I love movies about business tycoons and Paramount Vantage's (NYSE: VIA.B) latest one, There Will Be Blood, is no exception. Daniel Day-Lewis solidifies his title as the world's best actor in a tour de force performance of the merciless oilman, Daniel Plainview and director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) proves to be capable of tackling new genres with surprising deftness.
With surprisingly little violence or blood and a very worthy supporting cast, the film details Plainview's rise to oil royalty and his not so gradual descent into madness over the course of 30 years. Yup, very Citizen Kane-esque, another superior biographical epic I wholeheartedly urge you watch on DVD, now remastered courtesy of Warner Brothers Video (NYSE: TWX).
From the opening scene, you will understand Plainview's utter devotion to this craft, that being finding oil and getting rich off it. The starkness of the surroundings combines with some truly memorable cinematography to paint a rather complex portrait of ambition, greed and the beginnings of the oil drilling industry.
I won't go into any more specifics because they have little bearing on why I've already seen the movie twice. The film's true greatness lies in its ability to celebrate the hard work and dedication needed to build a profitable business, as I have tried to accomplish with my recent book. Remaining true to this ideal is no easy task -- in pursuit of mainstream success, most stories of this nature fall prey to glorifying the end result, that being great wealth, of such hard work. As with his previous films, Anderson refuses to sink to such levels. Day-Lewis portrays a man who is not an American hero by any stretch as he is lacking in some very important qualities, but in no way do his faults diminish his achievements nor what those achievements will invoke in the hearts of entrepreneurs everywhere.
Clocking in at just under three hours, this is one journey that certainly has its ups and downs, but the highs -- including a truly genius final scene -- make it well worth your time. I urge you to go see this movie not only because I think you'll enjoy it -- entrepreneurs and oil and gas industry insiders especially -- but because your movie ticket will make this movie succeed and encourage future projects to reject mainstream superficiality in favor of the business ideals that made this country great.
Timothy Sykes writes the blog timothysykes.com, is a former hedge fund manager, star of the TV show Wall Street Warriors and author of the book, An American Hedge Fund: How I Made $2 Million as a Stock Operator & Created a Hedge Fund
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-04-2008 @ 10:44AM
Tessy said...
Well that was a nice review of the film. I think it's a bit of a stretch to compare this film with the works of S. Kubrick but it does indeed attempt to approach it. I must clearly state however, that it's attempted style-copy fails in each attempt. I'm going to blame its failure on the editing and mismatched musical soundtrack.
The editing of the film usually done these days under strict control of the director, almost seemed to intend on lengthening the runtime just for the sake of being able to add the word "epic" to the list of adjectives used for it's description.
The scoring for the film I contend was an attempt to rip off the production company by producing "loops" of percussion and noise that didn't sync to anything other than the composer's mood or "feeling" established at the beginning 3 or 5 seconds of each scene. That there are many 2 to 4 minute scenes speaks to the amount nauseating repetition within each scene and occasionally these "loop-tracks" would span several scenes without any changes. So the composer spent about one one-hundredth of the time and effort that would normally be required to produce a typically "good" scoring of a film of this length.
As is I can produce all these scores myself on my computer at home in a $5,000 studio in about 2 weeks time. Many of the "loops" additionally contained recognizable sound effects from very inexpensive instrument and effects CDs available on the web for well under $100.
Either problem if remedied would bring the quality of this film indeed much closer to a Kubrick level of standards. If the scenes were edited down to a more reasonable length the soundtrack would require less repair as a result and if even only the soundtrack were scored professionally the scenes might not cause the tedium that had me wanting to walk out of the theater on many occasions.
Additionally, reviewers of this film could add interest and intrigue by mentioning the real world counterpart that the Daniel Plainfield character was indeed based on. Of course that would require them to do a bit of research - gawd forbid.
1-12-2008 @ 1:51PM
Dave said...
I went to see this movie yesterday and I have to say that I totally disagree with your characterization of this movie as a classic. This movie is receiving so much buzz I figured it had to be good but after watching it I just want to scream "The Emperor has no clothes on!!!!".
Firstly, I realize that this movie is a character study but that does not give it the right to totally disregard the requirement for a movie to have a storyline. The movie was disjointed and in parts made absolutely no sense, we are left wondering what the main characters motivations are. Let's not forget the musical score in this movie, it is a major distraction to the point of annoyance, at points I wished I were HW (Plainview's son) so that I wouldn't have to hear the wretched music any longer.
The Aviator did a far better job of showing a man's descent into madness than this movie, granted Daniel Day Lewis manages to show a level of intensity that showcases his acting skills but the movie itself falls flat. It's one of those movies pretentious people will claim is so great and the rest of us mortals simply don't understand. It ranks up there with Mulholland Dr. in the land of crap movies that garnered critical acclaim.