There Will Be Blood (2007)

Study of Greed and Paranoia

More than an epic tale of an early 20th Century oilman, this is a fascinating study of the greed for power and what it does to a man.
We meet Daniel Plainview down the bottom of a mine, exerting himself in mind-numbingly monotonous and backbreaking work, looking for gold or silver. He is a man willing to endure pain and humiliation to grasp more money, or more power. As he quickly moves from gold to black gold, he becomes more powerful, and his ruthlessness and underhandedness become more and more apparent, combined with the charisma required to persuade landowners to part with the mineral rights of their property. We learn about how he sees other people when he adopts a boy who he finds useful to put a kind face on his activities, and how he treats a man appears claiming to be his half brother. The movie kicks into gear though when he meets an equally power hungry man in the unlikely form of the young faith healer and preacher, to whom he takes a seemingly instant dislike. With the relationships with these three characters, we see his dilemna- his power is only something if he can pass it on, but when he sees only the worst in other people, how can he? Who will be worthy of the three to take on his mantle..?
The style of the movie has some stunning direction which tells us much of the story through scenes and images, rather than words, yet this is married with an intelligent, absorbing and uncompromising script. The music is daringly inventive, although with me the jury is out whether it is a success or a distraction.
Daniel Day-Lewis turns in yet another 100% authentic and believable performance, creating a chilling and yet at times charismatic character, and Paul Dano is remarkable as the young preacher.
Sure, women are given little to no role in the story, and it is unremitting in its bleakness, at times feeling like it has been designed to within an inch of its cinematic life. It's not going to be to everyone's taste.. However the authenticity, stunning performances and script that demands the viewer engage in some thought, have created what might just be a bona fide masterpiece, even with its flaws.
November 28, 2008

Best movie of the decade!!!.

This movie was so good I keep forgetting to type the review!, I was suppose to do this review a few months ago. Anyway There Will Be Blood was a terrific film by director P.T. Anderson which marks a whole new chapter in his career and it was definitely a masterful piece of work that was also wonderfully directed, superbly acted and perfectly written. There Will Be Blood brings us to the early 20th century (from 1898 to 1911), where it chronicles the exploits of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), who discovers oil deposits during silver mining in New Mexico, he is also an oilman who only cares about oil and wealth. Daniel Plainview designs his persona as being a humble family man with his adopted child H.W. he lower his level of threat as he goes around acquiring land which has the prospect on sitting upon oceans of oil buried deep down.

It's a very shrewd move and a card that he plays to perfection, hiding a cruel mean streak that he possesses deep within. The opening ten minutes are the film's finest in my opinion, it's a wordless prologue with Daniel Day-Lewis' oil-drilling Daniel Plainview struggling by himself to set an explosive charge suffer a mishap, then drag himself into the nearest town for treatment. Anderson has admitted to being inspired by John Huston's The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948) and you could tell that he was inspired by that film from this sequence. Halfway through the film Daniel then becomes a wealthy oil man, is visited by a young man named Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) who tells him of a wealth of oil underneath his land. As Daniel visits the area he finds his breakthrough, in his own words, an "ocean of oil underneath our feet". He buys the land and sets up a well in the area. Immediately he clashes with Eli Sunday (also played by Dano), who intends on using Plainview's money to build a church for his newfound religion, the Church of Third Revelation, soon things start to get worse. A worker is killed, Daniel's son becomes deaf from an accident and a man shows up claiming to be Daniel's half brother. If there is one reason to see this film it's probably for Daniel Day-Lewis giving one of the best performances you will ever see. Lewis portrays a man of power and greed with such callousness and raw emotion and it was brilliant, a man moved by greed and hatred to the point where he doesn't recognise his own son and becomes a shallow and despicable person.

There Will Be Blood was definitely one of the best and most memorable films I have ever seen this year and should be watched by anyone who likes dark and intelligent cinema, P.T Anderson is one of the most talented filmmakers to come out of Hollywood in recent year and he continues to amaze. His previous films like Boogie Nights and Magnolia have always been one of my favorite films so I just knew that he would make another masterpiece, oh yeah and the film was pretty long almost 3 hours so if you're the type who doesn't like long epic films then don't bother with this one. The Blu-ray disc was awesome and had some great special features, this release includes a compilation featurette titled "15 Minutes" which presents a series of photos, video clips and occasional behind the scenes footage all set to Johnny Greenwood's score. Also included are two trailers for the film and two Deleted Scenes as well as an alternate take of a scene titled "Dailies Gone Wild". Finally we come to the absolute best feature on the release, a 25 minute silent short film called "The Story of Petroleum" which chronicles the oil industry in the 1920s, which also includes cuts from Johnny Greenwood's score.
November 26, 2008

Daniel Plainview: self made man

I read the first few reviews and was disappointed that most referred to 'greed' and 'lust for power' and other such tropes better left to the Daily Kos.

The protagonist, Daniel Plainview, is a self-starting entrepreneur who just wants to enjoy the fruit of his labors free of railroad price-gougers or vainglorious religious opportunists. He is single-minded, focused, and supremely confident. For you liberal anti-capitalist types out there, know this: this country was built by people like Daniel Plainview, and your comfortable existence was made possible by the enterprises of people like him.

Excellent performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, and the film is a paean to muscular no-nonsense capitalism. November 24, 2008

Long, Boring, ultimately Pointless

This movie sucked, yeah I said it. For all those people out there who think I'm stupid, so what, doesn't change the fact that this movie was awful. Rent it or download it if you just have to see it but for god's sake don't buy it! You will be stuck with a movie that you spent all that money on and you may only watch once, twice if you wanna remind yourself how big a mistake it was buying. The only reason this movie should be considered epic is because it takes an eternity to watch. This is a propaganda movie showing you how evil the oil industry is, and thats it. November 23, 2008

There will be blood

The title keeps it's promise. Very enlightening and historical setting. I DO wonder how much anti-capitalism sentimentalism affected the reality or accuracy of some of the plot. Upton Sinclair was a big socialist-- I read his book, the JUNGLE, during my first year working in a beef packinghouse. Also, very enlightening, as long as you know the mindset of the author.

I suspect that it WAS very cut-throat back then. Still, I feel like there was some liberal interpretation in the story telling. STILL-- IT IS A GREAT MOVIE. Scotty/Sioux City November 23, 2008

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