PTA Marathon Part II of IV, 2nd Viewing
Let’s agree: The universe created filmmaking just so that Paul Thomas Anderson’s movies could exist.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood: The greatest “who has the bigger dick?” competition in the history of fiction. Here marks two narcissistic men (one representing the corporate branch and the other representing the religious branch) fighting over leadership as if they were rats. There’s a clear parallel to reality in this battle of wealthy assholes, as you may have picked up on, whether it be from their cancerous excess to control or any other personal theory that falls under the matters of power. There Will Be Blood, in hindsight, however, is more pivotally an unforeseen twist on the classic “decaying into madness” story.
The difference here between the archetypal tale of lunacy is that Daniel Day-Lewis’s brilliantly written character, Mr. Plainview is a man who already starts off as a problematic and insufferably egocentric character who, from there on out, begins to steadily acknowledge his burdened persona by the end of the movie through distasteful means. It never occurred to me until now that this explicit arc in Mr. Plainview’s “pursuit of the unattainable happiness” is what makes There Will Be Blood a true gift to the arts. S****y, cynical people can only find closure when they’ve fully accepted themselves as the never-to-be-satisfied madmen in the equation. GET THE “DENIAL” OUT OF YOU!
Some may claim that Paul Thomas Anderson’s fifth feature-length visually looks like it was filmed during the 20th-century era of cinema, but evidently could have only been made in the 21st century, as the general filmmaking of it has revolutionized just about everything we can expect in movies from the alien-like acting to the surreally edited construction of the motion picture.
It’s easy to declare that in There Will Blood Daniel Day-Lewis delivers one of the, let’s say, top 5 performances in all of film; you’ve probably heard plenty of that. But, imagine denying that Paul Dano, like so many wrongly have, didn’t do an astonishing job in this film just because he couldn’t quite match the amount of talent from Day-Lewis. Did you really comprehend that horrifically hysterical scene where he threw the “devil” out of that old lady in a church? To me, the prodigy doesn’t get enough credit for playing one of the most religiously obsessed individuals in film history. Anderson is a man that should be recognized as one of the few who can drain the complete insanity out of actors of any ability. The persistently variegating method that vocal and physical fluctuation works amongst actors in There Will Be Blood is wilder than anything we’ve seen before. Luckily, Anderson would later be known to carry this style of ingenious acting into his next project, The Master.
Some more compliments that I have to also mention involve Jonny Greenwood’s score. Widely known for his work with Radiohead, this man implements strings and percussion into his cinematic music with such a wild, zany, and eerie gusto to them, and it’s nothing short of epic. Robert Elswit’s cinematography is dreamy and grand, showcasing sweeping landscapes and incidents at a relevant rate. Paul Thomas Anderson’s elongation of shots from the model length of them in 21st-century cinema makes for a noticeably more immersive experience. His structure of time passage to me is additionally up there with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey’s organization of time; this is possibly the keenest movie I’ve seen pull off massive time jumps that perfectly escalate the narrative’s thematic meanings. Fellas! There is absolutely, with no ifs or buts, nothing wrong with one of movie-making’s finest, There Will Be Blood.
Best movie title of all-time too? Like, c’mon. How could someone not be intrigued by such a divine name?
Verdict: A+ (x Infinity)
Victors of the 2000s, My All-Time Favorites, Paul Thomas Anderson Ranked
“There Will Be Blood” is now available to stream on Netflix, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Amazon Prime, and Vudu.
Burning the Celluloid 
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