I can finally say that with There Will Be Blood, I’ve seen all the films nominated for Best Picture Oscars at this year’s Academy awards.
It only took until February 8th. I’ll be better next year.
There Will Be Blood stars Daniel Day Lewis and Paul Dano in an epic motion picture based off the novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair.
It took me until just now to realize Paul Dano was the kid who didn’t talk in Little Miss Sunshine, so it’s nice to actually hear a voice from that guy.
Lewis stars as Daniel Plainview, which Roger Ebert suggested was likely a made up name, since nothing Plainview does is truthful. Nothing is out there for all to see. Nothing is real.
Where Javier Bardem’s Anton in No Country for Old Men was evil in a violent, psychotic way, Plainview is evil in his unrelenting drive to make money and succeed.
The movie begins with a good 10-15 minutes of no dialog. I think some could be frustrated with this, but I was hooked. You witness Plainview’s mining for silver and the discovery of his first oil well over a span of around 10 years or so in those first silent minutes.
During the introduction, a worker of his caring for a tiny baby dies and Plainview adopts the child as his own, giving him the name of H.W. Plainview.
Like I mentioned above, the movie is an epic, which is a great storytelling form I think that we don’t get a lot of these days.
Paul Dano plays two characters in this film, Paul Sunday and Eli Sunday, twin brothers. Although, you are left wondering slightly whether or not both exist or if there is just one of them?
Paul informs Plainview that there is oil on his family’s land and he just wants a small fee in order to tell them where it is.
When Plainview and his adopted son arrive under the guise of quail hunting, they find the oil leaking up to the surface of the desert due to a recent earthquake.
Daniel makes an offer on the land to the father, while Eli Sunday tries to negotiate for more money, $5,000 of which would help his church.
Needless to say, Plainview starts buying up land and the real meat of the movie begins.
This is definitely a strange tale and one I felt was almost told with a fantasy-like method. Each scene is so focused on either Plainview or Sunday, that you have no clue what is going on in the real world, and when you do get a sense of it, the real world feels so…normal. It’s like you’ve been in another place, the land of Plainview.
Which sort of makes the rest of the movie way over the top. But it works.
There is no lie here when people talk about how great Daniel Day Lewis was in There Will Be Blood. He was fantastic and created a stunningly evil character with such a way of speaking that you can’t help but listen.
Plainview is so competitive that he cannot live with anyone else succeeding or telling him what he should be doing, including not just other companies, but quite possibly people much closer to him.
I don’t know how much of the movie is historically accurate when it comes to showing how oil was first drilled and discovered, but I loved how they told the story of Plainview’s growth as an “oil man.”
And I can’t end the review without talking about the soundtrack. Not everyone will like it, in fact many hated it, but there are others like myself that were engrossed by the unique sound coming from the speakers.
It was all a score of course, no words, but it was so mixed and matched with piano, violin and other instruments that I have no clue about, that it gave such a tension to the movie that it would lack otherwise.
The movie is a long one, lasting around 158 minutes, and in some places it felt long, but it was also such a treat to enjoy Lewis’ performance that I was completely fine with the length.
AML Rating: A
Well, Mike, I finally got to see this movie this weekend as well. I was hoping for the best but must admit to being disappointed.
I felt the screenplay was tragically flawed. Day-Lewis was stunning as Plainview and it was his performance that elevated this film to the status it has achieved. Unfortunately, the story lacked any real defining moments for any of the characters or events that we witness.
We get Plainview and all of his psychosis but we never get anything that really tells us why he’s the way he is. We get a story that we feel is about a man becoming successful by being ruthless, but the truth is the film starts out by him becoming immediately successful so we are stripped of even the satisfaction of that. We think we see a film about a man who is both morally and spiritually corrupt but when we finish the film we are left wondering how and why we think that – the story never really takes us on that journey. We are only allowed to glimpse bits and pieces of it.
After taking a day to think about it I am left with the conclusion that the filmmakers failed in their attempts if they attempted to do anything other than show us a few fleeting scenes of one man with a corrupted soul. Without attempting to explain that corruption or even justify it the audience is left with nothing but questions; questions that have no answers.
One cannot help but watch this film and compare it to “Citizen Kane.” The only difference is that “Citizen Kane” fully developed the character of Charles Foster Kane…and they had Rosebud…which in one word, explained to the audience the reason for everything. “There Will Be Blood” failed to do that, in my opinion.
Jason A Clark’s last blog post..Roy Scheider 1932-2008
Those are accurate assessments Jason and the same things I’ve seen throughout the review world out there…that there was no true character development, heck, even Ebert or someone pointed out that there wasn’t even a female role in the movie.
I think your note kind of explains why I felt it was told like some sort of “fantasy”, because you don’t see anything else but him and the preacher really, and nothing in the outside world matters, and we don’t even see him develop much.
Although I’m not sure that’s not what the directors and writers meant to do here…not every story needs a beginning and end.
But I did struggle a bit with it as well, but at the end, felt Lewis’ performance and the soundtrack, plus the epic-ness of it really was great.
I guess I was just disappointed because I had wanted it to be so much more. I had been looking forward to seeing it for so long and had heard so many great things about it.
I don’t know how I can go make myself watch “Atonement” now. Of the Best Picture nominees it is the one I had wanted to see the least and I’ve not heard much about it lately. I missed my second chance to see “Michael Clayton.” I guess I’ll have to catch it on DVD in another week or so.
Jason A Clark’s last blog post..Roy Scheider 1932-2008
Atonement sucked IMO, I don’t feel like it should be up there with the other four, but the Academy loves those kind of films.
I’d throw in Gone Baby Gone instead of that one and feel a lot better.
Yeah, like I said, I haven’t seen “Atonement” or “Michael Clayton” yet, but “Gone Baby Gone” was fantastic. I’ve been sad all awards season long that it hasn’t gotten more recognition. Any other year perhaps…
Jason A Clark’s last blog post..Roy Scheider 1932-2008
[...] that the last few movies I’d seen were No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood and Jumper, it was actually refreshing to get out and watch Definitely, Maybe. I make no apologies [...]
I have read “Atonement” by Ian McEwan.I love this story.
also I had read the book by Ernest Hemingway was called “A Farewell to Arms”
that story was included “Love War Seperation”.I think Atonement is a little same as this story.
anyway I love this type story .also I saw the file ,Keira Knightley was excellent .
I propose to anybody have read this book watch the film ,too