Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano
There are scenes, images, pieces of dialogue that remain clear as day for me when I think about There Will Be Blood and that's because it's really a movie that exceeds on nearly every single level. But more than that, it's the scope of the film that I remain in awe of, the way Paul Thomas Anderson almost seamlessly tackles everything that he had set out to do when he was making this movie.
With Hard Eight, you knew PTA was a man of enormous potential; Boogie Nights and Magnolia proved he can create truly original movies on a truly epic scale; Punch-Drunk Love showed his romantic and clever side; but the one thing There Will Be Blood demonstrated to me, more than any of his other films, is that he is a fucking mad man. Rest assured that I mean that in the most complimentary form. But keep in mind that this Daniel Plainview character, while performed to perfection by the great Daniel Day-Lewis, came out of the mind of Paul Thomas Anderson. That's quite a scary thought, is it not?
I had been an avid follower of Paul Thomas Anderson for quite some time now and I was before this movie came out. I was already familiar with all of his movies by the time TWBB came out and so when I went to see There Will Be Blood in theaters, I knew that I was going to be in for a treat. What I didn't know, however, was just how different the film would be from his other work.
It was as if There Will Be Blood was a completely different side to him. It was slow, the pacing was deliberate, the style was formal, the cinematography was cold, yet authentic and allowed for some of the most beautiful images captured on film (i.e., the oil rig explosion). That, along with the accompanying music from Radiohead member Jonny Greenwood was just so out there and so unexpected. It was hard to not completely embrace this movie as soon as it finished.
There Will Be Blood was praised almost universally but it definitely was not without its detractors and that's to be expected. For some people, the movie didn't sit too well with them; for others, the unconventional pacing of the movie was perhaps a turnoff. But believe me when I say that There Will Be Blood is everything a true masterpiece should be. It should take you out of your comfort zone, it should leave you scratching your head, it should make you have more questions than answers... the whole point is to come back to the movie again and again. In doing so, you will get even more out of the film than the first or second time you saw it. It's so layered and rich with context that you can't possibly get everything out of one viewing. If you find everything you're looking for in a movie after just one viewing, then what reason is there to see the movie again? What's the point if you're just watching the same movie over and over? A truly great movie is a slightly different and more enlightening movie every time you see it.
One complaint about the movie which has some validity to it is the performance of Paul Dano. Now Paul Dano has two roles in this movie and he was originally just supposed to have the small role, but when the other actor dropped out of the larger role, Paul Dano was supposed to fill in the much larger shoes of Eli Sunday. Even Quentin Tarantino thought it was the only real flaw within the film, but after seeing the film a couple of times, I really dig Paul Dano's performance in the movie. The one criticism was just how weak of a match he is to Daniel Plainview but I felt that was the point. Nobody can possibly match Daniel Plainview and if they did, then the ending really wouldn't fly too well. But as it is, it makes the ending even sadder and more unfortunate as we witness a truly evil man who, in the end, gets what he wants.
And that's the essence of There Will Be Blood. It's a criticism on capitalism, but it's not a movie that simply says "capitalism is bad." It demonstrates the negative effects that a capitalistic society can have on men of a larger stature. Daniel Plainview definitely deserves a great amount of respect just because of the struggle he went through in order to get on top. But the movie kind of asks, "what if you're already on top?" And if you're a man like Daniel Plainview, someone who has a genuine disdain for people, you will turn into a monster. Overall, what There Will Be Blood says is that we're allowing those monsters stay alive and because of that, we're also allowing the smaller, weaker Eli Sundays of the world to die. Of course Eli Sunday wasn't a perfect man either, but nonetheless...
All of this, in effect, is part of what makes There Will Be Blood such a masterpiece and it will be treasured for years to come. It also showed that compared to other contemporary filmmakers out there, Paul Thomas Anderson really is of another planet. We couldn't be more thankful for that either.
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