On Milkshakes

January 17, 2008

The LA Weekly has a little interview with Paul Thomas Anderson as he ruminates on the Valley, baseball and There Will Be Blood, arguably his best film to date. The most important bit though, is the secret origin of Daniel Plainview’s “I Drink Your Milkshake” monologue:

“I must admit to you where that came from,” Anderson says giddily, noting that the eccentric metaphor comes straight from the congressional transcripts of the 1920s “Teapot Dome” scandal, in which New Mexico Republican Senator Albert Fall was convicted of accepting bribes for the oil-drilling rights to public lands in California and Wyoming from several oil-industry fat cats (including Edward Doheny).

“I think it was Albert Fall, who was asked to describe drainage before Congress,” Anderson continues. “And his way of describing it was, ‘If you have a milk shake and I have a milk shake, and my straw reaches across the room…’ I’m sure I embellished it and changed it around and made it more Plainview. But Fall used the word ‘milk shake,’ and I thought it was so great. It was mad to see that word among all this official testimony and terminology — a fucking milk shake. I get so happy every time I hear that word.”

If he gets happy at just a mention of the word, he should hear my impersonation of Daniel Plainview singing Kelis’s “Milkshake.”

Posted in Moving Pictures