Directed by:
Paul Thomas AndersonScreenplay:
Paul Thomas AndersonCinematography:
Robert ElswitComposer:
Jonny GreenwoodCast:
Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O'Connor, Ciarán Hinds, Dillon Freasier, Barry Del Sherman, Paul F. Tompkins, Kevin Breznahan, Jim Meskimen (more)VOD (3)
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The story chronicles the life and times of one Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), who transforms himself from a down-and-out silver miner raising a son on his own into a self-made oil tycoon. When Plainview gets a mysterious tip-off that there’s a little town out West where an ocean of oil is oozing out of the ground, he heads with his son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier), to take their chances in dust-worn Little Boston. In this hardscrabble town, where the main excitement centers around the holy roller church of charismatic preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), Plainview and H.W. make their lucky strike. But even as the well raises all of their fortunes, nothing will remain the same as conflicts escalate and every human value – love, hope, community, belief, ambition and even the bond between father and son – is imperiled by corruption, deception and the flow of oil. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (14)
If is it was less protracted, it would be great. I have to admit that in terms of filmmaking, There Will Be Blood is close to perfection, but I prefer films that are a bit more human (not so dry). Oscar here, Oscar there, but I just got bored and it be couldn’t avoided, even with Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance – anywhere else, I’d probably be unable to take my eyes off him. 3* for me, but it’s certainly worth watching.
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Maybe I was too excited by the five-star compliments from my favorite users and their enthusiastic comments full of superlatives, just like the Oscar nominations, because when I finally managed to watch it thoroughly, I was slightly disappointed. It is definitely a case of professional filmmaking with quality camera work, a strong storyline, and quality actors. However, fitting 30 years of the main character's life and work into a single feature film is still a challenge, and the screenplay could not avoid a few significant jumps in time, cutting out certain motifs, and overall flattening. Sometimes the character Daniel Plainview is compared to the main protagonist of The Social Network due to his self-centeredness, but with that film, it only took one year spent alongside Mark Zuckerberg for me to get into his mindset and understand his motivation, whereas, in the case of the oil prospector, his motivation and character slip through my fingers somehow. It could have been a great film about the oil industry, which, along with the automobile industry, shaped the economic history and prosperity of the United States in the first half of the 20th century, but the screenplay fails to capture the grandiose growth of innovation and wealth or simply everything that moved the lives of the residents of the mining areas. Nevertheless, there are a few scenes that leave no doubt in my mind that the film deserves its 4-star rating, such as the final confrontation between Plainview and his ideological opponent, the leader of the religious community. Overall impression: 75%.
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Here we go again. A good film in every respect, but I have one major problem with it: Its main character is an anti-hero. On the one hand, of course, I bow down to Daniel Day-Lewis, who made the initially somewhat sympathetic Plainview convincingly and utterly disgusting to me with his brilliant performance, but on the other hand, I take no pleasure in watching a man who deliberately hurts, abuses and despises his fellow human beings. I know that such people exist (and that there are lots and lots of them), I just don't have to watch them in realistic dramas. So from about an hour ago, I wished Plainview the worst possible ending... And that's probably why I didn't enjoy There Will Be Blood as much. Otherwise, of course, I praise the unusually but sympathetically slow direction, the strange but impressive music, and the beautiful cinematography.
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Paul Thomas Anderson and cinematographer Robert Elswit are film alchemists. Daniel Day-Lewis is a genius actor and There Will Be Blood might become this century’s Citizen Kane. This cynical, original and epic portrait of capitalist America is a masterpiece.
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Technically, it’s flawless, with masterful camerawork, visuals that are properly dirty and grainy, without a single slow motion shot, completely raw and believable (the injuries, the fires, the deaths). The scenes featuring platforms and heavy machinery are among the best. They have captured the power of both natural elements (earth, gas, oil) and all necessary tools for their extraction (drills, platforms, etc.) in an unbelievably realistic way, and in the accidents involving heavy machinery, which almost always result in fatal injuries, you literally feel the weight of each metal object in your seat, as well as the tremendous pressure of a tensioned rope or gas pocket. I have never seen/felt/experienced anything like this before. Daniel Day-Lewis is excellent, but towards the end it was a bit too much. Not that he acted poorly, but the screenwriter pushed things a bit too far. Nevertheless, I rate very highly at least the first, non-intimate and relatively action-packed first half, which succinctly and more factually depicts the rise of an oil magnate, his persona, and his work. The second, more intimate part is not as entertaining, but it is still one of the gems of the past few years, certainly from a technical standpoint.
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