CINEMA: There Will Be Blood

Once upon a time a young actor by the name of James Dean gave a towering, bravura performance in a film about the discovery of oil. The movie was called Giant and was a sprawling epic of divided family loyalties, disputes over land and oil rights and bitter business rivalries. Now along comes this movie, which although set several decades before Giant, covers the same territory and has the same epic feel.

Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis) is a man who has committed his life to the discovery and extraction of black gold from the ground. He is a man coldly and quietly possessed and obsessed by oil and not even the needs of his adopted son (Dillon Freasier) can deflect him from becoming the number one oilman in America. If that means he has to trample all over other people’s rights or sensibilities, so be it, he’s not going to flinch. But his strength of will and wits are sorely tempted when he crosses paths with the young and ambitious preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). Eli decides to challenge Daniel and so begins a battle for supremacy between the two men that will grow in intensity and ferocity over the years.

There’s a real sense of the openness and space of turn-of-the-century America to the film, where men were stoically brave, said little, yet stood firm. Many of the more memorable scenes in the film are shots of the oilmen risking their lives at the drill heads, their faces splattered with black smears. One long, dialogue-free sequence at the beginning of the film, where Daniel is injured in a mine, sets the overall, dour tone for what is to follow.

With Daniel Day Lewis almost a shoo-in for the Best Actor Oscar (although here, as in Gangs Of New York, his performance teeters on the edge of becoming a scenery-chewing parody), it would be easy to overlook Paul Dano, who first impressed in Little Miss Sunshine. Here, he stands up to the larger than life character of Daniel and more than holds his own. His utterly compelling preacher is both manipulative and sinister.

This is grown up film-making with excellent production values, fine performances and wonderful photography, it’s just a shame the final bowling-alley-storming scene becomes so overblown the veins on Daniel Day-Lewis’ forehead look like they are going to explode – presumably spraying thick, black oil over everyone present.     Dee Pilgrim