There Will Be Blood

It’s fascinating how one can take almost any historical situation in the growth of civilization, introduce ambitious but flawed and, by their circumstances, limited characters, and add the right atmosphere and here, particularly, music, and come up with a mesmerizing film. This “western” about a California oil tycoon at the turn of the century does just that. “There Will Be Blood” is the latest film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, based rather loosely on Upton Sinclair’s novel “Oil!” Back in the 50s, my father got a copy of “Spindletop” (by James Clark and Michel Halbouty) for Christmas, and I remember the garish dust jacket with a gushing oil geyser. Now this movie, if you want to call it a modern “psychological western” following a tradition from the 50s, adds to that tradition the contemplative style of Robert Altman (to whom the film is dedicated). It somewhat resembles the earlier Jesse James movie from Warner Brothers. However, it was produced as a joint venture of Paramount and Miramax, and is distributed in the US by Paramount Vantage (or Classics).

The movie starts out with southwestern scenery (much of the film was shot north of the Big Bend area in Texas, and the scenery gives the feel of an Italian western) and very dissonant string music. The original music in the film is by British composer Jonny Greenwood. There is a great deal of dodecaphonic string music in the background, and much of it sounded familiar. I could not tell if some of it was by other familiar composers (Ligeti – whose violin concerto was used so effectively in Al Pacino’s / Michael Mann’s Heat; perhaps Schoenberg; the credits rolled too fast for me to pick up the names, although several of them were obscure. It is common in classical music for a few pieces by obscure composers to become familiar in the repertoire and be quoted in the movies). There is one major classical staple in the sound track: the finale of the Brahms Violin Concerto in D Major. During the closing credits, the entire finale is played (rare in motion picture practice, which often introduces awkward breaks into closing credit postludes), with a slight ellipsis at the end to fit it in to the time slot. I have imagined the idea of a movie playing the finale of the Brahms Second Symphony (also D Major) during closing credits, as in a script of mine Brahms fits into the story by aggravating one of the characters not attuned to classical music. (During a critical period of my life covered by my own screenwriting exercises, I had seen the French film “Aimez-vous Brahms?”) When I left the film and got into the car, WETA was playing another favorite, Schumann’s C Major Symphony (#2), a manic work that I think also belongs in the movies. I had just seen a DVD of “The Magnificent Seven” the day before (which has a similar outdoor look to this film), but I can’t imagine Elmer Bernstein’s famous lilting score for that fitting here.

The movie, then, is somewhat like an opera with (effectively) "sprechstimme", and it more or less has an opera-like plot.

I don’t want to post too many spoilers on the first day that the film showed outside NY and LA. One major theme of the story concerns the relationship between Daniel and his son (Dillon Freasier), who is accidentally deafened by the explosion when the oil gusher is discovered. The mother had died at childbirth, but there are more revelations later. But much of the story deals with the tension between oil man Daniel Plainview (British actor Daniel Day-Lewis, who looks like a man here, a far cry from “Last of the Mohicans”), and a young “preacher” to be described in a moment. Day-Lewis could win best actor for this performance. But if so, then New England born Paul Dano, only 23 in real life, turns on the performance virtuosity (probably a nod for Best Supporting Actor), however buttoned up physically by the costumes, as the evangelical preacher Eli Sunday. He seems like Paul himself in his articulation (so far I have always seen him play the serious geeky character. It's even more complicated, as the character is sometimes called Paul in the movie, when he is a young "businessman," as if he were a twin or an alter ego, or a previous incarnation of Dano himself, who makes one believe that a young man can be all things at once). You get the feeling that preaching was what he got good at as a little boy, and he can turn on the act, saving people and exorcising them. However, whenever necessary, he turns businessman, seeing through Daniel’s schemes and demanding enough money to protect his family, and then himself. At one point, after an earlier "fight" where Daniel forces Eli to wallow in oil mud, Eli tells his family, "God doesn't save stupid people!", showing the underbelly of his own "faith". The movie spans about 30 years, until after the 1929 crash, and curious in the final “lover’s quarrel” confrontation in the home bowling alley, Eli Sunday still looks like an eighteen year old. He hasn’t aged biologically a day, as if he were some kind of angel. He is forced to say that he is a false prophet (when maybe he is true) and then, well, I won’t spoil it. The title tells all. There will be blood.