February 18 2008
There Will be Blood
There Will Be Blood, a film based loosely on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, focuses on the delusions that drive men and on what happens when competing delusions collide. Set in the pressure cooker atmosphere of the oil rush, There Will Be Blood pits obsessive oilman Daniel Plainview against religious fanatic Eli Sunday in a clash of sustaining ideology. Where Daniel strives to create himself as a family man whose business ventures are wholesome, family-value centered endeavors, Eli presents himself as a new prophet to enrapture the hearts and minds of Little Boston. In the tense surrounding milieu of oil, money, and faith, machinations erupt into moments of uncontrollable violence and degradation. The film succeeds largely on the talents of Daniel Day-Lewis, who thoroughly inhabits the character of Daniel Plainview, who is at once a shrewd capitalist and a brutal man filled with rage. In Gangs of New York, Day-Lewis was unable to carry the stilted production; with the strong cast and Paul Thomas Anderson’s directing, There Will Be Blood hits the mark and keeps on striking. And oh yes, there will be blood.
