There will be blood im finished12/19/2023 ![]() ![]() Watching this opening again puts me in mind of a funny anecdote from when the film first came out. Four.Īdmittedly, my mind is starting to wander at this point. There’s also a progression from solid to liquid vis-à-vis the treasure being sought, from rocky ore, to a muddy petrol soup, to velvety oil. Such designates Plainview’s literal rise out of the pits from lone wolf to big boss. First: there’s a steady movement in Plainview’s facial hair toward respectability-from scraggly homeless beard, to a more reigned-in mostly-mustache-and-some-scruff, to a burly Freddie Mercury testicle-tickler sitting on an otherwise clean-shaven face. This time I honed in on two aspects in particular, which act as signposts charting Daniel Plainview’s rise from lowly prospector to self-assured energy magnate. I already talked about PTA’s ability to convey huge amounts of visual information economically. I guess what I’m saying is: time is a motherfucker. Mid-‘30s film majors especially will recall Miramax’s gliding-over-a-CGI-cityscape logo from their college-era DVD collections. These made me wistfully nostalgic for the mid-‘aughts, in much the same way that remembering my favorite now-closed LA-area bars makes me nostalgic Apparently, my mid-‘20s will forever be defined by cheap pints of Sierra Nevada and the sadly defunct post-‘90s trend of Hollywood studios hanging out their own boutique art house shingles. The first things that pop out at me this time are the Paramount Vantage and Miramax cards at the beginning. The 15 minutes are done quicker than I was expecting-always a mark of quality filmmaking. Now is not the time to linger or clutter the frame with needless poeticism. PTA knows that, dispensing with dialogue, he’s dependent on visuals to carry important story information. The shots are more straightforward and economical than I remembered. Jonny Greenwood’s atonal symphony swells feel likewise Kubrickian-probably the single biggest compliment a member of Radiohead could ever hope to receive. Having seen 2001: A Space Odyssey recently it’s surprising how hard PTA bites the ominous landscapes of Kubrick’s “Dawn of Man” sequence here. But! Is it “Let’s watch this 10 times in a row” good? We’re about to find out. It’s a remarkable start to a remarkable movie. I’m talking, of course, about the film’s wordless 15-minute opening sequence. was the deranged, mansion-dwelling robber baron of Blood’s bludgeoning climax, he was a hardscrabble nobody. It seems like just yesterday DDL’s megalomaniac oil bae Daniel Plainview sauntered, bow-legged, into the hearts of film lovers, huffing and puffing and ranting about frozen desserts. ![]() It’s hard to believe that this year marks the 10th anniversary of There Will Be Blood. ![]()
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