There Will Be Blood (2007)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

There Will Be Blood (2007) – P. T. Anderson

I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!! Ten years after its release, I decided to revisit Paul Thomas Anderson’s multi-award winning vision of oilman Daniel Plainview to see whether my original reaction (it confounded me) still held true.  The answer is yes.  The reason is because the film feels unpredictable and I can’t shake the impression that the characters function as symbols (let’s call them “capitalism” and “religion”) as well as more straightforward actors in the narrative.  That narrative tells the story of Plainview, a DIY guy (played by Daniel Day Lewis) who basically digs oil wells by himself by hand in 1898 and then graduates to running his own oil company.  To do so, he leases the drilling rights from homesteaders in the U.S. West, particularly California. As such, the film also functions as an economic and social history lesson for Americans. Can these threads (“capitalism” and “religion” again) be followed forward beyond the film’s trajectory into the future?  The foregrounded story (rather than the larger symbolic one) sees Plainview making a deal with the Sunday family of New Boston, CA, and most of the neighbouring families to drill for crude on their property.  The wrinkle for Plainview is that the oldest son, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), is also a preacher who has started his own evangelical Christian Church of the Third Revelation.  Eli demands money and attention for his Church which the obstinate Daniel Plainview refuses to provide (although agreeing publicly).  Another plot strand focuses on the relationship between Daniel and his son H. W. (a child through most of the film).  We’re asked to consider that the self-made men who became filthy rich by exploiting America’s natural resources (admittedly by willing it through their own gutsy hard work) were likely to have been selfish competitive unfeeling jerks.  Anderson’s script tilts so far in this direction that one could be tempted to see Plainview as a Satanic figure positioned against Eli’s faithful servant of God.  Except that Anderson doesn’t let religion off the hook that easily, portraying Eli as a likely charlatan, growing fat off the gullibility of his flock.  So, there’s a lot to unpack in the film, which can feel dense and claustrophobic except, that is, for the expansive and spectacular cinematography (by Robert Elswit) that captures the quality of the harsh Western sunlight in a way that I don’t recall seeing elsewhere.  One sequence involving a derrick which catches on fire (set to Jonny Greenwood’s propulsive and often dissonant score) is particularly amazing, especially at night.  But if there’s one thing to watch this movie for it is the phenomenal over-the-top acting by Daniel Day Lewis (channelling John Huston in Chinatown) which grows to a crescendo in the final abrupt coda and climax in the Plainview mansion in 1927.  I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!!