There Will Be Blood
Paul Thomas Anderson, USA, 2007o
Los Angeles, California, 1902. After stumbling upon a large oil field, shrewd prospector Daniel Plainview shifts his focus from precious metals to oil. As a result, ruthless Daniel follows up on a promising lead with his adopted son in tow, determined to create an empire. And as silver-tongued Plainview poses as a trustworthy family man to talk the local landowners into selling vast plots of seemingly barren land for a song, a grim tale of pride, obsession, greed, and blood unfolds.
Anderson may be the most naturally gifted filmmaker of his generation; he seems incapable of composing a prosaic shot. There Will be Blood has a physicality so pungent, you feel you're living in the past. The sense that you're witnessing a radically different kind of historical epic is reinforced by Jonny Greenwood's score, which eschews period clichés for modern dissonances that are, like the movie itself, both beautiful and terrifying. There Will Be Blood is ferocious, and it will be championed and attacked with an equal ferocity. When the dust settles, we may look back on it as some kind of obsessed classic.
David AnsenThe film is above all a consummate work of art, one that transcends the historically fraught context of its making, and its pleasures are unapologetically aesthetic. It reveals, excites, disturbs, provokes, but the window it opens is to human consciousness itself.
Manohla DarghisThis is a dark, uncompromising film, thrillingly original and distinctive, with a visionary passion. It is a movie against which all directors, and all moviegoers, will want to measure themselves. Paul Thomas Anderson is doing something new with cinema, and you can hardly ask for more than that.
Peter BradshawGalleryo
