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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Topic: There Will Be Blood
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Stu Jamieson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 524
From: Buccan, Qld, Australia
Registered: Jan 2008
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posted 02-11-2008 06:05 AM
Starting with an unassuming title card and without fanfare, in an Old English typeface, white on black and silent like the films at the turn of the 19th century in which this story takes place, the title appears: "There Will Be Blood". Cut to a figure beavering away with spartan hand tools and volatile explosives in the darkness of a hand-dug mineshaft, hoisting bucket after bucket of worthless rubble to the surface, in the vain hope of stumbling across a lode of precious metal. Paul Thomas Anderson's long awaited follow up to the excellent and unconventionally sublime Punch Drunk love is a loving ballad to the perilous hardships of early prospecting. The detail is superb and feels so authentic that the audience remains enraptured despite the passing of a good 15 minutes before the first line of dialogue is spoken.
The lonely prospector, who we learn is Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), eventually strikes gold of the black variety and thus begins his oil empire and his subsequent vampirism of the small villages who possess it. One of the inhabitants of such a village is Eli Sunday (Paul Dano with a sensible haircut for a change), an evangelical small town preacher who will lock horns with the atheistic and capitalist Plainview; a power struggle made all the more intriguing for it's apparent triviality.
Anderson's fascinating portrait of the early American oil industry culminates in the splendid mid-film burning derrick sequence. It's a significant event for both Eli and Plainview: for Eli it's an allegory for Plainview's unleashing the fires of hell and for Plainview it's a symbol of his all-consuming ambition. It's a telling moment for Plainview, captivated by the burning structure, displaying little concern for his son seriously injured in the explosion. When asked if his son is okay, he simply and vaguely responds, "No, he isn't." It's a great moment which lays the foundations for the remainder of the film and sets the tone for what is to come........well, at least we'd like to think so but sadly that is not the case.
From the midpoint on, the film appears to come apart at the seams in parallel to Day-lewis' character. Plainview begins the film as a rising oil baron with barely (but tightly) restrained megalomania but following the burning derrick sequence his madness is suddenly and inexplicably released, winding up a caricature of a cartoon villain replete with an uncharacteristic dose of violent psychosis. Astute businessmen (such as Plainview is) simply don't lose their minds at the smallest provocation; after all, if he were really that volatile, he surely would not have achieved his success. This instantaneous degradation of character doesn't make sense and it gives the appearance of a script having great chunks missing. Additionally, the most interesting counterpoints to Plainview, his son and Eli, vanish almost completely from the second half of the film to be replaced by a superfluous subplot involving the mysterious arrival of his brother. The script seems to be following too many plot strands making the film weaker as a whole.
Much praise has been lavished upon Day lewis' performance and it's half worth it. In the beginning his performance is precise, measured and compelling but in the second half of the film his acting becomes hammy and over the top. It's practically vaudeville and we half expect him to start twirling his moustache as he hatches a fiendish plan. Dano, however, is consistently excellent. Who would have thought, that after his roles in Fast Food Nation and Little Miss Sunshine he could have achieved so much given the chance? Obviously Anderson did.
There Will Be Blood (which is a terrible title, by the way) is a Jekyll and Hyde film, starting as an astonishingly accurate portrait of gold rush pioneers and ending as a disappointing comic farce. To be so consumed by a film, only to have it ebb away is a frustrating experience to say the least.
7 out of 10
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