Outstanding, creepy exposition of the darkest ambitions to power

Rating: 9/10 (26 May 2010)

There are a number of very good and perceptive reviews of this film. Just a few comments from me then. I have seen Daniel Day-Lewis in only two films, much to my chagrin (now). The Last of the Mohicans was the first and now TWBB. In this film Lewis displays his refined method actors chops and for me it was a frightening embodiment of a really creepy man whose lust for power and wealth ran amok, twisting and subverting his sensibilities much like I imagine a drug addicts mind succumbs to the chemical demons flowing in his veins.
The era of the great oil men at the outset of the oil industry is well covered in novels and movies and this is a very fitting depiction of one of the most Dickensian avenues of American history. When we see pursuit of ambition it is riven with hellish violence that lingers in the memory long after the curtain rises. While I have not read the Upton Sinclair novel "Oil", I think that the film stands on its own. Its despair goes a fair stretch deeper than Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" or "East of Eden". Funny that I think about it, but the pain in this film much reminds me of the same found in a book I am half way through now, "The March", written about General W. T. Sherman's blood soaked march of death and destruction through the deep south in the middle of the US Civil War.
Several themes stand out. The young child that Plainview raises as his own is shown a degree of respect and tenderness until that fateful day when he is nearly killed by a well head explosion. Now suddenly a distraction to the endless hunt for more oil, he is cast aside in a heartless manner; something that will come back to haunt Plainview throughout the story. Second is the powerful tension of contrasts set up between Plainview and Eli Sunday. The mutual loathing and hate these men had for each other grows like a sickly moss until it overcomes them both.
The surface layer themes are all moral and should remind us of the era, still with us, of Bernie Maddoff and "Gordon Gecko". Should we cringe when we watch this type of drama? I should say so. Does it not well describe our current ultra consumerist mentality? While we are not all directly involved in the dark deeds, do we not indirectly contribute to questionable acts of environmental degradation and support of highly suspect third world labour pools, all for our own creature comforts? Should we not think on this when we do all the cringing? I don't know where Day-Lewis found that voice of Plainview but it seemingly embodies a man possessed of urges that would make us hide the children and have us slam the door shut. His hypnotic self assured expression of will makes his descent into madness even more unsettling. He richly deserved the Oscar. An excellent and powerful film. (I found the soundtrack very nerve wracking. It felt like someone was running their fingernails down the chalk board, many times over....all to spine tingling effect. The visual special effects were wonderful to watch...)