Greed vs. morality, one winner, place your bets

Rating: 9/10 (20 October 2015)

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The opening scene of Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood focuses on rebelling against the conventions of verbocentrism, which places dialog and conversation in the forefront of what is occurring on screen. As a result, it places most of its emphasis on the delightful musicality of the environment into which we are plunged. The effect is minimalist and unsettling, as we, the audience, are somewhat used to information dumps in the openings of films, where we're given background information on characters and situations. There Will Be Blood focuses on the sounds of this region and, in turn, creates a decided emphasis on brief sounds that interject themselves in the mix of long term silence.
The film revolves around Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), an ambitious prospector at the turn of the 1900's, working to turn a small Californian village into an industrialized boomtown by constructing an enormous and profitable oil rig to assure financial security for him and his young boy. The only soul that somewhat stands in his way for making that a reality is Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), who owns the land in the location of which he is mining in. Eli is a theatrical pastor for a church, where he is renowned in the community for extracting the devil from the souls of people.
Because the characters of Daniel and Eli are often very thinly developed, known only by the descriptions of a select few adjectives, one is more inclined to view them allegorically than as characters, even though we spend over two and a half hours with them. There Will Be Blood largely positions itself to be a big parable on the prolonged result of greed and self-interest in American capitalist business, a certain pessimistic inevitability, as this film views it as. In that case, Daniel is clearly representative of the greed side where he'll do anything to make a quick buck, as many of us, ourselves, can perhaps recall doing. His desperation is almost cloaked because of his unbridled ambition and persistency, even when almost irreparable drawbacks come in his way, such as a catastrophic explosion of one of his oil rigs.
With that, Eli comes with the dual side of the capitalist business, which is religion or morality, specifically personal integrity. Whether or not Eli, himself, is an ethical and honest pastor is moot; he represents the morally just, ethical, and fair part many capitalist businessmen claim to incorporate in their business decisions, though the end result results in largely questionable accounts for how much ethics played apart into such a decision. Throughout the film, the two sides pose an intriguing dichotomy that, in turn, makes up the larger part of American business - the constant struggle to remain profitable, ambitious, and ever-changing whilst choosing to stick to, or simply refuse, the guidance via a moral compass.
Moreover, Anderson, and the immensely talented crew in the sound editing department, clearly present themselves as a fan of layered sound, juggling various audiotracks at once. This, in turn, provides the audience with a cacophony to go along with the visual decadence.
The soundtrack enhances the film greatly, speaking from a musical perspective, largely because it's not concerned with cheap pathos nor affirmation of the occurrences on screen, but because it adds to the film so nonchalantly that you might even forget it's there. Consider the scene where Daniel rides horseback and scouts the endless amounts of pure virgin land that he wants to use for another unionized oil rigging pipeline. During this montage, the score is more playful than it ever has been, playing layered and eclectic sounds that match the events on screen because, much like they are, it's bouncy and moves incredibly quickly. It almost makes you, if for a moment, forget how immersive Robert Elswit's cinematography is throughout the entire film, as it's most captured with beautiful wide-angles that soak in the luscious, if desolate, Californian scenery.
Finally, there are the equally unforgettable aspects of the performances, particularly by Day-Lewis, who proves his ability to emerge from being a total recluse in the often public eye of Hollywood, take a curiously layered role filled with intrigue and human complexities, knock it out of the park on every level, and quickly descend into the realm of obscurity from which he emerged. Anderson gives Day-Lewis the best material to work with in terms of being a direct, yet ambiguous, character, and there's Day-Lewis unbelievably natural talent of method acting. Words almost fail to describe and accurately pinpoint how convincing he is; you simply need to witness it.
But that doesn't mean Paul Dano's work should go unnoticed either. Dano is an actor that, for years, to this day, has been involved in fascinating, low-key films that emphasize character-weirdness and emotionally complexities and vapidness all in one role, and it's criminal to see him never get Academy Award-level recognition for any of his work. To hold your ground alongside arguably the greatest, most involved actor of this generation is no easy thing to do, and the fact Dano, somebody who is far from a household name in American cinema, does so in a manner that channels Day-Lewis's level of conviction in a surprisingly strong manner is astonishing.
At two and half hours, it's easy to miss all that There Will Be Blood has to offer, though I think I can break down the basics fairly easily. The film gets us to analyze the often dichotomous relationship between devout faith and gritty business that places itself precariously on the idea of American capitalist business and, through the use of sound and cinematography, keeps the audience in an discomforting position as it proposes discomforting questions and points.