Best of the Decade Nominee:
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997) was one of the best films of the 90s and in 2007, Anderson released one of the best films of this decade. There Will Be Blood is a film epic in the best tradition of the phrase, but it is also an epic American film with its portrayal of a self-made man and his pursuit of capitalism at its grimiest. Anderson’s film offers sweeping vistas, grandiose themes, and a larger-than-life-character in Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis). The film’s depiction of Plainview’s greed run amok can be closely compared to that Orson Welles masterpiece Citizen Kane (1941). Much like the fate of Charles Foster Kane, Daniel Plainview is “finished” by the film’s conclusion.

Watching the film a second time, I was struck by how meticulous and patient it is, especially at the beginning with its dialogue-free opening segment of Plainview prospecting. Anderson makes it clear from the beginning that this is not a plot-driven film but one of tone. In this way, the viewer’s experience is forced to parallel that of its oil man, one of patience with the hope of something important and rich to be discovered.

The scenes shot at Little Boston are some of the most brilliant in the film with oil derricks looming large over the land like Plainview himself. The fire burning through the night is the film’s signature image and probably will be the one most remembered.

However, I’m still put-off by Paul Dano’s portrayal of Eli Sunday. His conflict with Plainview is a central one of the film, but Dano seems too weak an actor to match the gravitas of Day-Lewis and Dano’s high, whiny voice seems severely out of place. I wonder if Anderson thought Plainview matching wits against the more diminutive Sunday would be an interesting contrast. However the viewer is never divided in this conflict on who to side with, because Plainview is the much more charming character. Granted, he’s a swindler and murderer, but he’s much more charismatic than the sniveling Sunday.

Although the “bowling pin scene” is shocking, Plainview’s meeting with his adopted son is almost as devastating. After Plainview discloses the truth to H.W., he transitions from Hannibal Lecter-like sympathetic villain to the sweaty, gangly monster who murders Eli Sunday. Anderson does offer Plainview some humanity with the flashback to Plainview playing with a younger H.W. in the past. He may disown his “son,” but some part of Plainview loved H.W. as more than a prop.

In many ways, There Will Be Blood is the film Stanley Kubrick never made. This is never clearer than in the final scene in the bowling alley with its deep focus photography of the largely empty room. Is Plainview’s use of the bowling pin to bash-in Sunday’s brains an homage to the ape’s use of a bone to kill in 2001: A Space Odyssey? Anderson’s use of classic musical and Jonny Greenwood unsettling score also recall Kubrick as well. And just like Kubrick, Anderson is able to depict a natural environment and make it alien and distancing at the same time.

Bottom Line: There Will Be Blood is a modern day classic that will stand the test of time along with Citizen Kane and Lawrence of Arabia.
Rewatchability: High
Best Line: “I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.”