Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases

Updates:

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Time Out rating

Average user rating

51 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 2008-02-04 16:33:47

Time Out London Issue 1955 Feb 6 to 13, 2008

Bookmark

User reviews of this film

Peter Jones said...

Posted on Feb 22 2008 18:05 This has got to be the ultimate performance in acting history.

Report as inappropriate
JT said...

Posted on Feb 22 2008 15:29 Oh dear. I agree that DDL's acting is something else (actually he sounded like someone else at times - stand up Sean Connery) but did it really have to take so long to make the point?
Some heavy editing and an engrosing film of say90 minutes could have been made out of this

Report as inappropriate
mike said...

Posted on Feb 22 2008 09:10 The film indeed says nothing about religion or the oil industry or even greed!Their is no sharing with the viewer as to what makes Plainview tick -- seems to me then there will be a stampede for the book!Plainview has no friends.He unburdened himself to his bogus brother but he did that with a clear nonentity -the scene told us all we needed to know about the mans drives.the laugh after he said "these people" - very ,very unpleasant!The film has a tight focus on the main character which does leave the viewer feeling shortchanged but it is that type of film.Not being cynical but it does have the feel of a film made primarely to win an Oscar for the central performance.

Report as inappropriate
Michael James said...

Posted on Feb 21 2008 16:22 I read that this film is over-hyped, that it says nothing about the oil industry or why Plianview has become the man he is. Perhaps Thomas Anderson should have spelt it out for all to see in plain view. Plainview is an anti-socialist because he has had no socialism. He trusts the earth & what's beneath it.
A brave & magnificent achievement in minimalism. Makes 'Giant' look redundant. Daniel Day Lewis is without a shadow of a doubt, the greatest British actor since Sir Alec Guinness. The film is a modern day opera. Occasionally, mainstream film can bee seen as art & this is one of those (all too rare) moments. To compare it to Anthony Mann or Bud Boeticcher is complimenatry, although I think the writer did not mean to.
The score is also magnificent.

Report as inappropriate
J R said...

Posted on Feb 21 2008 13:47 I can't believe the hype over this film It says absolutly nothing about the relationship between oil and america capitalism in the early 20th century, nothing about religion or why the evangelical ideas espoused by the Eli character have any purchase. Most problematic though was the fact that there is no development in the central character, why he becomes a nasty piece of work and what kind of social relations make such people. The different parts of the film seem to be cobbled together almost at random and the only reason to see it is to wonder the state of film cricticism and general culture when such a empty and nonentity of a film can be considered a great piece of socially revelent drama. The fact it has been compared to Citizen Kane only shows that many people do not understand why that film is great. Indeed it's main achievement is that it has given us definitve proof of Mark Kermode's idiocy when he claimed it reinvents film language, the film is shot, cut and structured in a conventional manner. The scenery will send you rushing home for Boeticcher or Anthony Mann DVD's.

Report as inappropriate
mike said...

Posted on Feb 21 2008 10:06 This is not the standard satisfying film experience with a standard beginninig,a middle and an ending.Consider -this story was written in 1927 and as far as I know,considered unfilmable until now.The central performance from Daniel Day Lewis is staggering!Consider - who else could have played such a character with such realism -and no film star padding?. - a younger Gene Hackman,perhaps.?
The film does have faults - not least the way that the deteriation of the relationship with his son as he grew older.That segment,I assume is in the book,is missing.Its such a jump to the end scenes in 1927.
The performance by Lewis is amazing.For my money he has the intelligence/inventiveness that Robert Deniro never had. - A larger range - -not just a bag of tricks but this may only seem so because he makes so few films!
The character of Plainveiw - his sheer lack of common feeling,his detestation of people,his cyncal manipulation of same and those rigid expressions put me in mind of Adolph Hitler.- - Think about it.

Report as inappropriate
Kozaj said...

Posted on Feb 20 2008 15:50 A complete movie.. really enjoyed every minute of it. especially the back round music resembling creaking of an ungreased machine

Report as inappropriate
pinkmummyj said...

Posted on Feb 19 2008 21:05 The most dismal film I have seen in ages - and disappointing cinsidering the reviews. I waited for all the treads to be pulled together at the end and for there to be some purpose in the multiple storylines but left feeling cheated. Utterly miserable - what a waste of 2 1/2 hours

Report as inappropriate
Sutton said...

Posted on Feb 18 2008 13:29 A very good film, with superb perforrnances from the two lead actors.

Report as inappropriate
Marconiusrex24 said...

Posted on Feb 18 2008 07:29 I'm shocked and dazed and still reeling a day later from the effects of this amzing cinematic experience...little points or details keep revealing themselves to me like in a dream...I have to go back and see it again

Report as inappropriate
Paul said...

Posted on Feb 17 2008 21:28 This is when you should ignore the dvd on a small home screen and see it on a cinema scale. What a film! I could sit through it again, there is so much too it and a great story. Also a fillm to put a big smile on Richard Dawkin's face.

Report as inappropriate
Kerry Newman said...

Posted on Feb 17 2008 21:00 An amazing film that stays with you for days afterwards, and Daniel Day-Lewis is mesmorising. Believe the hype.

Report as inappropriate
villardi said...

Posted on Feb 17 2008 11:31 a compelling and wonderful film, not just Day Lewis but supporting actors are great too. Its appropriate that his character is basically amoral and hateful but the layers of emotion and characterisation contained in the plot are what makes the film so unusual and fulfilling. I wouldn't be surprised if right wing religion based America absolutely hated the film for what is does to evangelism. Thought provoking and compelling. Many oscars to follow.

Report as inappropriate
Boysie said...

Posted on Feb 14 2008 22:37 Daniel Day Lewis gives an utterly compelling performance. This film should clean up at the Oscars. It is an electrifying tale. I loved every minute of it.

Report as inappropriate
Adam said...

Posted on Feb 14 2008 12:28 Don't beleive the hype. OK movie but I just cannot see what the hype is all about.

Report as inappropriate