Oil!

Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood” is a superlative depiction of greed-driven insanity and insane greed. It stands alongside “No Country for Old Men” as the definitive American films of the year – all that follow will be measured against these two titles. “There Will Be Blood” presents Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a man who will stop at nothing to become an oil magnate. Through the film’s running time of about 2½ hours we see how Plainview goes from utterly determined (successfully staking a claim in spite of a broken leg) to pathologically mad. Essentially, the film is about Plainview against the world, the same world he’s trying to control. He has a son, H.W., who complicates his life unexpectedly, and then there’s Eli (Paul Dano), a charismatic local lay preacher. Some of the film’s most intense scenes are between these two figures, and at the end, a reunion of sorts occurs wherein each man is finally stripped from whatever pretence and persona there had been, and Anderson delivers some of the most memorable, astonishing dialogue in a long while.

“There Will Be Blood” is long and tough but rewarding, presenting scenes of the American frontier that make it look positively apocalyptic. There is not a single scene I would cut; each is meticulously staged, superbly acted and well written. The oil-fire scene alone is worth watching the film for. The musical score by Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood is one of the most successfully utilised scores I’ve heard in some time, perfectly underscoring the tensions on screen to near breaking point. The screenplay delves deep into the psyche of a man for whom there is no middle ground, using the camera and other characters to comment and highlight the workings of Plainview’s mind. What blessings that we should have two masterpieces (a term that I do not use lightly) so close to one another.