P.T. Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood” is a tough review to write. It has only now arrived in Starkville and other theaters after a late December opening. It has garnered a staggering abundance of award nominations and assorted praise. Some have called it this generation’s “Citizen Kane.” Expectations play a larger part in watching this film than they have and will in the vast majority of releases. In other words, nothing written here is offered to prepare you for the cinematic beast that waits. This is a flawed account.
Many critics have wasted time detailing the plot of “Blood.” To describe the movie in this tradition is absurd. This is a film of ideas and characters, not nicely streamed events for regurgitation.
So what’s the big idea? American capitalism and its natural promotion of larger-than-life men getting what they want (money) while others adapt to the land created by these hording businessmen.
And the big character, the hording businessman, is Daniel Plainview, played by method actor Daniel Day-Lewis. If you haven’t seen Day-Lewis before in “My Left Foot” or “Gangs of New York” or anything, this would be a proper opportunity to see the greatest living film actor perform. This time he stars as a man who, after being told about an oil prospect from a boy, politely remarks, “If I travel all the way there and find out that you’re a liar, I’ll find you and take more than my money back. Is that alright with you?”
Some viewers and critics have suggested that Day-Lewis, while impressive in general, may have overacted or went too far with Plainview’s character. How very wrong. Day-Lewis maintains a logical evolution of Plainview’s corruption and is so convincing that it should disturb you. His honest greed and selfish language are likeable and amusing, but his actions reek of unrestrained evil. Day-Lewis didn’t take this role to dazzle us. Because in the film he is no longer himself.
Things become complicated for Plainview and capitalism when religion enters the context in the form of preacher boy Eli Sunday. Paul Dano – you might know him from “Little Miss Sunshine” – portrays Sunday with a careful combination of intensity, for his revelatory sermons, and almost dumbfounded restraint, for his appearance of Christ-like holiness. One might say young Dano amazingly keeps beat with Day-Lewis’ masterful cymbal clashing. But this chemistry could be due to familiarity: Both Dano and Day-Lewis were opposing personalities in “The Ballad of Jack and Rose.”
As noted earlier, the events of “Blood” elicit no real prestige or intrigue as simple plot points. But as images they accomplish manipulations never seen in the film artform. Oil catches fire as it shoots from the earth. Plainview and his associates appear as pagan shadow puppets in front of the intense flames. Sunday casts an invisible figure out of his church. Plainview and his son (a great Dillon Freasier) ride through dust in a bouncy obsolete automobile while buildings in the foreground occasionally block this odd vision completely.
Director/writer Anderson should be commended for showing audiences textures, juxtapositions and portraits they likely could have never imagined. Every shot, pan or focus has potential to captivate. In particular, Anderson makes excellent use of dissolves, the technique where one shot fades out as another fades in. The dissolves are so well done that you can see two shots at one time, both as clear as you could want them.
Sound is an important aspect of “Blood.” The sound effects are indeed a highlight, but the soundtrack marks a removal from convention. Composed by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, the music is as sprawling as the film but with no consistency in theme, no pattern you can follow easily or predict. In contrast to the other most important movie of 2007, “No Country for Old Men,” “Blood” thrives on unpredictive film music rather than abandoning the very device altogether.
Back in 1994, Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” was released and eventually changed film history and filmmaking as we know it. Since then, American filmmakers have brought about some wonderful work. In another respect, America has been outdone by Mexican, Brazilian, Korean and other filmmakers in terms of originality and importance. But along with “No Country for Old Men,” “Blood” changed this in 2007. It doesn’t matter whether I like it or you like it. Its visual accomplishments render human opinion irrelevant.