Thursday, June 09, 2022
There Will Be Blood
- Commentary: This movie is the ultimate meditation on personal, capitalistic greed. It leaves nothing out. It expertly delineates, on both a personal and a corporate level, how increasingly debilitating capitalism becomes in the lives of people who practice it ... and the devastating effect the condition has on those who are in contact with the person who is in singleminded pursuit of satisfying greed. Daniel Day-Lewis' performance is breathtaking. He is flanked by the best of actors, even in the small roles. One of the aspects of this movie that I find most arresting is that the main character, who Daniel Day-Lewis plays, is never good. Many movies about capitalism, whether they are about the effects on one person or on society, attempt to meander through some sort of explanation of how capitalism has turned a good person, or a good group, bad. No such explanation, here. To me, this is a revelation: if you are born into capitalism and accept it, as an infant, you are rotten from the start. You can't ever know good, be good, because the system that nurtured your humanity is bad. Whew! This is an important statement. Potentially depressing, but important.
RogerEbert.com featured many articles about this movie. Here is the search page I pulled on the movie title over there. Have at it.
Update 6/9/2022: This post was originally published on 8/14/16 but disappeared from public view. I am now reinstating it.
Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Daniel Day-Lewis Daniel Plainview Paul Dano Paul & Eli Sunday Kevin J. O'Connor Henry Ciarán Hinds Fletcher Hamilton Dillon Freasier H. W. Plainview Russell Harvard Adult H. W. Plainview Sydney McCallister Young Mary Sunday Colleen Foy Adult Mary Sunday David Willis Abel Sunday Hans Howes Bandy Paul F. Tompkins Prescott Jim Downey Al Rose
Here is Wikipedia's write-up on this film.
Release Date: 2007
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Labels: drama2, historical1, period1, revisionist-western
