There Will Be Blood

I am in awe! This movie is absolutely everything I heard about it- and a whole lot more. It is the story of oil and greed and intimidation and God and faith and greed and control and power and greed.

Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview in what may be one of the greatest acting achievements in many years and ranks there with every one of the great ones. You see so much through his interpretation of the lead character whether it is in the voice and cadence of his speech or the extreme close-up that sees small yet profound changes happening. If Day-Lewis doesn't win, he should demand a recount- along with a survey asking if the voters really saw his performance.

Then there's Paul Dano (late of Little Miss Sunshine) as Eli Sunday, a young and ambitious preacher. (And also his twin brother seen only at the beginning.) The quiet passion of Sunday is no less powerful than Plainview's. But Sunday is ultimately outdone, overpowered, by the secular greed of Plainview. Perhaps there is a warning in that to the religious who try to ride the coattails of the secular. No less greedy, no less angry, no less controlled by deep passions, Sunday is no less a victim than Plainview.

Put this together with the plot element of Plainview's son, wrap it into awell edited and directed package and you have one great movie. Plainview is much more real than Javier Bardem's evil icon in No Country For Old Men, which adds to the horror of it. The scenery is the same as that movie- since they were both filmed in Marfa, Texas. But this is not the Coen brothers. There is no tinge of lightness or their humor. Nor is there is Tommy Lee Jones to give us a moral foundation. It spirals out of control into the depths of madness and death- spiritual and physical.

Don't miss the soundtrack, either. It is not your standard, run-of-the-mill background. Jonny Greenwood, famous as the guitarist for the British rock band Radiohead, is the composer and made a post-modern, contemporary sound fit what looks like a "period piece." It was as much a part of the power of the film as Day-Lewis. Unfortunately since Greenwood used music by Brahms and Arvo Part, it was ineligible to be nominated for soundtrack. There is an AMPAS rule that does not allow 'scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music.' Oh, to have more scores "diluted" so well.

Note: With this I have now seen four of the five Best Picture nominees. Only Atonement remains unseen. Sometime this week it will have to be viewed, although I am sure of which movie I would pick as Best Picture. But I will wait until later in the week.