There Will Be Blood

Theatrical Release Date: 2007 12 26 (USA - Limited)

UPC: 097361374208

Studio: Paramount

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:[Violence]

Summary: Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson steps outside his contemporary world of dysfunctional Angelenos to explore a very different dysfunctional man -- an oil pioneer whose trailblazing spirit is equaled only by his murderous ambition. There Will Be Blood is Anderson's loose adaptation of the novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair, and it focuses its attentions on Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a miner who happens upon black gold during a disastrous excavation that ends in a broken leg. Pulling himself up from the bowels of the earth, both literally and metaphorically, Plainview embarks on a systematic and steadfast approach to mastering the oil business. Using plain-spoken and straightforward language, Plainview launches a campaign to convince small-town property owners they should let him drill their land. Without him, they won't have the equipment to access the profit beneath their feet. He builds an empire this way -- and gradually becomes obsessed with the intrinsic value of power, growing increasingly irascible and paranoid in the process. Plainview meets his match in Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a teenage preacher in the small California town of Little Boston, whose brother tipped Plainview off to the town's plentiful supply of untapped oil. To fully reap the benefits of the land, Plainview must suffer the opposing whims of this "prophet," whose legitimacy is questionable at best. And it's unclear if either man is prepared to pay the humiliating price the other wants to exact. There Will Be Blood features an anachronistic soundtrack by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, and it was shot in the same town where the James Dean epic Giant was filmed. ~ Derek Armstrong, Rovi

Category: Drama

Awards: Best Cinematographer – New York Film Critics Circle Best Actor – New York Film Critics Circle Best Picture – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Director – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Actor – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Screenplay – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Production Design – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Music – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Cinematography – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Picture – New York Film Critics Online Best Director – New York Film Critics Online Best Actor – New York Film Critics Online Best Cinematography – New York Film Critics Online Best Music Score – New York Film Critics Online Best Picture – Broadcast Film Critics Association Best Actor – Broadcast Film Critics Association Best Composer – Broadcast Film Critics Association Best Picture - Drama – null Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – null Best Picture – Chicago Film Critics Association Best Director – Chicago Film Critics Association Best Adapted Screenplay – Chicago Film Critics Association Best Actor – Chicago Film Critics Association Best Original Score – Chicago Film Critics Association Best Cinematography – Chicago Film Critics Association Best Picture – Southeastern Film Critics Association Best Actor – Southeastern Film Critics Association Best Actor – Screen Actors Guild Best Picture – Detroit Film Critics Society Best Director – Detroit Film Critics Society Best Actor – Detroit Film Critics Society Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion – Detroit Film Critics Society Best Actor – St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Best Picture – Utah Film Critics Best Actor – Florida Film Critics Best Director – Utah Film Critics Best Actor – Utah Film Critics Best Picture – African American Film Critics Best Actor – Las Vegas Film Critics Association Best Cinematography – Las Vegas Film Critics Association Best Score – Las Vegas Film Critics Association Best Director – San Diego Film Critics Association Best Actor – San Diego Film Critics Association Best Adapted Screenplay – San Diego Film Critics Association Best Score – San Diego Film Critics Association Best Director – Directors Guild of America Best Adapted Screenplay – Writers Guild of America Best Picture – National Society of Film Critics Best Director – National Society of Film Critics Best Actor – National Society of Film Critics Best Screenplay – National Society of Film Critics Best Cinematography – National Society of Film Critics Best Picture – Austin Film Critics Best Director – Austin Film Critics Best Actor – Austin Film Critics Best Cinematography – Austin Film Critics Best Original Score – Austin Film Critics Best Cinematography – American Society of Cinematographers Best Actor – Phoenix Film Critics Association Best Actor – Alliance of Women Film Journalists Best Picture – Dallas/Fort Worth Film Critics Association Best Actor – Dallas/Fort Worth Film Critics Association Best Picture – Kansas City Film Critics Association Best Director – Kansas City Film Critics Association Best Actor – Kansas City Film Critics Association Best Art Direction in a Period Film – Art Directors Guild Best Picture – Ohio Film Critics Best Director – Ohio Film Critics Best Actor – Ohio Film Critics Best Adapted Screenplay – Ohio Film Critics Best Picture – Producers Guild of America Best Picture – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Picture – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Picture – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Director – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Adapted Screenplay – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Actor – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Music – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Cinematography – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Production Design – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Production Design – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Sound – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Sound – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Sound – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Sound – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Sound – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Actor – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Art Direction – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Art Direction – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Cinematography – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Directing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Editing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Sound Editing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Adapted Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Presented – Berlin International Film Festival Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Supporting Actor – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Supporting Actor – Detroit Film Critics Society Best Picture – American Film Institute

Features: 15 minutes: pies, research, etc. for the making of "There Will Be Blood"
Trailers
"Fishing" sequence
Haircut/Interrupted hymn
Dailies gone wild
The Story of Petroleum (ca. 1923): B/W silent film chronicling the oil business in the 1920s

There Will Be Blood

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 06/03/2008

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1

Runtime: 158 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,French,Spanish

Subtitles: English,French,Spanish

Perry Seibert

Ambition is good. Ambition spurs people on to achieve more and more, to find new ways of doing things, to refine and perfect practices that have been in effect for a long time, or to blaze a new trail that nobody before had the vision to see. Daniel Plainview, the main character in Paul Thomas Anderson's astonishing There Will Be Blood, is a man with ambition. Played with a ferocious intensity by a towering Daniel Day-Lewis, Plainview embodies everything Americans like to think of as our best traits. He is hard-working, driven, and, because of his innovative thinking and salesmanship, a great success. Even with a baby to care for (christened H.W.), his thought processes always return first and foremost to how he can get precious crude oil out of the ground. This is a man who loves a challenge, so when he is visited one day by Paul (Paul Dano), a soft-spoken young man who claims to know about a piece of land with a wealth of oil underneath it, Daniel can't resist investigating the tip. Upon Daniel's arrival, he meets the rest of Paul's family, including Paul's twin brother, Eli (Dano again), who does not easily roll over for Daniel's seemingly generous cash offer for their land. This is the first of many confrontations between the cold-blooded capitalist and the floridly vocal faith healer, and these confrontations comprise the core of the plot. Spanning 30 years, the film observes the price paid by Plainview, and all the people around him, as his single-minded ambition mutates into misanthropy and fear, laying bare his soul as well as the soul of his chief antagonist. In the early sequences, Daniel Day-Lewis plays Plainview as a man who enjoys his talents, particularly the precise rhythm of the speech he gives to those whose land he wishes to purchase. He embodies the scariest aspect of great salesmen, the conviction that they are much smarter and savvier than the suckers who buy their wares. His voice has a gruff quality, but also a soothing purr in these sequences. He lulls his audience, both in the movie and in the theater, into believing that he knows exactly what he's doing and that every word he says can be trusted -- and that he's a reasonable man. As Eli, Paul Dano's voice vacillates between a soft-spoken gentleness in his serene moments and a thin, reedy growl during his Biblical orations. He goes toe-to-toe with Day-Lewis and provides the film with an air of mystery. His is in many ways a more difficult role, and it is a testament to this young actor's skill that he makes such a lasting impression on the audience as he plays his scenes against the unstoppable force of nature embodied by Day-Lewis. Paul Thomas Anderson uses all of the weapons at his disposal as a filmmaker to keep the audience engrossed and involved in Daniel Plainview's life. The cinematography by Robert Elswit captures the harsh landscape, and he shoots Day-Lewis in a way that emphasizes his angular face and frame -- his body is just as jagged as the rocks that he digs through. One of the film's many showpiece scenes involves an oil fire. Plainview looks on rapturously as the tremendous blaze burns one of his derricks, and Anderson, who is as talented a writer as he is a director, knows enough to let the scene play out in just the images. There is nothing Plainview could possibly say that could match the multitude of emotions he's experiencing, but the cinematography and the performance -- as well as Jonny Greenwood's unsettling music for the sequence -- get the point across with a formidable mastery. Dylan Tichenor's editing cuts to the point of every scene, but never once does the screenplay come right out and say with a fine point what it all means. Naturally, it is very hard not to read the film as an essay on the current political landscape -- an oilman and a fundamentalist religious leader using each other in order to get their way -- but if that's all this film were about then There Will Be Blood would date as quickly as Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. Like all of his other films, There Will Be Blood is at its core about a person's relationship with family, and how that affects everything that happens to them. Anderson deftly shows how living with ambition and greed eats away at Plainview over the course of decades. His relationship with H.W. grows more complicated, and an extended sequence with a man who claims to be his long-lost brother acts as a barometer for the character's emotional decline. These scenes echo a dinner at Eli's home, the only sequence in the film's 160-minute running time that Plainview isn't in, where the audience sees the true nature of the relationship between Eli and his father. Even for the film's shockingly brutal violence, the "blood" of the title refers primarily to family, to the inevitable fact that everyone has relationships that must be maintained, and must be cared for because if those relationships aren't nurtured, the results are always painful and occasionally tragic. All of Paul Thomas Anderson's films have been about family. Hard Eight is about a man creating a surrogate family out of the guilt he felt for messing up his original one; Boogie Nights is about a lost little boy attempting to find someone to nurture him; Magnolia is nothing else if not a cornucopia of stories about the need to make peace with parents; and Punch-Drunk Love is about the efforts of a man stunted by his domineering family to escape their influence. With grand themes about America and capitalism and religion and greed, There Will Be Blood might seem like an epic -- and it is -- but more importantly for Paul Thomas Anderson, this is his most personal film. Anderson's ambition as a filmmaker is the equal of his protagonist's ambition as an oilman; they both mine uncharted territories and reap great rewards from their efforts. This is the first film he has directed since becoming a father, and this might be the fact that gives viewers the key to understanding why this movie is such a landmark achievement. It might be a grand epic, but at its heart There Will Be Blood is the work of a formidably talented man reminding himself that his talent -- however outsized -- is not what should define him. Ambition is good, but our relationship with other people is more important. Anyone who forgets that, no matter how talented, is finished. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Scott Rudin  Executive Producer 
Joanne Sellar  Producer 
Daniel Lupi  Producer 
Paul Thomas Anderson  Director 
Paul Thomas Anderson  Producer 
Paul Thomas Anderson  Screenwriter 
Eric Schlosser  Executive Producer 
Jonny Greenwood  Composer (Music Score) 
David Williams  Executive Producer 
Daniel Day-Lewis  Actor 
Paul Dano  Actor 
Kevin J. O'Connor  Actor 
Ciarán Hinds  Actor 
Dillon Freasier  Actor 
Sydney McCallister  Actor 
David Willis  Actor 
David Warshofsky  Actor 
Colton Woodward  Actor 
Colleen Foy  Actor 
Russell Harvard  Actor 

Country: USA