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@thefilmobservatory
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Drama/Period Epic
Relentless oil tycoon Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) will stop at nothing to achieve his goals and expand his business, butting heads with locals and representatives of the large industry alike.
There Will Be Blood (TWBB) is nearly a flawless film. It’s loosely based off of ‘Oil!’, a novel first published in 1926-1927, but Paul Thomas Anderson takes it into his own, and the results are incredible. All of the performances are fantastic, even the actor of H.W. (Daniel Plainview’s son), Dillon Freasier, who was 11 years old when the film released. Anderson’s direction sustains a gripping intensity to the film, despite the extreme violence and physical threat being infrequent. The cinematography, which Robert Elswit won an Oscar for, is stunning. The music perfectly suits the atmosphere, and it never distracts during scenes but enhances them. The rich narrative presents interesting themes of greed, American capitalism, and ambition leading to downfall. There are only two noticeable flaws in the whole movie for me, but other than these things, TWBB is a true cinematic experience that ought not to be missed.
Daniel Day-Lewis is absolutely magnetising in the role, displaying charisma and charm, while employing his subtle yet effective persuasive techniques, causing a constant uneasiness for the audience as to his true intentions in a scene. It feels impossible to look away from his monologues; he grasps the attention of the viewer as much as his onscreen audience. Like the rest of the film, Day-Lewis, in the part, is brilliantly understated and compelling: his Oscar win was inevitable and so very well deserved. Usually, you’d expect a wealthy, power-hungry businessman like the central character to be constantly dismissive and selfish, without a care for anyone or anything around him, but what makes this film so interesting is that he doesn’t seem to be that way. At least not on the surface. Initially. However, because of this well-known character archetype, the audience spends much of the film waiting for him to act this way, adding an element of unpredictability to Daniel, as he acts happy to bargain and do things to satisfy those ‘in his way’, but we are quite aware of his unabating ambition.
We start TWBB in 1898, when Daniel is mining for silver with a small amount of tools, by himself. He trips down the mine and is badly injured, but he gets back up, pulls himself out of the mine, and survives. After a time jump, he’s working with a small crew to collect oil, however, he still works alongside them and doesn’t just give the orders from afar. His willingness to get his own hands dirty makes him more sympathetic, and his resilience and growth from one man mining alone for silver to this makes him seem genuinely self-made, an often self-proclaimed but exaggerated or false quality of American businessmen at the time. This setup is crucial for the rest of the film because it means that Daniel began as a modest, hard-working underdog that the audience will willingly root for, but by the end of the film, it’s difficult to discern whether he fell into the corruption, selfishness, and greed that he eventually evokes, or if it was in him all along but he was willing to hold it back to achieve his means. Day-Lewis flawlessly conveys all of these things, and this role wholly demonstrates his immense devotion and prowess as an actor.
Acting largely opposite Day-Lewis, Paul Dano is phenomenal as usual. Here, he plays the part of an enigmatic preacher of the ‘Church of the Third Revelation’, named Eli Sunday, who is supposedly the brother of the young man who originally enticed Daniel with the opportunity of oil by his family ranch, Paul (also played by Dano). There’s a deliberate ambiguity as to whether there are two brothers, or whether the young man is playing games with Daniel, making it difficult to figure out ‘Eli’s’ true motives for the vain oil prospector, as well as the audience. Dano is a chameleon: he completely blends into his roles, and he gives no exception in TWBB. At first, Eli seems harmless but the fact that he has the locals under his thumb, with his speeches and practices at the church, gets on Daniel’s nerves, and the two’s rivalry grows over the film. As each of them try to humiliate the other, Daniel’s malicious pride becomes evident, and the climax of their feud makes it all feel drastic and unnecessary but I think that that’s the point.
About halfway through the film, Daniel states that he hates “most people” and that he wants nobody else to succeed. Therefore, he can’t handle those like Eli who believe in a higher power because he wants to be that higher power. TWBB presents conflict between money and religion. Obviously, Daniel’s strong capitalist beliefs make him to think that the former drives the world around, so these fundamentally opposite ideals of him and Eli present an interesting cause for competition and hatred. One of the best parts of the film is Daniel’s well-known confession scene in Eli’s church. It’s so rich in its dialogue, especially when Eli gets Daniel to “Beg for the blood”. The guilt that’s built up inside Daniel is released and he feels unhinged. Or is he completely in control here, and doing it to achieve his ultimate goals? The likelihood is that it’s a twisted mix, flawlessly conveyed by the masterful Day-Lewis. Eli strikes Daniel in his face, a practice of the young preacher that supposedly ‘casts away the devil’. However, more importantly, this is reminiscent of an earlier scene when Daniel let out his anger by striking Eli, after a serious incident at the oil drilling rig. There’s a constant power play between the two, and both highly competent actors give some of their best work in TWBB.
Another fantastic character interaction in TWBB is between Daniel and his son, played for the majority of the film by Dillon Freasier. The brilliance he demonstrates is often through silence, as his relationship with his father is complicated to say the least. Both actors spend a lot of time communicating meaning through their expressions here. H.W. becomes almost like his right-hand man and because he is always there, Daniel potentially feels judged for his mistakes. He could be trying to keep it in the family or he might not know how to raise a child. Either way, Daniel seems to mainly treat him with respect but the film takes a major turn, and his selfishness severely gets the better of him. This dynamic adds depth to Daniel, as we watch a man who hates “most people” attempt to raise a child – it gets messy, and we get to see how far he’ll go in his manipulative tactics to achieve what he wants.
Elswit’s cinematography is breath-taking. The natural environment of the time is used to spectacular effect. Stunning sunsets, gorgeous greenery, and ferocious flames all give TWBB a visual flair unlike anything I’ve possibly ever seen. We get to see the grimy stuff too, like how messy it gets when mining for oil. The film doesn’t shy away these kinds of things – it feels like it’s finding beauty derived from the raw wilderness. The camerawork is also varied and skilled, showing much variation, allowing the environment to breathe in long shots, and for the actors to do their incredible work in medium shots. Jonny Greenwood’s (yes, that is the Jonny Greenwood, lead guitarist and keyboardist of Radiohead) score complements the visuals very well. Parts of the film sound like they’re accompanied by a droning, fluctuating orchestra, and use of dissonance helps the music to create a lot of tension here. Other music sounds more graceful, perhaps conveying the beauty that Daniel finds to be seething from money and his plans working like clockwork. However, the standout piece for me is the one from the scene with the oil drilling rig incident. The timbre feels mechanical, with all of the clanging, but the piece feels largely offbeat and unpredictable. It’s a genius blend of industrial sounds with the chaos of the situation, and it heightens the tension of the scene.
My only two criticisms of TWBB are quite simple, and fortunately don’t have a major impact on enjoyment or the quality of the film overall. Firstly, I felt that Paul Dano was slightly underused. He’s such a good actor and shines, even opposite a legend like Day-Lewis himself. Eli’s character was interesting but the frequency of his appearances felt a little bit erratic; sometimes he’d be a central figure who’s evidently integral to the story, and sometimes he wouldn’t show up for a prolonged amount of time. TWBB definitely doesn’t waste Dano per se, but I felt that the film could’ve been more consistent with when he showed up and it would’ve consequently been clearer how important he was to the story. My other small issue with TWBB is that there’s a time jump towards the end that felt a bit jarring. It absolutely didn’t ruin the film, but it felt to me like it lost a bit of its steam when they made the decision to do such a big jump in Daniel’s story, after such an intense and gripping focus on it, without really cutting away, prior. I won’t go down the spoiler route but I can say that the final scenes and dialogue of the film are fantastic, and Day-Lewis and Dano are mesmerising at the end. The last scenes are all still very strong, I just felt that the time jump was a bit much.
Its lack of positive morals and messaging means that TWBB may not appeal to everybody but this expertly crafted tale of greed, capitalism, and a descent into selfish madness is essential for all cinema lovers. There’s plenty to impress in this film, and it reinforces how formidable a force both Anderson and Day-Lewis can be. I would recommend TWBB to fans of slow-burn character pieces, focused and ambitious dramas, and to anybody else with a passion for cinema. Because There Will Be Blood is glorious, untamed cinema, in its purest form.
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