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Film Review
'There Will Be Blood' illustrates viciousness of envy
Day-Lewis ‘chilling’ as 1900s California oil businessman
Daniel-Day Lewis has acted in only 10 films over the past two decades. He was nominated for Best Actor by the Academy Awards for three of those films and won the award once.
With an actor this choosy in his role selection, it is no surprise that his latest starring role in “There Will Be Blood”(Paramount Vantage/Miramax) will almost surely earn him yet another nomination, if not another Oscar.
Lewis’ portrayal of Daniel Plainview, an aspiring oil driller in the early 1900s, is chilling. Corrupted by a desire for money, success and the defeat of all people, Plainview is a man of few words. Yet Lewis delivers the few he uses with perfection.
After adopting the son of a deceased colleague, Plainview is led to the town of Little Boston, California after buying a tip about oil potential in the area. Plainview only has coworkers, no friends and a unique bond to his adopted son H.W., played in youth by Dillon Freasier.
The oilman immediately runs into a problem with Eli Sunday, played without flaw by Paul Dano, the spiritually obsessed and prideful pastor of The Church of the Third Revelation in Little Boston.
Eli and Daniel appear at first to provide a foil for one another’s character, but it becomes clear that these two men are both fighting against the world, just in the name of different causes.
The film follows the life of Plainview, focusing on his relationship with his son, oil and Eli Sunday. Each relationship is captivating in the midst of one of the most successfully complex film characters ever written or acted.
As the film title suggests, there certainly is blood, but that is hardly the most disturbing aspect of the haunting film.
“There Will Be Blood” opens without any speaking for the first five minutes of the film — then a character says one phrase and the silence begins again. The musical score of the film is so rare that the music itself becomes a character.
As this character approaches in the film, the audience senses that trouble is not far behind. However, the scenes featuring music are hardly troubling compared to the insight the audience slowly earns into the destructive character of Daniel Plainview.
Envy gnaws at Plainview’s soul — he not only wants his own success, but others to fail. At one point, he tells another character, “I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.”
This exemplified existence of envy drives Plainview further and further into the dark recesses of himself and away from all others. Guilt, greed and anger thrust Plainview deeper into envy, which St. Augustine calls “the diabolical sin.”
The film vividly illustrates the evil envy sows.
St. Gregory the Great also wrote about the viciousness of envy. From it comes “hatred, detraction, calumny, joy caused by the misfortune of a neighbor, and displeasure caused by his prosperity,” he said.
The incredible part about Lewis’ performance is that he embodies all of the results of envy St. Gregory the Great warns against, and yet the viewer walks away with empathy for a man who has allowed for his own, self-inflicted destruction.
Intricate and captivating, “There Will Be Blood” is a haunting film that deserves every moment of thought it requires from adults — even after leaving the theater.
“There Will Be Blood” includes violence, profanity and off-kilter spiritual elements that are disturbing at times.
Rebecca Bostic is a regular contributor to The Catholic Sun. Comments are welcome. Send e-mails to letters@catholicsun.org.
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