There Will Be Blood (R)

Daniel Day-Lewis leads a mesmerizing role in a tour de force of American Films that boasts beautiful imagery, a booming score, and one of the finest performances I’ve ever seen.

At the turn of the 20^th century, oil was big. Oil men all across the U.S.A were, as Daniel Plainview said, “scratching in the dirt” looking for an easy way out of their poverty. “There Will Be Blood” not only captures the essence of that time with pinpoint accuracy, but it projects a frightening view of greed and all of its negative attributes.

Daniel Plainview is a talented and wealthy oil man drilling for the liquid gold in California with his son. There are a few subplots to this film, so it’s hard to give an exact story line. The main thing about this movie though is Daniel and his son. The film spans across about twenty years of his life. Throughout the years, Daniel faces various trials, often caused by himself. He also gets more and more greedy and, to be blunt, kind of evil. The entrancingly talented Daniel Day-Lewis plays the oil man perfectly. His performance is one of the best I’ve ever seen. He’s a gritty, raw man. Plainview is a character with so many layers that the film requires a couple views in order to fully understand and dissect it. The great thing about his personality, though, is that Day-Lewis’ talent adds so much more to Plainview than what was there originality. Every little thing he does on screen is perfect. His eyes movement, his gruff southern accent. Nothing makes you not believe what’s happening.

At the beginning of the film, Daniel is an independent and honerable oil man doing the drilling by his own hand. In fact, the first fifteen minutes of the film are in complete silence, and it’s one of the best parts of the movie. It’s only about five or six different shots, all of Plainview and his pickax, searching for oil in his hand made well. As I began to watch it, I realized that the entire movie seemed to rely and rest on Day-Lewis’ shoulders. And he carries it like it was as light as a feather.

As the various plots progress, we see that Plainview might not be all he

s cracked up to be. He turns evil, and makes some very bed choices, including abandonment and murder. As the nearly 3 hour tale came to a gritty end, I found myself looking back on everything I watched, trying to find something wrong with it. Nothing was out of place. I would have liked to watch the movie for another hour or so. Luckily, I got the two-disc set with a lot of bonus features to keep me fixed on the life of this honest oil man a bit longer.

With each eerie, wild violin chord and booming cello, even the slightly slow scenes are usually very interesting. The music was composed by Jonny Greenwood. Greenwood is the lead singer for the ultra popular British rock group Radiohead, though you wouldn’t know it while watching it. The music is top of the line, and I would suggest buying the soundtrack after seeing the film.

Daniel Day-Lewis won the academy award for best actor for his role in this film. By itself, the film got more than four nominations, including best picture and best director for Paul Thomas Anderson, who also wrote the screenplay. This epic tale won the award for Best Cinematography, as well. Just the look of the film breathes fire and brimstone, damnation to hell, and grit.

As oil sprays up from the earth, we get the name of the movie from Plainview. He calls it the “blood of the earth” in various scenes. And so, “There Will Be Blood”. A lot of it.

It’s long, and it’s time consuming, but in the end, There Will Be Blood is a brilliant and moving film about wealth and what it can do to those with the potential to be great, rendering the film downright impossible to miss.

10 bursting oil wells out of 10

There Will Be Blood is rated R for some violence

Review by Jason Holland