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There Will Be Blood (2007)

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34 reviews

Synopsis

Paul Thomas Anderson’s first feature since 2002’s ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ is loosely adapted from ‘Oil!’, Upton Sinclair’s novel about, er, oil. The turn-of-the-century Texas setting could offer allegorical potential, while the rarely-seen Daniel Day-Lewis’ starring role as budding tycoon Daniel Plainview confirms this as one to watch.

Movie review

From Time Out London

We begin down a hole. It’s 1898 in the Southern Californian desert and Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a lithe, daddy-long-legs of a man, a lone-gun silver prospector whose tools, as he scratches around in the dark, are a pickaxe, a rope, some dynamite and sheer will. The scene, like many in the film, is gruelling, elemental, horrific even.

He falls, breaks his leg and gains a limp that will stay with him for the rest of this bold, epic film. We hop forward to 1902, and Plainview is digging again, only now he’s on the hunt for something else: oil. He strikes black and brandishes his filthy hands to his accomplices. The dirt under his nails is a badge of honour, and one never to be removed; he wears it years later, even when he’s moping around a mansion, his mind driven loopy by success and paranoia.

Another hop and it’s 1911, and we reach the meat of the movie. A smarter Plainview, a fedora on his brow, is in the shadows of a meeting of folk in Little Boston, California on whose land he wants to dig. ‘I’m an oil man…’ he implores, the first noise we hear from his mouth, not a word wasted, barely a breath not invested in his success. His voice is simple but mellifluous, its stresses and dips unusual but alluring. It’s the first hint in this long, odd and stunning film that this character – this wicked creation, this symbol of a nation, this quiet monster – will lodge in your psyche long after the movie cuts dead on an ending that’s strange and sudden, irritating and pleasing.

On one level, Plainview is a pure businessman – ruthless, self-centred, adaptable. On another, he’s a mystery – sexless, rootless, unfathomable, silent. The questions roll off the screen. Does he care for his adopted son, HW (Dillon Freasier) or does he see him only as a useful face to have around during negotiations? Are we meant to root for Plainview’s individualist tendencies against the expansion of the Standard and Union oil companies? No – as soon as the film hints this is going to be the tale of an underdog, Plainview does something awful. Faceless, corporate behaviour begins to look benign. On yet another level, Plainview reflects, then and now, the power of the church; it’s a local pastor, Eli Sunday (a wily Paul Dano) who leads him to the loot. It’s the same pastor whose pockets he must line and religion he must embrace.

This is Paul Thomas Anderson’s foundation myth – taken from Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel ‘Oil!’, which in turn was inspired by men like Edward Doheny, the oil man who went from rags to riches and died in 1935 in the same mansion where Anderson shot his final scenes. Anderson’s story is precisely dated, stretching from 1898 to 1927, and mostly lingers around 1911 as Plainview builds a gushing derrick.

But the beginning of his film feels like the beginning of the world for all its sense that nothing came before. Anderson is arguing that this chasm in the earth, and similar chasms, were the birthplace of America. Little Boston becomes a theatre for his Genesis, or for Exodus, from which the film takes its name. It’s stressed by the primal buzz of Jonny Greenwood’s wonderful score that’s set to the film’s first image of a barren hillside.

Day-Lewis’s performance is as good as the awards suggest: it’s big, it’s wild, yet it’s also restrained by the sparing talk of his character and framed by a film whose ambitions are bigger than his acting. That Anderson, the film’s writer-director, whose ‘Boogie Nights’ was a riot but ‘Magnolia’ and ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ both noble failures, has come to make this intelligent and enthralling masterpiece is both a little surprising and intensely satisfying.

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 1955 Feb 6 to 13, 2008

User reviews of this film

Sean Ellis said...

Posted on May 06 2008 13:45 I went to see this at a festival with high expectations. I've always been a fan of Daniel Day-Lewis and have seen enough of Paul Thomas Anderson's films to expect something bold and ambitious. There is a great deal to admire about the film, particularly its achievement in creating a sense of time and place. In the early stages, I felt that we were being set up for an exploration of the entwinement of capitalism and religion and a great character study. But, ultimately I felt that the film failed quite spectacularly in achieving its potential. Day-Lewis attended the screening that I was at and spoke afterwards about the experience of making the film and praised the director for allowing his cast free reign to improvise and develop their characters. I think that such an approach can yield interesting results, but I think that it is the downfall of this film. For me, there are several moments in the film where I became aware that I was watching ACTING, instead of being absorbed in the story and watching the characters react naturally to the situation. This created a theatrical feeling to the performances, which seems to be very good for winning awards, but actually hurts the film as a whole. For me, the final scene was is the worst example of this, where the overacting is allowed to get totally out of control, killing off any chance of subtelty. Ultimately, there was little complexity to ponder or insight to be derived, in spite of all the technical bravura on display.

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John Gamlin said...

Posted on Apr 30 2008 22:27 Fantastic film making, thought provoking and - very provoking, where did it leave us?!

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Apr 14 2008 18:46 there will be blood ,maybe guts but there shall be no brains
.
this is a classic example of executing an errand worth a few minutes in a few hours and it begins to tell on your nerves or what is left of them at 3 mind and butt numbing hours,and yes most pretentious american directors LIKE ANDERSON are making movies without female presence forgetting that cinema is a reflection of life and you cannot make credible movies without somehow representing the opposite sex ,this movie has no feminine roles ,it implicitly refers to lewis character as frequenting brothels and being a man of sin ,but we dont ever see any wench in his life ,most sensitivity and dynamic power in a drama or reality is derived from the frailty of the opposite sex ,though it might be called the weaker sex but everything from mona lisa to death of a virgin by caravaggio that is labelled as great art ,from all about eve to gone with the wind has one singular plot in common-a strong central woman to make it great ART AND THAT is essential
maybe that is why movies like NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN AND this rather rumbling and ranting bull fall flat on their face as they celebrate power without emotion ,reducing them to a burlesque state and their subjects rendered fake and worth mockery,there is a clear oppurtunity to indulge in melodrama here and anderson takes that full on with hilarious results ,the script is humorless and its clear his son who appears with him in deadpan ,monotonous speeches throughout is clearly neglected and being used as a to entice a family image for business expansion ,as for his so called wife or whores ,we never get to indulge in their sight,but he does cry for a brother we have or even he has never set sight on ,
bizarrely he kills only 2 souls who virtually are both deserving of their fate ,so if he is evil then he is redeeemed indeed as he has a good enough excuse for murder and his end state suggests lunacy which will be reason enough to justify any act BUT LUNATICS they all are from the priest of the flock to the son ,from miners to the butlers and from blundering fathers to abusinve sons who are all sufferring in a stark ,naked landscape resembling the purgatory ,
the movies other protagonist is an impassioned evangelical priest who damns lewis even before the poor man has a chance to open his mouth ,he then rants and ramps for the rest of the movie reducing some scenes to almost senseless comic detail .religion is not as awful as mr.anderson is viewing it in this biased manner ,it has its place but in this movie every soul is black ,just because it is about oil,we have devil worshippers around every nook and corner ,and if that is not a clich ,then please remind me of a bigger stereotype .
this is overwritten with scenes and dialogues that reverberate persistently and under-edited to the point where a simple scene of an oilman descending into a well can consume half the time god has given to us mortals in this measly life .the pace is not slack ,its like a dead horse with flies buzzing over the corpse and no one can flag a dead horse to life .even mr day lewis is not a magician ,just a sincere actor and he delivers the goods to the best effect he can muster ,but that is simply not enough
as if the movie already is not metaphorical enough ,the message is not subtle here it is rammed down our throats like the IRAQ WAR ,leaving no doubt about its immorality as conceived by its creators ,whether it be makers or politicians ,the parable about oil is of course reminiscent of this infamous conflict and RELIGION comes in with all its glory in the form of church to remind us of the CRUSADES ,popes and presidents of today and yeteryears ,for if the persian gulf has the black gold raining all over it ,then this movie is showered with its own excretions in the form of spewing dialogue full of venom and unnecessary ranting which borders onto pantomime and DANIEL DAY LEWIS IS very good BUT HE is covered in so much muck and the movie is so devoid of light , to render him almost invisible at times , the comparisons with GEORGE STEVENS GIANT are incomparable as that movie still will be my choice to watch and the great act by james dean is still more rewarding then this hokum.
its worth seeing for amazing cinemato graphy ,particularly the oil drilling sequences and days great act as well as the finale which was good but not great ,but the middle half just sags into a dreadful monotone just like the son who goes deaf from the oil well exploding ,which is captured beautifully by the camera ,but i think the plot and script are definitely flawed with the characters too.
as there is no redemption for anyone -them or the audience with a cliched plot and political religious satire gone awry

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yasmin said...

Posted on Apr 09 2008 14:48 top film - do not miss it!

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triff said...

Posted on Apr 02 2008 22:29 Fantastic film, quite mesmerising, those who can't manage 2 1/2 hours of brilliant acting and evocation of a legendary time should stay home and watch the tv. Movies set in the gold rush are 10 a penny, how often do you see one about oil, the root of all evil?

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T said...

Posted on Apr 02 2008 20:46 @ John Woods: maybe you should try watching the film all the way through once you've learnt to spell "almost" and "boring".

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Alex said...

Posted on Mar 21 2008 16:45 This film was a mixture of compelling and unsatisfying for me. DDL does carry off the unremitting tunnel vision of the central character, who is as remorseless and parched as the mojave desert where a lot of the action takes place. The cinematography is beautiful. Successfully charts the soulless obsession with wealth which formed the bedrock of America - kind of Citizen Kane territory but without the twist which gave CK its moral depth. In fact the storyline is ultimately one-dimentional. The bloody denouemont is just more of the same and left me feeling I had been given
little insight intoany of the characters, and certainly little sympathy.

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Mark Barber said...

Posted on Mar 21 2008 09:04 the film is utter rubbish
or just shit

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san isidro said...

Posted on Mar 13 2008 13:38 Saw this film yesterday & still have mixed feelings. On one hand,DDL was mesmerising,and watching his slide into madness & paranoia was rivetting,but it was slow & ponderous & and didn't adequately explain why he had to enact his vengeance on people who went against him. a film to stay in your mind,but was creepily morbid.

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tcd said...

Posted on Mar 12 2008 15:58 An outstanding, thoughtful film which will qualify as 'shit' for those with one brain cell

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lynda said...

Posted on Mar 10 2008 21:43 I saw this film today and thought that the visual and audio effects were wonderful, lead role acting was fab. Thought provoking undertones, prompts "be careful what you wish for"

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cheesey mgee said...

Posted on Mar 09 2008 12:07 wonderful filmwork, lovely acting, isnt DDL a dish??

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David said...

Posted on Mar 06 2008 23:35 DDL was superb, lots of other good acting as well, camera work was often great and some really well thought out scenes. I certainly didn't think it was boring, though I can understand why many people found it 'slow'.
But I just felt there was something not right about the story line - especially the ending. I didn't think at the end of the day it was primarily about power, drive, wealth, pioneering, the forging of US identity... but actually about Plainview's mental illness. How else can you explain his brutal, 'sick' behaviour?
Yet somehow that doesnt really get explored at all... I found that very frustrating.

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SK said...

Posted on Mar 06 2008 20:22 I saw this with my wife and another couple; the girls absolutely hated it and we lads loved it. One of the strongest, most engrossing, powerrful movies I have seen in years. Truly moving performance from DDL. There's so much in the story on so many levels - those who complain it's slow, miss the point, you feel like the Plainview character might... lonely betrayed driven greedy hugely successful yet ultimately, it all was futile as he's so so empty and unhappy despite all the success. Reminiscent of Scarface, another great film....

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fayble said...

Posted on Mar 06 2008 16:53 I have to say that I can appreciate the film and thought DDL's performance was immense but I have to agree with some; that the film was incredibly slow and it does have a feel about it that it was made for the sole purpose of being epic and winning awards. I can't say that I enjoyed the film particularly as it felt like everything was going slowly; perhaps it was meant to be feel tedious and resemble Plainview's initial struggle; I don't know but it didn't live up to my expectations despite the great acting performances.

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