There Will Be Oscars
Daniel Day-Lewis gets our vote for his role in Paul Thomas Anderson's black gold feature.
By: Henry Cabot Beck 02/01/2008
The single element that both connected and distinguished David Milch's HBO series Deadwood from the Westerns that preceded it was that the corrupt entrepreneurs, cast as classic villains, were placed at center stage in the saga.
Back when every Western had a villain, usually in a suit one size too small (think Brian Donlevy in Destry Rides Again), he would be trying to steal all the land or water rights or mining claims, or he would enlist a crew of bad guys to rustle cattle and rob stages. In Deadwood, we saw businessmen like Al Swearingen working hard to make a place of power in the community, only to see him become the victim of the far more powerful interests from outside the community; in his case, the Hearst machine.
There Will Be Blood is a similar story, about a singularly focused man in the early years of the 20th century, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), who we meet at the beginning of the picture in a mine shaft—isolated, focused, digging in the dark for silver. All we need to know about Plainview we learn as we see him fracture his leg and still manage to crawl out to the surface.
Plainview does more than survive. He turns his attention away from silver to oil. By the time the plot is in full roll, we know that Plainview is in California, within driving distance of similar dragons who sniff the soil, like John D. Rockefeller and his company Standard Oil.
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