"A work of blistering intensity and filmmaking that can make your jaw drop" Newsweek

There Will Be Blood

Cert: 15, 158 min

Monday 6th October 8:30p.m. Reel Cinema, Andover 

"A consummate work of art" New York Times

"Timeless, sweeping epic" BBC

Starting in the 1890s and sweeping through three decades, There Will Be Blood is set in California’s silver- and oil-prospecting country. Disregarding the feelings of others in his will to succeed, oilman Daniel Plainview persuades a local farmer into signing away rights to the oil beneath his land. But he has to reckon with the farmer’s son, a driven evangelist who cares as little for money as he does for Plainview. Even as oil improves all of their fortunes, the conflict grows, threatening humanity, community, love and hope.

In adapting the story from Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!, writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has created a tale that is as much about evil and family and faith as it is about oil. If any recent film can be called an epic, this study of ambition, corruption and madness can.

The part of Plainview was written for Daniel Day-Lewis, and he doesn’t disappoint. His Plainview is a brooding, unpredictable pioneer whose megalomania is tinged by sadness, yet whose menace does not prevent him being touched by his baby son. Plainview is a character every bit as large and dark as Bill the Butcher, created by Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York. And in There will be Blood Anderson has as least as much of a claim to having created the Great American Movie as Scorsese had.

This film is spare, rhythmic and beautiful. The score, by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, is one of the best of recent times. The entire cast and crew have given us something splendid.

There will be Blood is a masterpiece.

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 THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2008)

“There Will Be Blood is one of the best general-release films of 2008.” There, I’ve joined the critics, nearly all of whom praised the film.

“There Will Be Blood is too slow and too long.” There, I’ve joined the bloggers, who seem to have been split 50/50, even after you take into account that the moaners are more likely to write than the satisfied.

Both factions are right. The atmosphere of this film is extraordinary. So is the detail. But if you’re not too interested in the process of prospecting for oil, you’ll feel that the film could have been cut by at least twenty minutes.

The story starts in the late 1890s and sweeps through to the 1930s. Daniel Plainview is a lonely prospector, digging at the wilderness. After years of very little, he strikes oil. Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
By 1911 he is a fully-fledged tycoon, always on the look out for expansion. Using his young son to bolster his respectability, he talks his way onto the oil-rich land of poor farmers. He sells dreams of prosperity. But whether goodies or baddies, all lead characters need a nemesis. Plainview’s is a young evangelist, Eli Sunday, whose parish sits over the huge oil reserves. Both Plainview and Sunday know what this could mean for their separate and opposed ambitions. This conflict drives the film.

There Will Be Blood is loosely based on at least a third of Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil! There are wholesale changes, as there always are; the struggle in the book is between the workforce and the establishment, whereas the film centres on the gulf between avarice and humanity. But where the film stays loyal to the book is in showing the birth of an industry that still dominates the world stage today – and in making a strong statement about greed. Plainview himself admits that he has competition in his blood.

The film is dominated by Daniel Day-Lewis. (After all, it was more or less written for him.) He gives us a brooding, unpredictable pioneer whose megalomania is tinged by sadness, yet whose menace does not prevent him being touched by his baby son.

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson gives Day-Lewis his head – and we’re not disappointed. This isn’t to say that the rest of the cast are eclipsed. At first, Paul Dano seems too young for the preacher. This turns out to be his strength; it makes his faith seem all the more powerful.

Director of photography Robert Elswit and production designer Jack Fisk have helped Anderson create a spare, rhythmic and beautiful film. Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood has come up with one of the most fitting scores of recent times. The entire cast and crew have given us something splendid.

I came out of the cinema glad that I’d seen the film, but unsure as to whether I’d liked it all that much. Twenty-four hours on, I’ve replayed many of the scenes in my head – and come to the conclusion that it’s unique. And brilliant.

Hans van Well

[Reviewer’s opinions are not necessarily those of the Film Club]