There Will Be Blood
an tale of epic proportions about 20th century america
2008-01-07
Sergio Mims

CAST: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Dillon Freasier, Ciaran Hinds, Kevin J. O’Connor
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY: Paul Thomas Anderson

RATED R

**** FOUR STARS

Admittedly, writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson’s films are tough nuts to crack. As with his previous films, Boogie Nights, Punch Drunk Love and the obscure, puzzling, lengthy drama Magnolia, Anderson defies convention. He revels in complex, conflicted characters and plainly isn’t interested in making simple films. He makes, to use an old expression, ”a thinking man’s” films. Those just looking to sit back and be entertained are best advised to look elsewhere. But for those who love virtuosic filmmaking, Anderson’s films are just your cup of tea. Triumphantly, his new effort, There Will Be Blood is perhaps his greatest and most complete achievement.

Based on the first third of Upton Sinclair’s 1926 novel, Oil, Blood is a bitter character study of a ruthless, ugly, despicable man. Played brilliantly in a searing, show stopping Oscar-nodding performance, Daniel Day Lewis’ depraved oilman Daniel Plainview is simply a monster -- a manipulative, cold blooded, near sociopath with no earthly desires beyond power and money. With his deep, rumbling, overly theatrical voice, purposely channeling the distinctive unmistakable voice of legendary film director John Huston (Treasure of Sierra Madre, The African Queen, The Misfits, The Man Who Would be King), Day-Lewis’ Plainview is a charismatic villain, both fascinating and repellant at the same time.

Set in California during the early part of the 20th century, the first 20 minutes are a tour de force detailing Plainview’s early struggles drilling for oil, suffering a broken leg in the process and causing the death of one of his workers, all told without a single line of dialogue for over 20 minutes. After striking black gold, the film jumps forward several years later with Plainview now a rich man eager to become even richer and with the 10-year-old adopted son (Freasier) of his dead worker who he’s made his partner. One day a young man, Paul Sunday (Dano), striking out from his hometown approaches him with news that the town he’s from is rich with oil and strikes a bargain for a payday to start his own business somewhere else. Plainview and son travel there and find out that what Sunday has told him is true. Immediately Plainview starts buying up all the property in the area, causing envy and hatred among nearby competitors, and drills his way (not without major sacrifices and tragedies) to riches. What could possibly go wrong? Paul’s twin brother Eli (also beautifully played by Dano) a home grown evangelist suspicious of Plainview from the beginning. Underneath his baby face, however, Eli is ambitious as well and sees Plainview for what he is, despite the town’s view of him as their savior, and tries to use him to get what he wants. What follows is a struggle for power and a contest of wills culminating in a cynical and brilliantly executed conversion scene in Eli’s church that is both chilling and hysterically funny.

No doubt Anderson is wrestling with some weighty issues in Blood -- the soul crushing power of greed and unbridled capitalism and the hypocrisy of organized religion. But with its two and half hour running time, stunning visuals by cinematographer Robert Elswit (Michael Clayton) and an astringent music score by Johnny Greenwood of the rock group Radiohead, contemporary classical composer Arvo Part and Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto, Anderson is clearly out to make a uniquely American epic about the making of 20th century America with the grandeur and sweeping scope of film director George Stevens’ 1956 triumph Giant (though it’s set in California, most of Blood was actually shot in the same barren Texas locations where Giant was shot) and Anderson succeeds brilliantly. It is not surprising then, that, Blood ends as only a story like this could; in loneliness, madness and brutal violence.

Film critic, lecturer and festival consultant Sergio Mims covers all things film from the city that works, Chicago. He is a regular contributor to ebonyjet.com