Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Written by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O’Connor, Ciarán Hinds, Dillon Freasier
Rating: [5/5]
While ideologically on different planes, the inextricable connection capitalism and religion have with each other has laid right in the fabric of American life going back to the very founding of the nation. A partnership built with blood and something There Will Be Blood examines in such a masterful manner. A feat of perfection delving right into the horror of greed, this feature stands as one of the definitive American films ever made and one that only continues to grow in power the more it stays with us.
After finding success in finding silver in New Mexico, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) reckons he can succeed in the lucrative game of finding oil, which leads him to California where he purchases the land of a local family to drill for this liquid gold. Upon finding success, things begin to complicate for him as others see the opportunity to strike while the iron’s hot, which he refuses to allow.
At the heart of the characterization of There Will Be Blood, we have a bunch of frauds. Individuals who will say or do whatever they can in order to get what they want. They speak on values they state carry weight in their lives but willingly drop them when it no longer conveniences them. Something we see occur aplenty, especially with individuals in the religious and business sectors but the way this feature lays it out as plain as day in such an enthralling manner speaks to its power seeing as these individuals commit these infractions without sensing any of the irony. With Plainview, he adopts a child for the mere purpose of purporting himself as a family man when we initially meet him he could care less about others. He would train himself to become whoever he needed to be if he thought it would give him the chance to close out a deal to a sociopathic degree. However, he does not stand alone as the only person who falls into this trap with Plainview representing this capitalistic mindset and wannabe pastor Eli Sunday representing how this appears in religion.
This battle of the wills and the minds between the two men makes for consistently captivating moments throughout the feature in the ways they try to undercut each other but always present themselves as something other than what reality bears. These two frauds battle it out in a manner that seeks to humiliate and get the upper hand over the other in such devious ways and the audience becomes the benefactor of it all. From the closing scene to the baptism, their back-and-forth delivers the sensational moments we want from a story of this caliber and we received every bit of it.
While we get into these larger philosophical ideas, this feature also displays the logistics of how oil rigs operated in the late 19th century exhibiting the extreme danger it entails with this high-risk, high-reward approach. If done right, one could make it extremely rich in the profession but being an oil man comes with the dangers of one explosion burning everything you’ve built down. Seeing the efficiency and effectiveness of Plainview and his men brings a different type of satisfaction in watching it all play out from the humble beginning to the behemoth of an operation he later establishes. Seeing this all play out allows Robert Elswit to deliver some stunning shots of these oil rigs that have stood as the images individuals first think of whenever this film comes up in conversation. The shot where Plainview sits as fire spits out of the oil rig stays ringing in my head quite often for what it represents in the story bit also the sheer beauty of the shot composition.
Helping underscore the feeling of dread in this feature is a truly disconcerting score by Jonny Greenwood who comes and almost tells the story simply through the music he crafts for the film. This score creates this unease throughout the feature almost as if it knows the truth of what we see right under the surface and sees these characters for their true selves. It ever quite remains something calm and can sit in the background. It serves as an accompaniment to what we see visually on the screen further driving home the point of this feature. Greenwood in collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson has never delivered work that did not amaze but what he does in this film takes the cake.
We obviously cannot speak about a Paul Thomas Anderson film without touching upon his writing and with There Will Be Blood he creates his undisputed masterpiece. Lines of dialogue from this feature continually get quoted by me not because they’re fun to say but rather because of the meaning they carry. Well, it’s fun to scream “I drink your milkshake” but what it means in the context of the film has this devastating impact as we see this battle between Daniel and Eli. Paul Thomas Anderson crafts something sinister in this story but does it under the guise of chasing a level of exceptionalism we have all been taught to aspire to achieve without looking at the impact it has on our sanity or compassion for our fellow person. He dives deep into these characters to pull away from everything they want to see and take a gander at the ugly center of what makes them tick, and the most frightening thing of it all comes from the reality that this center ultimately leads to their success in the systems we have in place in this country. Truly chilling work and Paul Thomas Anderson never lets his foot off of the pedal in driving home this point to tremendous effect.
Fronting this horrific experience we have perhaps the greatest actor to ever live in Daniel Day-Lewis. Picking out his greatest performance, for my money, begins and ends with what he pulls off as Daniel Plainview. A true devil in the appearance of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, Day-Lewis brings the undeniable charm of this snake oil salesman and masks his sinister underpinning so well to let the true evil spill out just enough to drive the point home. Everything Day-Lewis does in this feature sits firmly in perfection because he embodies Plainview in a manner truly only he could. Paul Thomas Anderson had to get him to play the role because this was made for him and it proved as quite the treat to watch. Not only does Day-Lewis deliver the lines with the vigor and venom required but the man becomes the physical embodiment of something larger than himself and it works exquisitely well. This does not take anything away from Paul Dano who stands toe-to-toe with Day-Lewis as Eli and helps make this quite the battle.
There Will Be Blood tells a definitive American story and one that brings a level of representation about the true forces propelling our nation that it gives me goosebumps to just write about. Paul Thomas Anderson stitches together something so grueling, violent, and harrowing in a way to entertain but also warn us about these characters. From the charm of an oil man and a pastor to the horrors sitting just below them, this film only leaves me speechless in moments because watching it displays the art form of filmmaking at its absolute apex and makes me feel lucky I get to witness something this rich in my lifetime.
Films with Josh 
