Review: Intensity of ‘Blood’ makes for epic film

Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O’Connor, Dillon Freasier

Rated: R

Without a doubt, young writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson has made films that are of epic proportions.

This time around, with “There Will Be Blood,” he has finally made a true epic.

The film, very loosely based on Sinclair Lewis’ novel “Oil!,” is relentless, unflinching and entirely unapologetic. It has elements of epic novels (“Moby Dick”), films (“Citizen Kane,” “Giant”) and recent history. Many may find it an allegory for any number of geopolitical events of the past six years.

But even if the viewer has no base of reference or sense of influences, “There Will Be Blood” is a powerful film with neither a frame of wasted film nor a word of wasted dialogue. In truth, the first act of the film features very little dialogue at all.

After Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” started a new era in filmmaking, many young directors were influenced by – or simply stole – the style. That’s not a bad thing, but Anderson is one of the few great young directors of the post-Tarantino era whose style is radically different but nonetheless affecting.

There are shots in his first few films that linger: inside the drug dealer’s house, music far too loud and a scantily clad man lighting firecrackers in “Boogie Nights;” the small piano dropping from the sky in “Punch Drunk Love;” and the final scene in “Magnolia” that is of, literally, biblical proportions.

In “There Will Be Blood,” Anderson has teamed with his lead actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, and their collaboration astonishes, amazes and at times causes uncomfortable laughter throughout its more than two-and-a-half-hour running time. While there’s not a lot of what might be described as “vulgar” dialogue, the word “profane” comes to mind.

Lewis’ character, Daniel Plainview, is one of the most profane characters to hit the movie screen in a long while. Critic Roger Ebert pointed out that Lewis had based his manner of speech on that of director/actor John Huston. It features an unnerving tone and cadence, not to mention the sheer vehemence of Plainview’s thoughts.

In a nutshell, the story is thus:

In 1898, Plainview is a struggling silver miner in California. He suffers a crippling accident but discovers something more precious (and maybe easier to extract) than silver. Oil, Plainview realizes, is the way of the future. We see him and his band of wildcatters struggling for just one good strike.

When one of the wildcatters is killed in an accident, Plainview adopts the man’s son and raises him as his own.

Skip to 1911. Plainview and the boy – who is presented as both young son and partner – are attempting to buy all of the land around a piece of property they already own. The Sunday family owns a large stake, and through some inside treachery, Plainview is able to obtain that land and most of the other parcels around it.

Throughout the story, Eli Sunday, a young and fervent evangelist, doggedly throws stones in Plainview’s path, trying to collect a debt Plainview reneged on.

When the final act begins to unfold, in the late 1920s, Plainview is a multimillionaire. He’s estranged from his “son,” has been nearly conned by a man claiming to be his half-brother and still is dealing with Sunday.

The final scene, on a bowling lane in Plainview’s mansion, is as unnerving as all of the firecrackers, frogs and pianos Anderson’s dropped onto the screen before.

Plainview ends up much in the way he began, even if the setting is vastly different.

“There Will Be Blood” is intense from the first frame to the last – and it may be too much so for some.

But Anderson has finally made his true epic.

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield freelance writer and musician. He can be reached at info@wunderlesound.com.[[In-content Ad]]