There Will Be Blood

Like No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood comes to our shores garlanded with awards, nominations for future awards and much critical praise, all heaped so high that we almost feel a duty to recognise it as a masterpiece. Two bona fide masterpieces it has been compared to are Citizen Kane - for the rise of a soulless oligarch being emblematic of the disease of American capitalism - and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre - for the quest for riches mined from the earth becoming too intoxicating and leading to grief. But whilst the so much larger-than-life Kane all too readily serves as a universal figure, Daniel Plainview comes across as a more specialised pathological case, and whilst Sierra Madre's gold fever is an easy metaphor for the whole gamut of human lust and avarice, There Will Be Blood's study of the power struggle of money and religion seems parochial and peculiarly Bible Belt American.

Of course There Will Be Blood is an actor's film, built around Daniel Day-Lewis's central performance as Plainview, and indeed he is superb, going further and deeper into the mystery of the craft than in any of his memorable previous outings. After his Bill 'The Butcher' in Gangs of New York, he seems to be establishing a trend in playing controlling, sadistic authority figures with big moustaches, and considering that he works so rarely, is so picky about roles and invests so much of his personality into those he does play, one wonders what deep inner issues attract him to such parts.

Such is the tenor of Day-Lewis's performance that even in the film's early scenes, where he speaks slowly, oracularly and paternalistically, presenting himself as the benign Oilman who, if you trust him, will bring prosperity to all, we already sense that he is an absolute bastard. His outward magnanimity is all a sham, and as the layers are gradually peeled away, revealing his true self, we are not greatly surprised, though the experience is no less chilling for that. Yes, this is indisputably terrific acting, but does the film as a whole measure up to those stratospheric standards?


It begins slowly in 1898, with an exposition of Plainview's early days as a lone silver miner, hacking away at the rock face and suffering a broken leg due to a fall. Then it moves forwards in time to Plainview becoming a medium ranking oil baron, with several wells and a dedicated crew, looking for new opportunities to expand. He is visited by Paul Sunday (Paul Dano), who wants to exchange information for a large sum of money, and Plainview takes up the offer, finding out about surface oil deposits on Sunday's ranch in Little Boston, California. Plainview visits with his young adoptive son and junior partner H. W. (Dillon Freasier), and he ends up buying the ranch and several others, then commencing a major drilling operation that alters the lives of the whole community.

Now we reach the film's central thread, which concerns a battle of wills between Plainview and Paul Sunday's brother, Eli, Little Boston's preacher and a religious fanatic, also played by Paul Dano. Here it's worth clearing up any confusion caused by having the same actor playing the two brothers, who are represented as twins and are never seen together in the same shot. Originally Dano played only Paul and Kel O'Neill played Eli, but when it didn't work out, Dano was promoted to the bigger role, keeping his original one. Though perhaps a little young for Eli, Dano is nonetheless excellent, getting that sense of unshakeable self-belief in the religiously obsessed spot-on. His mission is to build the Church of the Third Revelation, where he can expound his fire and brimstone, faith-healing doctrines as a counterpoint to Plainview's commerce.


The one thing guaranteed to rile Plainview is competition from another charismatic figure, and inevitably they lock horns over who rules Little Boston, becoming involved in an increasingly bitter tit for tat exercise. Mostly Plainview has the upper hand, but in one marvellous scene, where Plainview has to appease a local church-going landowner in order to do an important deal, he must offer himself up to Eli as a sinner and Eli pounces on the opportunity with relish. As the two egos clash more and more, Eli's imperfections and the falsity behind his stance as 'a man of God' are disclosed just as much as is Plainview's as the altruistic capitalist. The two characters mirror one another beautifully and the interplay of acting gets better and better.

In his personal life, Plainview is remote and seemingly can't form or maintain close relationships. When a drilling accident leaves H. W. physically and emotionally scarred, Plainview ends up sending him away rather than dealing with the problems. But when a long lost half-brother, Henry (Kevin O'Connor), appears, Plainview momentarily becomes friendly and opens up, telling Henry how he learned to hate others and despise any competition or obstacle to his monomaniacal goals.

A final act set in 1927 sees Plainview living alone in a large, salubrious mansion, complete with its own bowling alley, and the allusion to Kane in Xanadu is irresistible. Now demented, alcoholic and utterly eaten away by his misanthropic worldview, he is more fiery and fearsome than ever. When an adult H. W. (Russell Harvard) calls to tell Plainview of his future plans, he is met by a barrage of hate and attempts at humiliation. And when Eli turns up to find Plainview in a drunken stupor, the final showdown between the pair commences, in what will surely go down as one of the most memorable scenes in recent cinema.


If not an out-and-out masterpiece, then There Will Be Blood certainly comes close. It is not an easy film to watch, not a feelgood film or one that could be described as 'entertaining' in the broad sense. Instead it is a deeply intelligent, searingly uncompromising character study that is excellently achieved on the technical level. Paul Thomas Anderson's direction is consummately workmanlike in the best sense, appropriately not seeking to overshadow the film's other elements. The early twentieth century period feel is well realised in the sets and arid locations, where the modern world is seen as a work-in-progress, being carved out of the landscape. Every scene involving oil drilling is soaked in authenticity, and its hastily makeshift rise to industrial status, with scant health and safety concerns, comes over so well. Robert Elswit's cinematography is all wonderful earth hues and the lighting is quite painterly at times, and Jonny Greenwood's score reaches Bernard Herrmann levels of atmospherics.

All this grandly supports Day-Lewis's performance, which works not so much as an analytical study, relating causes to effects - unlike with Kane, we know very little of Plainview's childhood - but as a behavioural study, showing how a man's character, motivations and actions can lead him to becoming progressively unhinged. It is a great performance, as meaty a piece of acting as we're likely to see for some time. Both a perfectly rounded whole and mesmeric in its detail - the facial acting, the ocular acting, the vocal delivery - it constitutes a masterclass in the craft.