A Tour De Force Awaits For Those Who Watch There Will Be Blood

If there's one common fixture in the last three movies made by Paul Thomas Anderson, it's an affinity for going into decades past of American culture and probe at the darker underbellies of these time periods. Back in 2012, for instance, he released The Master, a movie set in the 1950's, a time period typically associated with lovely picnics and white-picket fences that was here used as a backdrop as the story for a World War II soldier trying to find a post-combat purpose in the world. The film he made just prior to The Master, There Will Be Blood, is also a part of this trend, with this 2007 directorial effort of Anderson's being set in the first few decades of the 20th century.

In this era, oil was the name of the game, and many were in a rush to get to it at any cost. Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a man with considerable expertise in this occupation, having tested his body to the limit when he was drilling for oil by himself in 1898. We see this part of Plainview's life, as well as early efforts with his own oil rig and adopting his son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier) devoid of any dialogue, as Anderson sets the stage for the bombastic visual stylings that are crucial to There Will Be Blood. This is a movie that is looking to put every inch of the frame to good use and these early scenes that eschew verbal communication demonstrate an incredible grasp of visual storytelling on the part of Paul Thomas Anderson.

From there, we move forward to about a decade later as Daniel has become quite the oil man and has taken on H.W. as his business partner. He's alerted to the presence of large swathes of oil in a small religious-centered town where he finds both plenty of oil and conflict with the local preacher, Eli (Paul Dano). It is here that Daniel puts on an image of being a kindly man looking to share the wealth with all of the townspeople here, a guy whose intentions are as pure as the driven snow. But that's far far from accurate. Underneath the exterior he carries around other human beings, Daniel is a man driven by contempt for the world and especially the people around him. Hatred runs through his veins the way blood courses through another man's body.

They say "Money can't buy you happiness", but Daniel's sure as hell gonna try and use the power and money he gains from his various oil fields as a substitute for happiness. That's what drives There Will Be Blood, it's an extended character piece focusing on Daniel Plainview's ever increasing animosity for the world around him. The longer he stays in this town, the more prevalent his desire to destroy those around him becomes. It's easy to see how such a premise could become gratuitous in lesser hands, but Paul Thomas Anderson ingeniously keeps the truly hateful nature of Daniel hidden at the start of the story and then slowly but surely reveals the darkness within as time goes on. It's kind of like the visual approach to the shark in Jaws, how you only see individual parts of that creature for the majority of the running time until they reveal the whole creature in the climax.

That same principle applies here, with brief flashes of Daniel's wretched persona peeking out from underneath the surface at the start of the story before his increase in power and rising conflicts in his life lead his concealed darkness to break free and become his exterior. Daniel Day-Lewis handles that gradual reveal of Daniel's true nature beautifully, making the earlier affable side of the character that Daniel uses to help sell his oil drilling services the kind of personality that it's easy to see people being consumed by. When the time comes for Daniel to be a far more sinister human being in his own story, though, Daniel Day-Lewis is more than up to the task. True terror can be conveyed by his actions once the viewer see's what this oil baron is capable. Nothing is off-limits for this man, he isn't just looking to overcome obstacles in his path, he wants to destroy any opposition that stands between him and his goal of escaping from a world he despises.

Daniel Day-Lewis is similarly commendable in how he handles the dialogue-free portions of the movie, striking a deft balance with his skillful body language in making sure the audience can clearly see what's going on in this character's mind while not going too heightened in his mannerisms in a way that would undercut the somber nature of this piece (though it must be said there are some stylized chocies in the dialogue and performances, namely regarding Paul Dano, that do work perfectly in the motion picture proper). Accompanying this masterful actor in the dialogue-free scenes is a phenomenal score by Jonny Greenwood, which carries this ominous vibe to it that's hard to shake.

In his fifth collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson, cinematographer Robert Elswit very much brings his A-game to the table as a visualist, conjuring up some truly stunning images that let one bask in the grandeur of the oil rig operation , a mammothly sized creation that matches the bombastic contempt for the world Robert carries. And boy howdy does Elswit just come out of the gate swinging in the opening dialogue-free sequences, a portion of the movie entirely concentrated on visuals where his craftsmanship can really be seen. There's a level of profound effort seeping into There Will Be Blood in every area that makes it immediately apparent you're not dealing with a normal film here. No, what we have here is an out-and-out masterpiece about one man and the seething hatred he carries his entire life for every living organism that crosses his path. He even carries such a philosophy all the way into old age where he's been consumed by hatred and is left alone to rot in his own wealth. To Daniel Plainview, there is only oil and the humans that help him get to it (even his own adopted son) are merely a means to an end. It's a dark premise, to be sure, but just try not to be engrossed as Paul Thomas Anderson tells such a brutally ominous tale.