MYST #2: There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood
Review by Nicky Nocerino
     When watching a movie, there can be varying levels of engagement at any given moment. This is a good thing, it pulls in the audience when it needs to and gives breathing room and time to think about what you have seen when it needs to. There Will Be Blood, kept me at maximum engagement from the end of the opening sequence through to the final scene of the movie, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. At first it seems to be working against itself, because even though the narrative of this movie is not, all in all, to complicated, the characters are, and as a member of the audience you are never given a chance to stop and take the time necessary to get into their heads. By the end of the film however I started to realize that this was intentional, and was meant to simulate the feelings of Daniel Plainfield, confused and unsure of his identity. But, perhaps I am getting a head of my self.
    This movie shows the rise of oil tycoon Daniel Plainfield (Daniel Day-Lewis) starting as an lonely prospector, and ending up one of the wealthiest men on earth. The opening sequence has almost no dialogue and consists of several steps in which his small mine shaft grows deeper as more miners are hired and finally they strike oil. eventually one of the miners dies, leaving behind an orphaned child who Daniel adopts and names HW (Dillon Freasier). From here we go several year into the future where Daniels has become quite successful and is giving a pitch were we hear Daniels Description of himself, an oil man and a family man (remember this it is important later). After the meeting he is approached by Paul Sunday(Paul Dano) and is given a tip about a field brimming with oil, waiting for the taking. It is at this point we get into the main chunk of the movie, as Daniel buys up all the surrounding land and begins to pump oil.
      From this point the film takes a very interesting turn, up to this point all we really see about Daniels has to do with his oil company, so I assumed that this would be the focus of the movie. This, however, is not the case as while we do see the business side of things it is neither the focus, or even all that interesting. What is truly interesting about this film is the character of Daniel Plainfield. This movie is not about oil or business it is about Daniel Plainfield, and through him it is also about personal identity and the loss of self.
     Throughout the movie we see Daniel lose what he used to define himself as. When his son is injured and loses his hearing he sends him to a special school so that he can focus on business, and by doing this lose half of his sense of self, that of being a family man. Upon realizing what he has lost he attempts to bring his son back, but it is to late, he has already put money first and bringing his son back does not change this. He Hold onto the other piece of his self definition, being an oil man, for quite a while longer, but in the end he leaves the oil fields to live in a big mansion and is left with no idea of who he is. This leaves him with nothing but anger and fear which he takes out on his old petty rival Eli Sunday (also Paul Dano) in the final scene of the movie.    

      It is here were Day-Lewis's acting really shines, he kills this role and delivers exactly what this movie needed from who ever played this part. If Daniel were not played well this movie simply would not work because so much  of this movie relies on this character, but he did play it well, in fact, he played the hell out of it, and his excellent tone and perfect delivery brings the audience 100% into the movie.
     This takes us back to this movie's confusing feel. Director Paul Thomas Anderson did everything in his power and defies what would normally be movie making 101 to not allow you you to stop and think. He keeps the story moving, gets some of Day-Lewis's best work, makes every line of dialogue engaging, and uses clever cinematography to constantly draw focus onto to something, anything so that you don't have that time to think. He was somehow able to keep this use for two and a half hours, and because of this the film gives the audience of a feeling of confusion about the character of Daniel to Mirror his own. It would have been so easy to mess this up, to take it to far or not far enough, but by doing this he is able to reveal more about this character than anything on the screen.
      All in all, this movie takes some insane risks and they pay off big time. When I first watched it I felt lost and confused, but i could tell there was something there, something great about it, and when I started to look I was able to find at least a piece of that greatness. I give it 6 pluses and 0 minuses.

Plot	=
Characters	+
Acting	+
Music	=
Cinematography	+
Effects	+
Style	+
Personal enjoyment	+

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