There Will Be Blood

The word in the film’s title that comes closest to describing a theme of the movie is surprisingly not blood, rather will. Directed by P.T. Anderson (Magnolia) and based on Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil!, the film revolves around the mania of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) as it mutates from respectable stoicism to abusive madness while he pursues his dogged quest for oil. There is most definitely an impulse to see the film as an allegory of the gestation of the two greatest spheres of Texan influence – oil and religion – but the film is more plainly about the single-minded will for absolute power. Although Plainview is reminiscent of other megalomanic characters, like Captain Ahab or those recurrent of Herzog’s Kinski epics (Fitzcarraldo, Cobra Verde), the protagonist’s insanity is hidden by an uncanny patience and practicality reflected by the film’s slow (but nontheless enrapturing) pacing. The most astounding feature of the film, however, was Jonny Greenwood’s unsettling and unpredictable score, creating a tension that contrasts and yet simultaneously evinces the well of anger under Plainview’s stony surface. If you liked No Country For Old Men, then I’d strongly recommend There Will Be Blood.

Ugly - Hate is an ugly thing.

Directed by P.T. Anderson