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Wikipedia
There Will Be Blood is a 2007 drama film directed, written and co-produced by Paul Thomas Anderson. The film is loosely based on the Upton Sinclair novel, Oil! (1927). It tells the story of a silver-miner-turned-oil-man on a ruthless quest for wealth during Southern California's oil boomof the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano.
The film received significant critical praise and numerous award nominations and victories. It appeared on many critics' "top ten" lists for the year, notably the American Film Institute,[2] theNational Society of Film Critics, the National Board of Review, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Day-Lewis won Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, NYFCC, andIFTA Best Actor awards for his performance. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awardsincluding Best Picture, winning Best Actor for Day-Lewis and Best Cinematography for Robert Elswit.
In late 2009, it was chosen by Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, Peter Bradshaw ofThe Guardian, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and At the Movies as one of the best films of the '00s.
Plot
In 1902, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a mineral prospector, discovers oil and establishes a small drilling company. Following the death of one of his workers in an accident, Plainview adopts the man's orphaned son (his mother nowhere to be found). The boy, whom he names H. W. (Dillon Freasier), becomes his nominal business "partner", establishing the otherwise unattached Daniel as a "family man" and making him more attractive to business associates.
Nine years later, Plainview is approached by Paul Sunday (Paul Dano), who tells him about the oil deposit under his family's property in Little Boston, California. Plainview attempts to buy the farm at a bargain price but Paul's twin brother Eli (also Dano), wise to Plainview's plan, holds out for $10,000, wanting the money to fund the local church, of which he is the pastor. Plainview has Eli's father agree to the bargain price instead, and goes on to snatch up the available land in the Little Boston area, except for one holdout—William Bandy (Hans Howes). Oil production begins. Later, an on-site accident kills a worker, and later still, a large explosion robs H.W. of his hearing.
One day, a visitor (Kevin J. O'Connor) arrives on Plainview's doorstep claiming to be his half-brother, Henry, and is seeking work. Plainview takes the stranger in, and though H.W. discovers flaws in his story he keeps the news to himself; the boy then attempts to kill Henry by setting his bed linen alight. Angered at his son's behavior, Plainview sends the boy away to a school in San Francisco. A representative fromStandard Oil later offers to buy out Plainview's local interests, but Plainview elects to strike a deal with Union Oil instead and construct a pipeline to the Californian coast, though the Bandy ranch remains an impediment. After spending more time with Henry, Plainview also becomes suspicious; Henry finally confesses that he was actually a friend of the real Henry, who has long since died from tuberculosis. Plainview kills the impostor and buries his body.
The next morning, Plainview is awakened by Mr. Bandy, who appears to be aware of the previous night's events. Bandy agrees to Plainview's deal but only on the provision that the latter mend his ways and join the charismatic Church of the Third Revelation, where Eli humiliates him as part of his initiation. Plainview soon reunites with H.W., and Eli eventually leaves town to perform missionary work.
In 1927, a much older H.W. (Russell Harvard) marries his childhood sweetheart, Mary Sunday (Colleen Foy). By this time his father, now analcoholic but extremely wealthy, is living in a mansion with only a servant for company. H.W. asks his father (through an interpreter) to dissolve their partnership so he can establish his own business. Betrayed, Plainview mocks his son's deafness and tells him of his true origins, leaving H.W. with no regrets when he finally leaves.
Some time later, Eli, now a radio host and the head of a larger church, visits Plainview, but it becomes clear that Eli is in dire financial straits and desperate, explaining that Mr. Bandy has died and that he offers to broker a deal on his land. Plainview agrees to the deal if Eli confesses, "I am a false prophet; God is a superstition", subjecting Eli to the same humiliation Eli had put him through years earlier. Eli does so after much berating by Plainview. To Eli's horror, Plainview scathingly reveals that he had already drained the oil from the property through surrounding wells via the process of drainage by saying, "I drink your milkshake!" Plainview suddenly bursts into a psychotic rage, chases Eli down his personal bowling alley, and viciously beats him to death with a bowling pin. When Plainview's butler comes down to check on him, Plainview simply says "I'm finished."
[edit]Production
[edit]Development
After Eric Schlosser finished writing Fast Food Nation reporters kept asking him about Upton Sinclair, and although he had read Sinclair's The Jungle, he did not know about his other works or anything about Sinclair himself. He decided to read most of Sinclair's works, and eventually read the novel Oil!, which he loved. Schlosser, who found the book to be exciting and thought it would make a great film, sought out the Sinclair estate and purchased the film rights. He then thought that he would try to find a director that was as passionate about the book as he was, but Paul Thomas Anderson approached him first.[3]
Anderson had been working on a screenplay about two fighting families. He struggled with the script and soon realized it just was not working.[4] Homesick, he purchased a copy of Upton Sinclair's Oil! in London, drawn to its cover illustration of a California oilfield.[5] As he read, Anderson became even more fascinated with the novel, and after contacting Schlosser, adapted the first 150 pages to a screenplay. He began to get a real sense of where his script was going after making many trips to museums dedicated to early oilmen in Bakersfield.[6] He changed the title from Oil! to There Will Be Blood because, "there's not enough of the book to feel like it's a proper adaptation."[4]
Anderson, who had previously stated that he would like to work with Daniel Day-Lewis,[7] wrote the screenplay with Day-Lewis in mind and approached the actor when the script was nearly complete. Anderson had heard that Daniel Day-Lewis liked his earlier film Punch-Drunk Love, which gave him the confidence to hand Day-Lewis a copy of the incomplete script.[8] According to Day-Lewis, simply being asked to do the film was enough to convince him.[9] In an interview with The New York Observer, the actor elaborated on what drew him to the project. It was "the understanding that [Anderson] had already entered into that world. [He] wasn't observing it — [he'd] entered into it — and indeed [he'd] populated it with characters who [he] felt had lives of their own."[10]
The line in the final scene, "I drink your milkshake!", is paraphrased from a quote by U.S. Senator for New Mexico Albert Fall speaking before a Congressional investigation into the 1920s oil-related Teapot Dome scandal. Anderson was enamoured of the fact that a term like "milkshake" found its way into such official testimony, to explain the complicated technical process of oil drainage to senators.[11]
According to JoAnne Sellar, one of the film's producers, it was a hard film to finance because "the studios didn't think it had the scope of a major picture."[5] It took two years to acquire financing for the film.[6]
For the role of Plainview's son, Anderson looked at people in Los Angeles and New York City, but he realized that they needed someone from Texas who knew how to shoot shotguns and "live in that world."[4] The filmmakers asked around at a school and the principal recommendedDillon Freasier. They did not have him read any scenes and instead talked to him, realizing that he was the perfect person for the role.[4]
To build his character, Day-Lewis started with the voice. Anderson sent him recordings from the late 19th century to 1927 and a copy of the 1948 film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, including documentaries on its director, John Huston, an important influence on Anderson's film.[5] According to Anderson, he was inspired by the fact that Sierra Madre is "about greed and ambition and paranoia and looking at the worst parts of yourself."[6] While writing the script, he would put the film on before he went to bed at night. To research for the role, Day-Lewis read letters from labourers and studied photographs from the time period. He also read up on oil tycoon Edward Doheny, upon whom Sinclair's book is loosely based.[12]
[edit]Filming
Filming started in June 2006 on a ranch in Marfa, Texas,[6] and took three months.[5] Other location shooting took place in Los Angeles. Anderson tried to shoot the script in sequence with most of the sets on the ranch.[6] Two weeks into the 60-day shoot, Anderson replaced the actor playing Eli Sunday with Paul Dano, who had originally only been cast in the much smaller role of Paul Sunday, the brother who tipped off Plainview about the oil on the Sunday ranch. A profile of Day-Lewis in The New York Times Magazine suggested that the original actor (Kel O'Neill) had been intimidated by Day-Lewis's intensity and habit of staying in character on and off the set.[6][12] Both Anderson and Day-Lewis deny this claim,[6][12] and Day-Lewis stated, "I absolutely don't believe that it was because he was intimidated by me. I happen to believe that — and I hope I'm right."[13]
Anderson first saw Dano in The Ballad of Jack and Rose (in which Dano co-starred with Day-Lewis) and thought that he would be perfect to play Paul Sunday, a role he originally envisioned to be a 12 or 13-year-old boy. Dano only had four days to prepare for the much larger role of Eli Sunday,[14] but he researched the time period that the film is set in as well as evangelical preachers.[4] Three weeks of scenes with Sunday and Plainview had to be re-shot with Dano instead of O'Neill.[6] The interior mansion scenes were filmed at the Greystone Mansion inBeverly Hills, the former real-life home of Edward Doheny Jr., a gift from his father Edward Doheny. Scenes filmed at Greystone involved the careful renovation of the basement's two lane bowling alley.[15]
Anderson dedicated the film to Robert Altman, who died while Anderson was editing it.[4]
This film was the second co-production of Paramount Vantage and Miramax Films to be released in as many months, after No Country for Old Men (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture).
There Will Be Blood was shot using Panavision XL 35 mm cameras outfitted primarily with Panavision C series and high-speed anamorphiclenses.[16]
Day-Lewis broke a rib during filming.[17]
[edit]Music
Further information: There Will Be Blood (album)
Anderson had been a fan of Radiohead's music and was impressed with Jonny Greenwood's scoring of the film Bodysong. While writing the script for There Will Be Blood, Anderson heard Greenwood's orchestral piece Popcorn Superhet Receiver, which prompted him to ask Greenwood to work with him. After initially agreeing to score the film, Greenwood had doubts and thought about backing out, but Anderson's reassurance and enthusiasm for the film convinced the musician to stick with the project.[18][19] Anderson gave Greenwood a copy of the film and three weeks later he came back with two hours of music recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London.[4] Concerning his approach to composing the soundtrack, Greenwood said to Entertainment Weekly:
I think it was about not necessarily just making period music, which very traditionally you would do. But because they were traditional orchestral sounds, I suppose that's what we hoped was a little unsettling, even though you know all the sounds you're hearing are coming from very old technology. You can just do things with the classical orchestra that do unsettle you, that are sort of slightly wrong, that have some kind of undercurrent that's slightly sinister.[20]
The film also contains the cello and piano transcription of Fratres by Arvo Pärt, and the third movement from Johannes Brahms's Violin Concerto. The recording is by violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter with the Berlin Philharmonic directed by Herbert von Karajan.
The song "Convergence", which can be heard during the tower explosion sequence, was taken straight from the Bodysong soundtrack.
In December 2008, Greenwood's score was nominated for a Grammy in the category of "Best Score Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media" for the 51st Grammy Awards.[21]
[edit]Release
[edit]Reception
The film received very positive reviews and universal acclaim from critics. As of October 4, 2010 on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 202 reviews, with the consensus being "Widely touted as a masterpiece, this sparse and sprawling epic about the underhanded "heroes" of capitalism boasts incredible performances by leads Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano, and is director Paul Thomas Anderson's best work to date." [22] On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 92%, based on 39 reviews.[23]
Andrew Sarris called the film "an impressive achievement in its confident expertness in rendering the simulated realities of a bygone time and place, largely with an inspired use of regional amateur actors and extras with all the right moves and sounds."[24] In Premiere magazine,Glenn Kenny praised Day-Lewis's performance: "Once his Plainview takes wing, the relentless focus of the performance makes the character unique."[25] Manohla Dargis wrote, in her review for The New York Times, "the film is above all a consummate work of art, one that transcends the historically fraught context of its making, and its pleasures are unapologetically aesthetic."[26] Esquire magazine also praised Day-Lewis's performance: "what's most fun, albeit in a frightening way, is watching this greedmeister become more and more unhinged as he locks horns with Eli Sunday ... both Anderson and Day-Lewis go for broke. But it's a pleasure to be reminded, if only once every four years, that subtlety can be overrated."[27] Richard Schickel in Time magazine praised There Will Be Blood as "one of the most wholly original American movies ever made."[28] Critic Tom Charity, writing about CNN's ten-best films list, calls the film the only "flat-out masterpiece" of 2007.[29]
Schickel also named the film one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007, ranking it at #9, calling Daniel Day Lewis' performance "astonishing", and calling the film "a mesmerizing meditation on the American spirit in all its maddening ambiguities: mean and noble, angry and secretive, hypocritical and more than a little insane in its aspirations."[30]
The Times chief film critic, James Christopher, published a list in April 2008 of the Top 100 films of all time, placing There Will Be Blood at #2, behind Casablanca.[31]
However some critics were more negative. In particular, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle shot out at the film's praises by saying "there should be no need to pretend There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece just because Anderson sincerely tried to make it one."[32] Several months after his initial review of the film, LaSalle reiterated that while he felt it was "clear" that There Will Be Blood was not a masterpiece, he wondered if its "style, an approach, an attitude... might become important in the future."[33] Carla Meyer, of the Sacramento Bee, gave the film three and a half out of four stars; while calling it a "masterpiece", she said that the final confrontation between Daniel and Eli marked when There Will Be Blood "stops being a masterpiece and becomes a really good movie. What was grand becomes petty, then overwrought."[34]
[edit]Top ten lists
The film was on the American Film Institute's 10 Movies of the Year; AFI's jury said:
There Will Be Blood is bravura film-making by one of American film's modern masters. Paul Thomas Anderson's epic poem of savagery, optimism and obsession is a true meditation on America. The film drills down into the dark heart of capitalism, where domination, not gain, is the ultimate goal. In a career defined by transcendent performances, Daniel Day-Lewis creates a character so rich and so towering, that "Daniel Plainview" will haunt the history of film for generations to come.[35]
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[edit]"Best films of the decade" lists
In November 2009, the critics of Time Out New York chose the film as the second-best of the decade, saying:
As an oblique critique of Bush II’s self-made power brokers and winner-take-all capitalism, There Will Be Blood cuts to the bone. As the work of a visionary artist, it’s truly sui generis.[40]
In December 2009, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone chose the film as the #1 best movie of the decade, saying:
Two years after first seeing There Will Be Blood, I am convinced that Paul Thomas Anderson's profound portrait of an American primitive—take that, Citizen Kane—deserves pride of place among the decade's finest. Daniel Day-Lewis gave the best and ballsiest performance of the past 10 years. As Daniel Plainview, a prospector who loots the land of its natural resources in silver and oil to fill his pockets and gargantuan ego, he showed us a man draining his humanity for power. And Anderson, having extended Plainview's rage from Earth to heaven in the form of a corrupt preacher (Paul Dano), managed to "drink the milkshake" of other risk-taking directors. If I had to stake the future of film in the next decade on one filmmaker, I'd go with PTA. Even more than Boogie Nights and Magnolia—his rebel cries from the 1990s—Blood let Anderson put technology at the service of character. The score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood was a sonic explosion that reinvented what film music could be. And the images captured by Robert Elswit, a genius of camera and lighting, made visual poetry out of an oil well consumed by flame. For the final word on Blood, I'll quote Plainview: "It was one goddamn hell of a show."[41]
Chicago Tribune and At the Movies critic Michael Phillips named There Will Be Blood the decade’s best film. Phillips stated:
This most eccentric and haunting of modern epics is driven by oilman Daniel Plainview, who, in the hands of actor Daniel Day-Lewis, becomes a Horatio Alger story gone horribly wrong. Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s camera is as crucial to the films hypnotic pull as the performance at its center. For its evocation of the early 1900’s, its relentless focus on one man’s fascinating obsessions, and for its inspiring example of how to freely adapt a novel--plus, what I think is the performance of the new century--There Will Be Blood stands alone. The more I see it, the sadder, and stranger, and more visually astounding it grows--and the more it seems to say about the best and worst in the American ethos of rugged individualism. Awfully good![42]
Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum named There Will Be Blood the decade's best film as well. In her original review, Schwarzbaum stated:
Anyhow, a fierce story meshing big exterior-oriented themes of American character with an interior-oriented portrait of an impenetrable man (two men, really, including the false prophet Sunday) is only half Anderson's quest, and his exciting achievement. The other half lies in the innovation applied to the telling itself. For a huge picture, There Will Be Blood is exquisitely intimate, almost a collection of sketches. For a long, slow movie, it speeds. For a story set in the fabled bad-old-days past, it's got the terrors of modernity in its DNA. Leaps of romantic chordal grandeur from Brahms' Violin Concerto in D Major announce the launch of a fortune-changing oil well down the road from Eli Sunday's church — and then, much later, announce a kind of end of the world. For bleakness, the movie can't be beat — nor for brilliance.[43]
In December 2009, the website Gawker.com determined that There Will Be Blood is film critics' consensus best film of the decade when aggregating all Best of the Decade lists, stating: "And when the votes were all in, by a nose, There Will Be Blood stood alone at the top of the decade, its straw in the whole damn cinema's milkshake."[44]
The list of critics who lauded There Will Be Blood in their assessments of films from the past decade include:
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[edit]Box office
The first public screening of There Will Be Blood was on September 29, 2007, at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. The film was released on December 26, 2007, in New York and Los Angeles where it grossed US$190,739 on its opening weekend. The film then opened in 885 theaters in selected markets on January 25, 2008, grossing $4.8 million on its opening weekend. The film went on to make $40.2 million in North America and $35.9 million in the rest of the world, with a worldwide total of $76.1 million, well above its $25 million budget.[1] But the prints and advertising cost for the film's United States release was about $40 million.[61]
[edit]Home media
The film was released on DVD on April 8, 2008. It was released with one and two disc editions, both are packaged in a cardboard case. Anderson has refused to record a commentary for the film.[62] A HD DVD release was confirmed, but later canceled due to the death of the format. A Blu-ray edition was released on June 3, 2008. The film has grossed $23,604,823 through DVD sales.[63]
[edit]Accolades
8 nominations[64] including:
- Best Picture (Daniel Lupi, JoAnne Sellar & Paul Thomas Anderson)
- Best Director (Paul Thomas Anderson)
- Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis) — Winner
- Best Adapted Screenplay (Paul Thomas Anderson)
- Best Art Direction (Jack Fisk and Jim Erickson)
- Best Cinematography (Robert Elswit) — Winner
- Best Film Editing (Dylan Tichenor)
- Best Sound Editing (Matthew Wood)
9 nominations[65] including:
- Best Leading Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis) — Winner
- Best Film (Daniel Lupi, JoAnne Sellar & Paul Thomas Anderson)
- Best Director (Paul Thomas Anderson)
- Best Supporting Actor (Paul Dano)
- Best Music (Jonny Greenwood)
- Best Screenplay — Adapted (Paul Thomas Anderson)
- Best Production Design (Jack Fisk and Jim Erickson)
- Best Cinematography (Robert Elswit)
- Best Sound (Matthew Wood)
2 nominations[66] including:
- Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture — Drama (Daniel Day-Lewis) — winner
- Best Motion Picture — Drama (Daniel Lupi, JoAnne Sellar & Paul Thomas Anderson)
[edit]Critics associations
5 wins including:[67]
- Best Picture
- Best Actor
- Best Director
- Best Cinematography
- Best Original Score
- Best Overseas Film
4 wins including:[68]
- Best Picture
- Best Director
- Best Actor
- Best Cinematography
4 wins including:[69]
- Best Picture
- Best Director
- Best Actor
- Best Production Design
2 wins including:[70]
- Best Actor
- Best Composer
[edit]Guild awards
- Directors Guild of America
The Directors Guild of America nominated Paul Thomas Anderson for the DGA Award.[71]
- Screen Actors Guild
Daniel Day-Lewis won Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the 14th Screen Actors Guild Awards held in 2008.[72]
- Writers Guild of America
Anderson was also nominated by the Writers Guild of America for "Best Adapted Screenplay".
- Producers Guild of America
The film also garnered a "Producer of the Year Award" nomination from the Producers Guild of America.
- American Society of Cinematographers
Director of photography Robert Elswit won the American Society of Cinematographers' award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography.
- The American Film Institute's Top 10
The American Film Institute listed it as an AFI Movie of the Year for 2007.[73]
[edit]In popular culture
[edit]"I drink your milkshake"
The quote "I drink your milkshake" has been used in other media repeatedly. In season 24 of Jeopardy, "I Drink Your Milkshake" was the title of a category about milkshakes.[74] Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show and the 80th Academy Awards (for which There Will Be Blood was nominated for eight Oscars), has referenced the phrase "I drink your milkshake" several times on his show in response to news involving oil drilling, including during interviews with Ted Koppel[75] and Nancy Pelosi.[76] In February 2008, the night before the 80th Academy Awards, aSaturday Night Live skit featured a Food Network show starring Daniel Plainview (played by Bill Hader) and H.W. Plainview (played by Amy Poehler) called "I Drink Your Milkshake" in which Daniel and his son travel from state to state looking for the perfect milkshake.[77] "I drink your milkshake" has inspired a There Will Be Blood fansite of the same name.[78]
[edit]Other references
Other media references include the South Park episode "Breast Cancer Show Ever", which parodied the final scene of the film: after Wendybeats up Cartman, Mr. Mackey approaches and says "Wendy!" to which she replies "I'm finished" as Cartman lies facedown in blood.[79] The December 8, 2008 episode of the stop-motion animation comedy show Robot Chicken featured a brief parody of the film in a segment titled "Just the Good Parts", which singled the oil rig explosion that robs H.W. of his hearing and the line "A BASTARD IN A BASKET" near the end of the film as the most notable parts of the film.[80] A Daily Show segment used a film clip of Daniel Plainview speaking to the residents of Little Boston to poke fun at real-life Big Oil executives,[81] while The Colbert Report utilized a clip from the film's oil derrick explosion scene in the segment "Aqua Colbert."[82] In the deleted scenes for the Academy Award-nominated film In the Loop, two characters debate the accuracy of the title of There Will Be Blood, with one proclaiming, "I went to see There Will Be Blood. And there wasn't any fucking blood."[83] Video game Red Dead Redemption also makes a reference to the movie: There is an area with many oil wells named "Plainview", as a homage to the protagonist[citation needed].
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