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Some will dislike Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, and
it’s easy to see why. It’s an abrasive work with an unsavory
protagonist, its structure is anachronistic, and it does lose its way at
the end. Be that as it may, this film should be embraced fully for its wild
ambition, its emotional and physical scope, its sheer audacity, and a
haunting performance by Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a man
ultimately consumed by his greed. We meet Plainview as he’s mining silver in the
middle of nowhere. Poor and alone, he’s determined to beat the
poverty that dogs him. By shifting his focus to oil, he finally catches a
break. Years later, he and son H.W. (Dillon Freasier) travel the country
looking for opportunities, and one falls in their laps when they’re
visited by a young man named Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) who tells of great oil
reserves beneath his father’s farm. Plainview and his son verify the
claim but come up against resistance from Paul’s twin, Eli, who
insists on guarantees to the community and a promise that a new church will
be built.
This sets up a battle of wills that rages over the
course of the film. Although the riches do come pouring in, the cost to
Plainview is high as a great tragedy befalls him, Sunday sets out to ruin
him in the eyes of the community, and a person from his past emerges under
dubious circumstances. All of this is told against the backdrop of an epic
physical and emotional landscape, with the men walking the high wire
between sin and salvation at every turn. Plainview allows his obsession to overtake him, and
one wonders whether he ever possessed any sort of compassion. Greed is the
fuel that drives his sociopathic behavior as he uses his riches to abuse
and alienate others rather than cherish and enrich them. Day-Lewis keeps us
fascinated throughout, and his performance is one for the ages. Cruel,
arrogant, murderous, and altogether charismatic, the actor is immersed in
the role, wearing his flaws with a sense of perverse pride that’s
fascinating. In the same league as Citizen
Kane and The
Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Blood is a monumental
tale of avarice and corruption. This is a brand of epic filmmaking the
likes of which we rarely see anymore.
This article appears in Jan 17-23, 2008.
