW. And while it may seem like a tiny thing, I find it interesting that we have a scene where, when a drink order is involved, DP orders something different for HW -- every other time DP, HW and drinks have been in the same scene, it's DP forcing whiskey upon HW. Now that the son has been brought back to his father's side, DP seems to be less interested in turning HW into a clone of himself. He's willing to accept that, to a certain extent, his son is "his own man" now, and should have his own (age-appropriate) drink.

ACT VI: We now flash-forward to 1927. DP, now without his gushing derricks and pipe-laying, is reduced to shooting things in the front hallway of his mansion. We also see that his signature, so dynamic and eloquent in the earlier Act I close-up, has become a blurry smudge -- further evidence of DP's loss of identity.

HW, who has married Mary Sunday in a wonderfully economic act change (compare to the screenplay, if you wish) comes to see DP, to tell him about his decision to go into business for himself in Mexico. He says that he misses working outdoors, and I imagine that DP feels that way too.

(This, by the way, is very good dramatic construction -- coming in as late as possible in a scene. We don't see or hear about anything that DP or HW has done in the past XX years, everything must be inferred.)

DP, feeling that HW has betrayed him by becoming a competitor, disowns him in violently derogatory terms. But this "family speech" is just as bogus and calculated as his others -- we finally get the feeling that DP doesn't really understand anything about family -- and why should he? His father (probably) beat him, he didn't know his mother, he drills for oil instead of falling in love with a woman, his son is not his son and his brother was not his brother, what in God's name does DP understand about family? Except that we see that he did love HW, to the extent that he is capable of loving anything. Even if his love for HW is only a form of self-love, that makes DP no different from many other parents.

The more curious thing is why DP feels that HW has become a competitor. He doesn't seem to feel that way about Fletcher Henderson, his longtime associate, who now apparently is in his own business. Nor, as we will see, does he hold any grudges against Paul Sunday, Eli's brother, who took DP's money and made himself his own profitable oil business. Why does DP hold such anger toward HW's branching out? And more to the point, what did DP expect him to do, after a lifetime of lessons from DP? Is he merely looking for a reason to write off HW, so that he can take his final step toward self-actualization?

Which is what happens next. Soon after disowning HW, DP is awoken from a drunken stupor one last time -- this time, he has fallen asleep in his private bowling alley -- in a cute visual pun, literally "lying in the gutter."

Eli has come to call. It is, apparently, some time after DP disowning HW -- Eli makes mention of "the recent panic in our economy." Eli, like DP, now drinks whiskey (and in the screenplay arrives at DP's house with a pair of floozies). And DP has his now-famous milkshake speech, but more importantly, I think, is what he has to say about Eli's brother Paul. Eli, DP says, poses as prophet, but it is Paul who is the real prophet. Paul, whose character arc is to sell out his family and his community, then use the money to start his own drilling business (I wonder what Paul's sex life is like) is seen by DP as the "good" son, while Eli he considers the "bad" son, because Paul, it seems, understands the world and his place in it in a way that Eli has not begun to grasp.

And here we get to DP's final step in self-actualization. Because for all his talk about the importance of family, what DP actually feels is that there is no such thing. A family, DP shows by his actions, is something you betray and subvert and sell out and destroy.

Check this out. This is the plot structure for Act VI: DP wants to "lay pipe" on the Bandy tract, which leads to DP joining Eli's church, which leads to Mary's acceptance of DP, which leads to Mary's hanging out with HW and learning his language (Mary can talk to HW, DP cannot), which leads to HW falling in love with Mary (maybe that's why DP disowns him -- in spite of HW's handicap, he has an apparently normally-functioning sex life), which leads to HW marrying Mary, which leads to Eli becoming DP's brother.

And here's what, I think, The Protagonist has Wanted all along -- to fulfill his self-actualization by murdering his brother. DP bellows at Eli that he is "the third revelation" (Revelations being the last book in the Bible) and the title of the movie comes from Exodus, but DP's story, it seems to me, comes from Genesis -- he is Cain, whose job it is to kill his brother. All along, DP has wanted to kill his brother, but first didn't know he had one to kill, then killed a man who claimed to be his brother. His sense of competition, his psychopathic outburst at the Guy From Standard, his lying, cheating, drinking, despoiling of the land -- unable to commit original sin, DP settles for sin #2, fratricide. Then, and only then, is he "finished."

In a movie rife with Kubrick references, the bowling alley scene stands out as a twofer -- the set itself is unmistakably designed and photographed as though a lost corner of the Overlook Hotel (it is, of course, a basement -- another hole dug, another body for it), and DP's tragical-comical attack on Eli is reminiscent of Humbert's attack on Quilty at the end of Lolita. Not to mention DP's understanding that he was put on earth to kill his family, a quality he shares with many of Kubrick's protagonists.