There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood... maaaaaaaaaaan. Daniel Day-Lewis deserves his own emticon, that's how good he is. Should this film have beaten No Country for Old Men to the best picture gong in the 2008 Oscars? I'm not sure, but if there was ever cause for a tie, this was it. Here, let me sum up the movie for you...

Fourteen minutes of no dialogue. Daniel Day-Lewis strikes oil. He becomes a demon, takes on a son, goes head to head with a local evangelical preacher (played by manchild Paul Dano), and basically amasses the beginnings of a business empire soaked and dripping in the blackest sheen of oil you could possibly imagine. Day-Lewis' eyes shine with this blackness, he embodies the evil of greed like no one else on screen ever has - not Bogart in Treasure of the Sierra-Madre, not Michael Douglas in Wall Street - these guys are chumps next to this cold-hearted sociopath.

The strange thing is, thinking back on There Will Be Blood, this movie isn't exactly filled with mayhem or gangster-style violence or any of the other hallmarks that populate today's films dealing with base emotions or the concept of evil. The director, Paul Thomas Anderson, has achieved something incredibly impressive... he's built a film of atmosphere and dread without resorting to cheap tricks or laboured psychological ponderings. Armed with the twin arsenal of Day-Lewis' event horizon of a performance and a wonderfully ominous musical score, Anderson has crafted a deceptively simplistic film that stands out amongst its peers as a unique, one-of-a-kind experience. I'm gobsmacked that this film even got made, and incredibly grateful that it did - it reassures film fans everywhere that a director's non-studio friendly vision can make it to the screen unmolested. Provided Daniel Day-Lewis has agreed to star in it.


Scenes that stick out in my mind...

• Day-Lewis dragging himself through the scrub to stake his claim, ignoring his broken leg the whole time.
• Paul Dano striding alongside a lake of oil, like Christ walking on water as black as the hearts of men.
• Day-Lewis rejoicing in the flames cast by an erupted oil well, a stark silhouette in the dusk.
• Day-Lewis calmly getting off the train before it rolls away, probably one of the coldest things he does in the whole film.
• Of course, the final scene between Day-Lewis and Dano.

Go watch a piece of film history.

DIRECTOR: Paul Thomas Anderson
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Paul Thomas Anderson. Based on a novel by Upton Sinclair.
KEY ACTORS: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Ciarin Hinds, Dillon Freasier, Russell Harvard, Kevin J. O'Connor, Paul F. Tompkins

RELATED TEXTS
- The novel Oil!, written by Upton Sinclair in 1927.
- Day-Lewis and Dano previously appeared together in The Ballad of Jack and Rose.
- Other films about greed: Greed, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (from which Anderson apparently drew a lot of inspiration), Wall Street, The Claim and Glengarry Glen Ross.
- Other films about oil: Giant, The Formula, Louisiana Story and The Wages of Fear.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - won Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Best Cinematography. Also nominated for Best Film, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction and Best Sound Editing.
BAFTAs - won Best Actor (Day-Lewis). Also nominated for Best Film, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Paul Dano), Best Cinematography, Best Music, Best Production Design, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound.
Golden Globes - won Best Actor - Drama (Day-Lewis). Also nominated for Best Film (Drama).