Movie Review: There Will Be Blood Dominated by Daniel Day Lewis' Powerful Performance

There Will Be Blood opens with over 15 minutes of virtual silence outside of an eerie soundtrack played to a desolate wilderness of the American West. Reminiscent of Stanley Kubric's Dawn of Man opening in the movie 2001, There Will Be Blood's images speak volumes. For 15 minutes we are slowly pulled underground, where there is little light and much danger as we watch a lone miner exercise an assault upon the earth in search of at first silver then crude oil. The lone miner is Daniel Plainview played by Daniel Day Lewis who gives a performance of sheer beauty and terror as a single-minded baron playing an archetype of a cold and calculating businessman. As Plainview continues his quest for oil we witness the violence of a spike being hurled at the ground and where it hits and like a gushing wound the earth bleeds black. At this point we realize there will indeed be much blood. I was left reeling, questioning whether I was watching a possible Sunset of Man, realizing I was in fact watching an absolute masterpiece of cinema, and I was only 15 minutes in.

There Will Be Blood is the story of Daniel Plainview. We are carried away by this anti-hero's journey into his own heart of darkness where we are allowed to explore the depths of greed. The story takes places in California in the early 20^th century with echoes of the Wild West as well as the oncoming of big industry. Plainview's story could be a prototype of the Nietzsche's idea of an ubermensch (over-man or superman) gone wrong. A man who rises above good and evil by shedding compassion, family, god, and anything else that may hinder the driving force of greed.

Director and screenwriter Paul Thomas Anderson does a brilliant job throughout the film of letting Daniel Day Lewis own each scene. Plainview is a man of action and the camera sits there letting us drink in Lewis's performance.

There Will Be Blood is a movie of such ferocious power that when the credits roll I was left with a sense of loss that the journey was over. Yet, the memory of watching it haunts me as a tale of Darwinism not only at its worst but at its truest.