There Will Be Blood (2007)

Following There Will Be Blood tonight, I did something that I don't think I've ever done before. I walked right back in and watched it again.

Er, sort of. I don't want to sound part-time about this, but it's an almost-3-hour movie and I promised my wife that I'd be home from the theatre in good time. In truth, I could really only watch that first hour again and when the time came to finally get up and leave, it felt a bit like I was trying to pull off a band-aid. I did it quick and it hurt; I really didn't want to go. If not for the outside world, I very badly would have watched the entire movie again.

There Will Be Blood is one of those unstoppable juggernaut films that propels forward with such momentum that it knocked me flat. How ironic that I should see The Best film of 2007 almost 3 weeks into 2008. I'm struggling to avoid raving-lunatic hyperbole but I'm in that heady honeymoon period that follows a truly intoxicating movie experience. Right now, I wouldn't hesitate to put There Will Be Blood at the top of my 2007 list, bumping every movie that you see further down this blog by one number. That buzz may fade in the days to come, but there is no question the movie will ultimately settle in the top 2. To my great and happy surprise, it's even more satisfying than No Country.

Paul Anderson has done something remarkable. I know well and have enjoyed Anderson's other films, but wasn't at all prepared for this. To be honest, given movies like Boogie Nights and Magnolia, no one could really be prepared for TWBB. The movie erupts like an instant classic with confidence and directness that very few working directors could muster. The ones who could accomplish this kind of powerhouse film fit on a very short list: Scorsese, Malick, Kubrick, Huston, Ford. And at times, TWBB gently passes familiar homage to great movies, lifting echoes of everything from Leone Westerns (those sets!!), John Huston (Treasure of the Sierra Madre...sweet goodness!!) and even Citizen Kane (yes, I can see the comparisons now). But in the end, it's also something unique and special which must be why I'm spinning like a teenage boy with his first beer.

An essential part of what gives TWBB such an uncommon pace and flavour is Jonny Greenwood's astonishing score. Words won't do his enormous creativity any justice but Greenwood's urgent, spastic music adds an edgy madness to the movie that spirals faster and faster as the story stretches out. At times, sequences seem to sizzle and boil like a kettle on a stove, threatening to explode before the camera can cut away to the next scene (it very often doesn't get away in time). It's Greenwood's score, layered on some stunning photography, that took my breath away more times than I can count.

It's an old song that Daniel Day Lewis is one of the best working actors of his generation. In TWBB, he sort of takes that mantle and smashes it over his knee. There is stuff going on here in his voice, his face, his body language that puts every other performance I've seen this year into a distant second (including Casey Affleck's complex performance in Jesse James, something I didn't think could be unseated). Yet Day Lewis' achievement is so measured and mannered that it almost feels like a put-on. There's bound to be plenty of people trying to copy Lewis' particular cadence and dialogue, but it's not a cartoon or parody by any stretch. Seeing that first hour again, there's something happening in his eyes that sells everything to come. There's madness and dangerous compulsion there. Barely covered hatred. This might be the best thing that Daniel Day Lewis has ever done.

Of course it's tough to grab the spotlight in that kind of shadow, but the rest of the cast fares extremely well. Paul Dano, in particular, steals the screen whenever it's required of him, showing surprising range and presence when he's facing off against Day Lewis. His sermons (in particular the "out, out" sermon) are so overblown that they almost "overdo" it, but then that's the line that TWBB dangerously walks at various stretches (and part of what makes it so exciting). Dillon Freasier, for his part as Day Lewis' son, has one of those man-child roles where it's tough to imagine how any casting director could find a kid with the right maturity and depth to handle the part. And finally Hans Howes, who I've never seen before this film, showed up to almost walk away with the movie for his very small part.


No spoilers here but I'd be remiss not to make passing and cryptic mention of that ending which in its own way is as challenging as the sharp right-hand turn in No Country. I spent more time thinking about that damn last scene on the drive home than any other, in part because it's so contrary. At first pass it feels like it might just be a bad scene stuck on the end of a great film, but I think that's just the harsh and quick reaction. Like any masterpiece worth revisiting, I think it's meant to frustrate and compel you to come back. Lord knows I was. But with more and more thought, I'm not sure the film could have ended any other way. And more importantly, the milkshake jokes are now paying in spades!

Boy. Even in light of the crazy reviews that have been travelling the Internet, I wasn't quite prepared to have my face blown off like this. As I think back on the film, what's most exciting is just how many great scenes and moments there are: it's really an embarrassment of riches. That the entire film is packaged with such a lean spine and the head of a rhinerocos in full-charge makes it as close to perfect as I can imagine. It's not perfect, but the flaws are part of what makes the package so scrumptious.

I wouldn't have let 3 weeks float by if I'd known what I was missing in the meantime...