There Will Be Blood

[peter johnson]

I suppose I'm a bit of a sucker for the right kind of hype, but even I was put off a bit by the reviewers comparing this to Citizen Kane.  It seems everyone is so hungry for the next Great Picture that they'll forgive lots of flaws in this --
It's only playing in one theatre in Colorado currently, & no telling when it will go to general release, so mostly so far only the critics & a very limited movie-going public is managing to catch it.
While the film does indeed have great moments & glimmers of promise (Nobody speaks for the first 20min. or so & there is an amazing scene wherein teams of men put out a firey gusher with cartfulls of dynamite, reminicent of D.W Griffith's "Intolerance" seige of the castle scene), 2 factors kept me from embracing this one wholeheartedly.  One, Daniel Day Lewis has given this performance before, as Bill The Butcher in Scorcese's "Gangs of New York".  He may in fact get the Best Actor nod for "There Will Be Blood", but it will be for the same character he created for the earlier, and in many respects superior, film.
The second factor that keeps me distant from this one is the choppy nature of the editing.  No doubt there will be a director's cut of this film to DVD at some point, and then I would like to reevaluate the film again.  As it stands, the theatrical version makes some annoying and choppy leaps in space and time and character that leave you going "huh?" and having to fill in too many blanks.
In one of these leaps we find a crippled and twisted Daniel Day Lewis suddenly propelled into a mansion & berating his adopted deaf son in a manner all out of proportion to the perceived injury that the son is alleged to have perpetrated on him.  Yes, the son will now be his rival in the oil business, but such is Day-Lewis' venom and viciousness that it detracts from the scene and the scene to follow, the climax of the film.  How did Day-Lewis get this way?  You can imply and deduce, and there are clues in the body of the film, but unlike Citizen Kane or Gangs of New York, the reasons for the climax as shown are vauge and imprecise.
That said, there is no doubt in my mind that Day-Lewis is the best actor working in film today.  I blame the director & the editor.  This probably should have been a 4-hour film, and it does bear more than passing resemblance to Erich von Stroheim's "Greed", from a very similar book to Sinclair's "Oil!", "McTeague", which was famously cut from 7 hours to just 2.
So, while I did enjoy it for the most part, too many holes for me to join the chorus that this is somehow a "Great American Movie".
peter johnson/denny sneery critic

[Mr_Vindictive]

Thanks for the review PJ.  I've been looking forward to this one for a while, and at least I know to turn down the expectations a bit before going in.  I believe it is showing at one theater in the area.  I'll try to see it sometime soon.

[Torgo]

I saw the trailer for this movie when I went to see No Country For Old Men.  It looked really good but I'm wondering if PTA had final cut over this as he usually has and his films aren't normally choppy.

[threnody]

Oil, greed, religion...

I think the reason I'm so disinterested in this film is because I come from Alberta. Here I am trying to escape these things. I'll probably end up renting it in the future anyway.

[peter johnson]

Predictably enough, this now has 8 Academy Award nominations, as of today --
I predict that Daniel Day Lewis willget the Best Actor Award this year, but it will be awarded to him because he was passed over for "Gangs of New York".  As I've said, this is essentially the same character as Bill The Butcher, but Hollywood is notorious for making up for actors & actresses that they passed on one year & then throwing them a bone the following year or 2 later for a performance not-as-good but making up for the prior loss.
As to whether or not it sweeps is not as clear -- No Country for Old Men is an industry favorite at the moment.
I also think Julie Christie is a lock-in for "Away From Her" . . .
peter johnson/denny day lewis