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| Louder than words |
Actions speak louder than words. That is precisely the
working mantra behind the 2008 Academy award winner for Best Motion Picture, "There Will be Blood". The film is set in late 19th Century Little
Boston, California. Within the first fourteen minutes it allows us to grasp what will continue to be the premise of every conflict that ensues in the film
from then on. Throughout these first fourteen minutes no word is uttered by the
cast and in fact the first human sound we hear is that of a crying child,
bringing to life the main narrative.
Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis), the main character in "There Will Be Blood" is on the hunt for a massive trail of oil that lurks beneath Little Boston’s
crust. He uses his shrewd tongue and fatherly image to win the support and
trust of Little Boston’s humble folk. But when one young Paul Sunday comes to
him with news of an oil deposit that lay under his father’s farm, his eyes turn
towards this new opportunity with a thinly deviced plan that could possibly make
him a fortune. The only problem is that the very source of his new oil has
a twin brother who becomes the cause of all of Daniel’s future problems.
Though based on a 1927 novel, the film’s lively, fast-paced directorial method and its refined script place it as an extremely exceptional
film in this day and age. The script in particular is written to vividly colour
each character in his true light. Plainview’s punchy speeches to the people of
Little Boston, picking on every single word they would love to hear, testifies
to the manipulative nature he has developed as a businessman. He is also
thoroughly protective about his past and strives to make it very clear when he
does not wish to reveal it as in the case when Henry questions him about his
wife.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s sharp and economical directing
technique keeps the mind occupied with the well-knitted sequences and the
fascinating saga they unravel. Coupled with a powerful score, each scene builds
the tension between the power hungry Plainview and the religiously devout Eli
Sunday (Paul Dano) to a foreseeable climax. In a series of unprecedented
events, the two enemies find themselves crossing paths time and time again as
they seek to achieve their own contrasting ends.
Daniel Day Lewis’s impersonation of Daniel Plainview is one that
will go down in film history as a template for proper acting in a lead role. It
also justifies the chain of awards he won at all prominent film award ceremonies
in 2008. Having seen him in Lincoln personifying one of the greatest and
noblest presidents that America has known, it took a while for me to identify
him as the same man behind Daniel Plainview’s ‘evil carnival’ character. This
has more to do with the extreme polarity between these two roles and the fact
that he has perfectly switched his act to showcase something quite the opposite
of what he played in Lincoln. Paul Dano has over the years perfected an acute finesse for playing
the part of a half demented, half soft spoken country boy. This film gives his
talent the perfect opportunity to bloom in regard to the role accorded to
him. His ability to traverse the personality boundaries of Eli Sunday - a fiery
preacher, a mild mannered son and a scheming hypocrite - speaks volumes about
his innate acting ability.
The final clash between both lead actors proves to be a
climatic tussle between two forces in the world that govern mankind’s greatest
values; money and religion. Both Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday have used one
of these two forces to gain power and control their fellow countrymen. At last
when their paths of influence fail to agree, a titanic rivalry becomes
inevitable and one man has to fall.
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