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December 30, 2007
There Will Be Blood
Yes, yes, it’s really that good. There Will Be Blood might be the best American film I’ve seen since Boogie Nights which makes Paul Thomas Anderson the best young director alive in my book. It’s a meticulously crafted sweeping epic with huge, charged-up emotions that never once descends into sentimentality or panders to audience expectations. In fact, just about every turn of the plot was a surprise. The movie is physically direct, shockingly so sometimes, but left me feeling incredibly ambiguous.
There Will Be Blood is the latest in a trio (or more) of utterly pessimistic 2007 films that feature compelling, sociopathic protagonists. We’re invited to sympathize at least a little with these men and, in Sweeney Todd especially, take some joy in their perverse hatred of other people. (I know I could relate!) Even the killer in No Country For Old Men has moments in which his logic seems convincing. All three films seem like perfect products of their political time. Made in another era Sweeney would have been a jolly romp and Old Men would have had a happy ending. Not now. In happier timed this film probably wouldn't have been made at all It's keenly observed look at the beginning of an industry that now shapes our country’s foreign policy—and at Capitalism in general, really—is literally stunning.
Everyone’s great in it, though when the amazing Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview is onscreen—nearly always—who’s looking at anyone else? Paul Dano is wonderful again as the Sunday twins. Adorable Dillon Freasier is really affecting as young H.W. Plainview, definitely his father’s son…until the inevitable happens. Russell Harvard as the grown-up H.W. is really cute. There are some hot oil workers, too, but there is so much else to look at I barely noticed them.
The music is weird as hell and makes some scenes really unnerving. Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood composed it and it's great. Longtime P.T. Anderson collaborator Robert Elswit’s cinematography is fluid, beautiful and always appropriate but not always pretty. The incredible combination of music, sound, lighting, editing, cinematography and acting in the dialogue-free opening sequence had me gripping the arms of my seat. It even references the opening ape sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey and it means something without seeming at all contrived. Really. There’s some juicy Citizen Kane-type business later on, too. The dialogue, once it starts, is simply beautiful, again intelligence without pandering. There are no cheap laughs here.
I have to say I was lead to believe the ending would be more physically violent than it actually was. This was a surprise but not a disappointment. It’s plenty emotionally violent, quite baroque, acceptably over-the-top and certainly as satisfying as this particular story will allow. It's practically Bambi next to Sweeney’s Grand Guignol gushers. The only gushers in this film are black gold, Texas Tea.
Anderson’s obsessions are all here: family, especially father-son relationships; work and emotional sickness being passed through the generations. They are handled in much more subtle and refined ways now, somehow more direct and more complex at the same time. He credits his work with Robert Altman on A Prarie Home Companion with some of that change. I would say he’s gained some political insight, too, but Boogie Nights was, to me, a political film. Blood is obviously a P.T. Anderson picture and at the same time something different in almost every way. And it’s brilliant.
My favorite line: I’d like it better if you didn’t think of me as stupid.
I hate to care about such things but if this film doesn’t sweep every award possible, I’m giving up. It’s an American Classic and it’s Dedicated to Robert Altman. That choked me up some and I’m glad I sat through the credits to see it.
I’m listening to “In Bloom” from Nevermind by Nirvana.
Posted by HighStrungLoner in Film at 6:05 AM
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Comments
Daddy and I wanted to see this midnight at the Bourse, but it was sold out (even when we went to get tickets hours before). I'm crazy about P.T. Anderson's style (though I didn't care for Hard Eight), and can't wait to see this one.
Sorry, didn't read your whole post - I'm avoiding any plot description and spoilers.
Posted by: FeverDog on December 31, 2007 3:43 AM
I'm really excited to see this one. Thanks for the review!
Posted by: fredric on January 2, 2008 10:51 AM
