Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood begins with a nearly worldless sequence consisting solely of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), attacking the hard rock beneath the Earth to uncover diamonds. He breaks his leg after a ladder mishap, and then he drags himself out of the mine, and over the hills into a nearby town to mend his leg and sell the precious stones he's dug up. And that's about as much as you need to know about Daniel Plainview- he never stops attacking until he wins.
In many ways, Day-Lewis's performance is much like the all enriching substance that his character spends the movie seeking, which entitled the Upton Sinclair novel Blood is loosely based on: Oil! Plainview is a a simmering, festering power, a deposit of greed and malice, and he spends much of the film slowly seeping to the surface, before an eventual and spectacular eruption.
Day Lewis is led to the small township of Little Boston, California, where he fends with Paul Dano's young, wiry preacher for the hearts and minds of the townspeople. Dano is game for the part of Eli Sunday, as strong a presence as Plainview in a much more conniving, sniveling way. The events that unfold are almost like a boxing match between the two, one that pits capitalism against evangelicalism with no ultimate winner, but plenty of blood, as the title promises.
The film is long, but is so fully realized that it's more of an experience than an ordeal. Aiding the epic effect is Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood's pulsating, unique score, which brims with atmospheric tension as Plainview descends further into madness. It's not a terribly cohesive story, more of an episodic one, but Greenwood helps tie it together, along with Day-Lewis's compelling insanity.
The ending of There Will Be Blood is a bit abrupt, but it's psychotic enough to be one of the most memorable endings of the year. Plus it includes one of the best quotes this side of Scarface, which should be around long after the film ends its run. There's a lot that's odd about There Will Be Blood, but there's too many things that are spectacular (Day-Lewis, the Score, the utterly obsessive attention to detail) to keep it from the awards contention it deserves.
When to See It: ASAP
Leftover thoughts:
- It seems like Anderson is the only one who has read Oil!, because I haven't heard terribly much about what he took, and what he left. I may have to read it myself, if only to hear Daniel Day-Lewis's voice in my head when I do.
- Dillon Freasier plays Plainview's son, H.W., and does such an excellent job that in a less crowded year he'd be a shoe-in for a Supporting Actor Nomination. Let's just say he could wipe the floor with Haley Joel Osmet.
- Enjoyed the (reportedly accurate) history of oil drilling- before derricks and machines were invented, they just dug the festering, half-mud goo out of the ground in buckets until they hit paydirt. And one can only imagine that Sinclair made a pretty big point of the safety conditions of such operations, much more than the few mishaps that the film has.
- If you're curious about the awesome quote, go here- it may (?) be a sort of spoiler.
