There Will Be Blood

So I saw the latest PTA flick last night.  Yes, it definitely meets most expectations.  It is the best movie he's made, Daniel-Day Lewis is beyond belief and clearly has given the best performance I've seen this year [though to be honest I haven't seen many of the other movies that are up for awards.]  So, you should definitely see it when it comes your way.  Here's some more particularized observations.

Acting aside [and as mentioned, it is uniformly brilliant], the most impressive aspects of the film are the color palette and the use of the soundtrack.  While Boogie Nights was awash with primary colors and the vibrancy of its era, Magnolia with its sleek steel grays and shiny blacks, and  TWBB is pervaded by a washed out gray, tan, navy, and of course, dull black landscape.  This, of course, matches perfectly the desolate feel of the oil fields and the inner landscape of DDL's character.    Along with that stylistic choice goes the soundtrack.  Instead of a period soundtrack, the music is tense strings, confused piano tracks, and general dissonance in most instances.  A period soundtrack could have easily been used, but I think this choice reflects the decision to completely de-nostalgize the film.  Another film depicting a similar era used a washed out image with a catchy, period soundtrack to present a positive, charming view of the era.  TWBB strongly contrasts from this approach.  Every choice backs up the desolate, yes, bloodless, nature of the time and DDL's character.

The movie is not perfect, however.  There do seem to be some wandering themes that I do not entirely comprehend at this point.  If the basic theme is that greed is evil, then I get it, but there are more than a few loose ends that I didn't completely tie up for myself by the end of the movie.  There are a lot of spiritual themes, oil/blood/salvation all thematically mixed up together, father/son/brother issues abound, and even a bit of policy criticism, which you might expect from a film loosely based on an Upton Sinclair novel.  It is evident that DDL's character is filled with greed, rage, and hate but I didn't take much more away from the film than that he is despicable.  

In the final analysis, however, the film's grand scope make it a must to see on the big screen.  If you wait to see it on DVD, you won't be getting the full experience and there really isn't a more compelling movie out there to see right now anyway.  PTA kind of set this character up as a new Charles Foster Kane, and it doesn't fall too terribly short.