"There Will Be Blood"

[Odin]

It's very hard to come back and try to give some kind of semblance regarding the experience that is this movie. I find myself really lost for words, but equally imagining and rehashing the things that I watched, over and over again.

So I shall attempt to give it some justification in the most tender and loving of words that I can.

This was movie making as it is when done right. This was a vast tale that was so tiny in its' grandure as to be almost melodramatic.

The man is Daniel Day Lewis, who is absolutely fucking amazing in this movie. I can't imagine another person who would deserve awards and accolades more for a movie, this year. He chews slowly on every scene, turning over the smallest nuances in the effort to drag the authenticity up one more notch for the character that he plays.

He is a force in this movie.

The summary:

A story about family, greed, religion, and oil, centered around a turn-of-the-century Texas prospector (Daniel Day-Lewis) in the early days of the business.

I just erased the same line 6 times trying to come up with the right way to describe this movie.

This isn't the film that you take your date to go see because you want to go watch something together. This isn't the film that you wander out of the bar and say... "Hey, we are drunk.... lets go see this thing"

This is a film in the grand old history of Cinematic Art. The cinematography grasps at the old straws of Warner with it's scope and shots. Paul Thomas Anderson, stages the land as itself a character as much as the people. The beginning of the movie sets the tone with the indication of the life that "Daniel" lives. This is a man that makes his living hewing rock out of a shaft that he has built. He lives on his own, out in, essentially, the bad lands. He stands in a tunnel swinging a pick axe for what ammounts to a peanuts worth of gold. This is a man who needs the challenge. He needs the thrill of besting someone, be it himself, children, his friends, his enemys. He is so enraptured with the idea of winning and succeeding that everything is done in the name of that progress.

As the movie goes along you see that as Daniel gets what he wants, he only manages to find more and more. He can't stand others around him, he is envious in the extreme of anything that anyone else has. As his own brilliant statement says.

"Are you an angry man? Are you envious? Do you get envious? I have a competition in me; I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people. There are times when I I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I've built up my hatreds over the years little by little. I see the worst in people. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I want to earn enough money I can get away from everyone. I can't keep doing this on my own, with these... people."

As he finds oil and succeeds at getting things started in his own business, he is always expanding.... Always looking for some other challange or opportunity. He wants to be bigger than everything and everyone that is in his line of work. He is an oil man.

When the opportunity arises to get some land that he could drill on there isn't the faintest compunction about taking the land for less than it is worth. He knows how much he could get out of there but he also knows that he isn't going to pay one more dime that it is worth. The only thing that stands in his way is a kid. The child of the man that owns the land. He is a "messenger of god". This kid is the kind of believer that makes others follow him. As time progresses and the kid gets his own church and group of followers, you can see the envy and realization hit daniels life that this boy has so much power in the world in which daniel needs to live.

The play between eli and daniel simmers, with the power fluctuating between both characters. Eli needs to have others believe in him, he NEEDS to have people think that he is "the one". Daniel needs to have others envy him, he needs to have people broken and left in his wake. They are two men cut out of the same ideals with different goals.

It simmers at a slow boil, until the final minutes of the movie.

I have to say that I was disappointed in the reaction of the crowd. Not that they didn't like the movie, but that they were so involved in the hating of the religous character in this movie that anything to spite him or made him the fool they laughed and gloated with. Hippsters and art students and students of film alike all grinned their teeth and laughed whenever the opportunity to drag Eli through the mud was presented. Of course some of that was intentional in the filming, and some was not.

There are so many good parts about this movie, so many things to reconsider and relive.

I have to recommend it to anyone who likes this kind of film. Just don't expect wookies and chainsaws.

[Odin]

Note: Jonnny greenwood did the music.

I expected dissonance. I got Dissonance.

He did a great job setting the stage in most scenes, and building a theme of dischord. At times the music would fade out of the crazy polyphonic schemes into a string section, but would just as easily fluctuate back in.

At times I thought that the emphasis was a bit much on the overall sounds of string chaos, but they did serve to highten the tension and discomfort, so in the end I have nothing to complain about.

[dookeyXXX]

i liked it:

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...d.php?t=100636

[Benny Profane]

I have to see this thing. Lewis needs no more praise to be elevated to the best actor working today in film (his Bill the Butcher is the only thing worth anything in Gangs of New York), but it sounds like Anderson has broken through from an excellent early career and made the Great American Movie.

Unfortunately, I got dragged to Sweeney Todd today. Well, it wasn't that bad, but, jeez, Tim, are we a little over the top with different ways to show blood flowing, or what?

[Benny Profane]

hmmmmm.......

The New Yorker

LONG STORY
by Anthony Lane
JANUARY 14, 2008

From its long opening shot, a neon-infused homage to the start of “Touch of Evil,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights,” released in 1997, was a gleaming declaration of intent. The young director had deliberately taken as low and scuzzy a tale as you could wish for—the progress of a stud (Mark Wahlberg) through the San Fernando Valley pornography trade in the nineteen-seventies and eighties—and treated it with the high, humane style that we associate with masters of elaboration like Altman and Welles. No wonder the cast—comically rich, with names like Don Cheadle, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, and Philip Seymour Hoffman—flocked to Anderson’s call. (And who would have predicted that the wink-and-leer charm of Burt Reynolds could be tamed into grace and restraint?) Placed next to his new epic, “There Will Be Blood,” the earlier film, which screens at Sunshine Cinema on Jan. 11-12, still seems the finer achievement—less driven and oil-dark, but far more various and wistful, and no less acute in its survey of American ambition, even if the hero’s dreams reach no further than the foot of the bed. ♦

[Benny Profane]

Well, that's bullshit. Boogie Nights is one of my favorite flicks, but this film is superb. And, yeah, Odin, excellent sound track.

"I'm finished!"

[Stu Gotz]

I just watched this on DVD. Excellent. The first 10-15 minutes have got to be the best movie making of recent vintage.

I can't believe that Greenwood didn't win the academy award for Best Original Score.

One question - the ending. I got the feeling the Anderson didn't know how to end the film. Has he commented on the ending of the film? Anyone care to chime in?

[Benny Profane]

Hmmmm

I was , as most were/are, transfixed by D.D. Lewis's performance. He became the film for me, after the stage was set by the photography and music. All else was just support. The preacher kid just couldn't "keep up " with him. He was trying too hard. So maybe he just had to be done away with, just like the son. "I'm finished".


ps: I am told that Lewis is quite hard to work with because he never leaves character during the filming period. whatever.

[Steven S. Dallas]

I can't believe that Greenwood didn't win the academy award for Best Original Score.

There was too much previously composed material in the soundtrack for it to qualify.

[Jim S]

We rented it last night. It's slower than I thought but as well state above, it's a work of art.

I have seen Daniel Day Lewis in many films. I thought he was the personification of evil in GANGS OF NEW YORK. In THERE WILL BE BLOOD he displays a deterioration of the protagonist's character which blazes as a tour de force of acting unparalled in cinema. Genius, talent, hard work...one of the finest performance I have ever seen.

The score: I am familiar with Philip Glass, Edgar Varese, and other avant garde and atonal music. I appreciate the tension developed by the soundtrack. However, it found the score grating and it gave me a headache.

.

[Nathan Explosion]

Just watched this movie again. Like what has been said, there are simply no words to describe this film. Easily my #1.

[truth]

Damn, almost picked it up yesterday but I balked. Guess I'll rethink that now.

[BCtransplant]

It left me a little frustrated.

The cinematography was incredible, the score worked well and DDL's performance was great as usual. However, I was left a little wanting, and I think it was mainly the performance of the kid preacher, and the character's role in general. At no point did he ever seem a worthy foil for DDL, certainly not to the extent that he should have elicited the reaction he did in the final scene. In fact, I thought the Standard (?) rep (very small role) that DDL crossed paths with a few times was a more worthy adversary, mainly because he was so 'normal' compared to DDL's madness.

I think Benny has it about right when he says the preacher couldn't "keep up"- not sure if you were referring to the actor or the character, but both seem apt.

[truth]

Just finished watching and yes odin, it was fantastic. One of the best films I've seen in a while. The last line is a classic.

[NorthernSpotted...]

Saw this movie not too long ago and it's definitely one of the best movies I've seen in years. Being a newbie around here, I was currious what y'all thought of it so I did a little search and found this thread. Good to know there are people around who appreciate this type of movie. Now, I'm no film student so take my thoughts with a grain of salt but here's my take on a few of your comments in case anyone still cares...

However, I was left a little wanting, and I think it was mainly the performance of the kid preacher, and the character's role in general. At no point did he ever seem a worthy foil for DDL, certainly not to the extent that he should have elicited the reaction he did in the final scene.

I agree about the actors performance. It wasn't that convincing and that definitely got in the way a little. However, I think the character was a perfect foil. As a businessman, Plainview operated in a cold, calculated, rational manner. To him, religion was bullshit and the preacher was a charlatan. The fact that he depended on such a man for his own success frustrated and angered him to the point of pure hatred. It comes out best in the baptism scene. To me, the conflict between the two men was probably the most crucial element of the movie.

One question - the ending. I got the feeling the Anderson didn't know how to end the film. Has he commented on the ending of the film? Anyone care to chime in?

I think the end was meant to be ironic.

On the one hand, he had finally bested the preacher. The fact that the preacher needed Plainview and that the shoe was finally on the other foot gave him a huge amount of satisfaction as you can tell from, "I drink your milkshake." The bludgeoning was just the outpouring of the years of hatred. Basically, he finally had some closure on a lifelong frustration.

On the other hand, what was he left with? Competition drove him his whole life and the only competitor that remained was the preacher. While the murder gave him his victory, it also stripped him of his prime motivation. In addition, that same competitive nature, which helped him succeed financially, drove away the only person he ever loved in his son. In the end, he had nothing. Hence, "I'm finished."


Finally, I think anyone who liked the movie but has a sense of humor about how intense it was might find this mildly amusing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9ClsOQdlUE