Review of There Will Be Blood (2007) by Harry W — 12 Feb 2013

There Will Be Blood is a perplexing story. It succeeds fully thanks to Paul Thomas Anderson's skilful direction and an unforgettable performance from Daniel Day-Lewis.

There Will Be Blood begins in a 12 minute sequence without any dialogue and makes use of silence and natural sounds as it's front for storytelling, and it sets up a background to the story in an artistic fashion.

Many of the skilful filmmaking techniques commonly used throughout There Will Be Blood are viewable in it's intro sequence, namely it's astounding cinematography, it's sound effects and sound editing, as well as grease film editing. Keeping in mind that this is before the audience witnesses the strong screenplay or Daniel Day-Lewis' treatment of it. So it's fairly obvious early on that There Will Be Blood is going to be good to witness, and that it is going to have strong filmmaking capabilities in it's way of handling a Oil mining premise.

Once Daniel Day-Lewis hits the screen, it's as if the audiences is witnessing a man that has never been seen before. Day-Lewis' devotion to his characterisation of Daniel Plainview is so incredible and intense that its a disbelief that he isn't a real person. Daniel Day-Lewis turns a character that the audience is unsure if what to think about into a relentless villain that the audience fears.

Day-Lewis' performance manages to cause a potential comparison to be drawn between There Will Be Blood and the 1975 Stanley Kubrick classic Barry Lyndon, in the sense that both main characters are unwilling to ever be beaten, but eventually succumb to their own weaknesses and mortality. The character development in There Will Be Blood, however relies more on Day-Lewis' own natural skill as an actor rather than the entire film and it's various qualities.

Daniel-Day Lewis delivers an unforgettable performance that is utterly intense in it's execution and in the way it is witnessed.

I remember little other performances from There Will Be Blood because of the skilled Daniel Day-Lewis, but I noticed Paul Dano as giving a great performance, displaying a skill at branching out into different roles after his work in Little Miss Sunshine.

As well as everything mentioned about the start of the review, Paul Thomas Anderson's strong screenplay and great approach to a story about Oil is of clear presence.

So making use of exceptional filmmaking styles, a great musical score and a pair between Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis , There Will Be Blood is a big success.