Movie review: There Will Be Blood

“I hate most people. I want to earn enough money so I can get away from everyone.”

That’s millionaire California oilman Daniel Plainview talking. He’s the central character of “There Will  Be Blood,” the challenging new entry in the Oscar race that opens  locally today. It would be ironic to call him the “hero.” Plainview is as antisocial and unpleasant a character as you’ll find anywhere in fiction. For that matter, the film that houses him could also be described that way.

Even so, this is a stunning film experience that firmly places its director-writer, Paul Thomas Anderson, in the first echelon of film creators. Here, he defies commercial concerns to make the movie his way – fulfilling the promise of his superb 1999 ensemble drama “Magnolia.” “Blood,” which isn’t really as violent as its title suggests, is alternately annoying and exhilarating. In either case, it is a work of art that is required viewing for those interested in serious filmmaking.

Essentially it is a one-man show fueled by the quite amazing performance of Daniel Day-Lewis as a crusty oil prospector who becomes obsessed with greed and the need to reject the world that somehow, mostly off-screen and unexplained, has driven him to madness. Day-Lewis, who makes movies only when it suits him, last worked five years ago in “Gangs of New York.” Famous for escaping himself and living his characters, the intensity is matched by the wildness of a performance that is likely to bring him his second Academy Award. (He won previously for “My Left Foot.”)

The film begins in 1898 with excruciating electronic music countered with the silence and danger of the grizzled man digging for silver and gold. He switches to oil and goes to California as, finally, Day-Lewis speaks his first line: “Ladies and  gentlemen, I am an oilman.” The cadence and the vocal manner is a perfect imitation of the famed director and actor John Huston. (This is just one of the actor’s choices that puzzles at the same time it intrigues us).

By 1911, he has become fairly prosperous and is accompanied by H.W., his faithful, loving and precocious 10-year-old son, whom he identifies as his partner. The boy is played with great naturalness by Dillon Freasier,  a sweet-faced but somehow threatening presence. In fact, just about everything about this film is foreboding – as if something horrific is about to happen any moment. The violence, though, is limited to the last 27 minutes.

Pretending he’s on a hunting trip, Plainview dupes the locals out of oil rights to their land. He acquires cheap land and eventually plans to fight the giant Standard Oil by building a pipeline to the sea.

The last bit of land he needs is owned by a church headed by the boyish fanatic Eli Sunday. Sunday develops a not-always-hidden hatred for the man who promised funds to the church  but didn’t deliver. The part is played with a mixture of fanaticism and benign hypocrisy by Paul Dano, who is well remembered as the mute brother in “Little Miss Sunshine.” Dano supplies the only force that can challenge Day-Lewis’ overpowering Plainview. It is puzzling as to why Dano has been largely overlooked in the critics’ awards that have preceded  Tuesday’s announcement of Academy Award nominations.

In spite of his son, there is no woman in Plainview’s life. He is visited, midfilm, by a bum (Kevin J. O’Connor) who claims to be his brother and informs him their father has recently died. Like “Citizen Kane,” the film spurts out sparse clues to the central character’s psyche. Why is he the way he is? Some may well also ask why should we spend almost three hours of our time with a being so unpleasant.

One of the reasons is Jack Fisk’s visually perfect art direction – covering almost 30 years in look and ending in 1927,  the same year the novel “Oil!” by Upton Sinclair was published. The film, reportedly, is only loosely related to the novel. Fisk, the husband of actress Sissy Spacek, may well bring   an Oscar back to their Charlottesville home for his production design. The film was shot near Marfa, Texas, the same site where “Giant” and this year’s other heavy-weight Oscar contender, “No Country for Old Men,” was photographed. 

No less intriguing is the music, a kind of symphony of avant-garde sounds created by Radiohead’s Jonny  Greenwood, permeated by things like Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major and the minimalist composer Arvo Part. The music doesn’t always even fit the dramatic moment, but it ranks with “Atonement’s” typewriter themes as the most original dramatic scores not only of this year, but in several years. 

“There Will Be  Blood” is but the latest serious, impressive film that characterizes a quite surprising movie year likely to be recorded as unique in its list of original, creative works. Just when we had written Hollywood off as a source only for special  effects and commercial actioners aimed at adolescents,  studios, and the independent creators,  have proven they are willing to take great risks by turning out unique and particularly challenging films. From “Sweeney Todd’’ to all the Mideast-conflict films to the other Oscar contender, “No Country for Old Men,” it has been a year that is notable for risky, serious movies.

At almost three hours, “There Will Be  Blood” is not an easy sit, nor a comforting one. But Day-Lewis’ performance is a thing of wonder, and so is the film.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com