When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced next month’s Oscar nominations last week, “There Will Be Blood” received eight, and surprised most of the movie-going world.
Up to that day, the film had not even grossed $9 million and was playing on fewer than 400 screens nationwide (and noticeably not in Eugene). What was this mystery movie that the Academy seemed to love so much? Beating fan favorites like “Juno” and “Atonement” and tying “No Country for Old Men” with the number of nominations, “There Will Be Blood” had quite a task to win over audiences the same way it did award voters.
Daniel Day-Lewis, in only his third performance in the last decade, plays Daniel Plainview, a turn-of-the-century oil man in California. We see him from his early days of entrepreneurship, solely mining for silver before graduating to liquid gold. As soon as he puts in enough dirty work and gains success, he starts to travel the state, son H.W. (newcomer Dillon Freasier) in tow, to buy as much land as possible.
He focuses his attention on a town called Little Boston, an area where he decides to relocate his business, and easily buys all the land away from its ignorant owners. The only problem comes from Eli Sunday (Paul Dano, the silent son in “Little Miss Sunshine”), a self-proclaimed prophet and healer who preaches in the town’s Church of the Third Revelation. The two mature into mental, social and at times physically sparring partners over the course of Plainview’s stay in Little Boston.
This is director Paul Thomas Anderson’s first film in five years and, much like his earlier works “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia,” it is likely to divide viewers’ affections. Anderson’s film is more about his ‘Plainview’ than any sort of over-lying message, and it alternates between treating Day-Lewis’ character like a man with incredible drive and the monster that might pop out from your closet. Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood’s uncompromisingly strange score gives a tremendous amount of eeriness to the film.
Among many aspects, the Academy hailed the film for its cinematography. Those previously familiar with Anderson’s work will notice a sharp decline in camera movement, but with the cinematographic shots of Robert Elswit, it isn’t missed.
Elswit captures the harsh terrain of the story’s scenery, utilizing the whole frame to its full potential. Also top notch is the film’s screenplay, an adaptation penned by Anderson and based off Upton Sinclair’s novel “Oil!” The story tells an epic story of power, greed, religion and money, relying on Day-Lewis to hold the pieces together, a task in which he clearly relishes.
This is a performance of unfathomable power. Day-Lewis transcends what you normally think of as the art of acting and produces something riveting. No amount of make-up or costuming match the terror he creates. A more unique and powerful performance is unlikely to ever be found.
Combining a nearly three-hour-long run with some of the strangest scenes to grace the big screen in a while, it would be a bold-faced lie to say that “There Will Be Blood” is for everyone. But for those who enjoy a film that engages their mind and provokes their thoughts – with a bit of oddity on the side – “There Will Be Blood” is nothing less than essential viewing.