There Will Be Blood

As I mentioned yesterday, I saw There Will Be Blood last week. It was the first film in a very long time that I immediately wanted to watch again. I nearly went back and saw it a second time this afternoon, but stopped myself as I had other obligations. I'm sure I'll watch it again before it leaves the cinemas out here.

So, I'm not entirely sure where to begin a discussion. Part of it has to do with the fact that I was already in a heightened emotional state when I saw it, for various reasons, and so I was more receptive to the emotional content of the film. I can't get the thing out of my head, and this is generally a very good sign. The thing is . . . it's not just the story, or the acting, or the cinematography or the dialog or the sound editing or the musical score or the sets or the sweeping panoramas -- don't get me wrong, I think all of these things were handled masterfully -- but in watching this film, even while I was utterly captivated and carried away into the world it creates and the personalities that inhabit it, I always, at every moment, had the distinct feeling that I was witnessing a creation borne ultimately out of a total love for the form. I trusted the filmmakers implicitly to make the right choices for the story and the characters, because their love was so pure.

This is an emotional response -- it is not rational. Rationally, I can look at the film and say, everything was handled very expertly, there is maybe a scene or two toward the end I would have handled slightly differently, but not really . . . maybe a point, just one, where I thought Daniel Day-Lewis hammed it up just a touch too much, so that I was distracted by the fact that it was Daniel Day-Lewis playing this character . . . but on the whole an incredibly well-made film. Emotionally, however, I feel compelled to pronounce it an utter and complete masterpiece, without any flaws, or even to say the flaws are a necessary part of its brilliance, and to remove them would do the whole a grave disservice.

Not being able to get it out of my head, I did some research and found this video:



which is Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis talking about the movie on Charlie Rose. If you enjoyed the film half as much as I did, I'd recommend watching this episode of Charlie Rose, especially if you have a love for cinema in general. It is ultimately a conversation with two people who LOVE their chosen crafts, and to watch them describe their work process and creative process is inspiring. P.T. Anderson is approaching filmmaking in exactly the right way -- he talks about this totally organic process of collaboration and creation, and I know he didn't win the oscar last night, and maybe he didn't deserve it anyway, but listening to him talk about filmmaking convinces me beyond any doubt that he has a long and incredibly artistically successful career ahead of him.

Daniel Day-Lewis, meanwhile, reminds me that acting is actually an art, and quite a stunning one when approached with the love and devotion he holds for it. I so often write actors off, or think of them as simply props for the director to manipulate. Listening to Day-Lewis talk about his craft is such a great wake-up call from that way of thinking. He can be a bit hammy, but on the whole I agree with Charlie Rose in thinking he is one of, if not the best actor working today. He certainly sacrifices more of himself than most for the roles he plays.

Anyway, as is probably fairly obvious, I'm quite taken with this film, even more so than the other films I've been so taken with recently. If you haven't seen it, GO SEE IT. If you didn't feel the same about it, I'd be up for a discussion -- let me know what you thought.

Oh, on a side note, I found this website called http://www.idrinkyourmilkshake.com, which, among other nice things, allows you to listen to the milkshake line over and over and over again, which is really more enjoyable than I could have imagined possible. Yeah.