There Will Be Blood

Once every great while Hollywood makes some art. There Will Be Blood is such a film; epic, and masterfully crafted, it is destined to be a classic in the genre of Citizen Kane. Paul Thomas Andersen, who wrote the screenplay (loosely adapted from Upton Sinclair's Oil!) and directed this masterpiece, was robbed. This was Best Picture and Best Director hands down in my book. Nothing could have improved it.

Blood is at it's core a character study of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis who earned his Best Actor statuette in every moment of this film) set against the oil boom in California at the turn of the century. Our first glimpse of Plainview is of a man pitting himself solo against a hole in the ground with a pick axe and some dynamite and, in the first ten minutes of the film, the man is defined - indomitable is just the beginning. Over a thirty year span we watch him acquire - a son, and oilfields and wealth and a nemesis in a preacher (Paul Dano) as slick and dangerous as himself. Plainview despises humanity, and we watch him lose his tenuous grip on his own. I left the theater feeling bruised.

Day-Lewis is said to be a method actor, so feel some pity for those poor souls who had to share the set with his firebrand Plainview. Dano was a perfect counter score. The story is spartan and let's you puzzle about the missing details later. Cinematography was worthy of the epic scope - the black, burning oil derrick silhouetted against the raging fire sort of stuff. And the score...! Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead wrote a score that ratcheted up the tension till you could feel it in your belly. Keep your No Country For Old Men.... this was my favorite this year. See the website here.