(2007)
"All of life's questions and answers are in [the film]," Paul Thomas Anderson, director of There Will Be Blood, said in 2007. "It's about greed and ambition and paranoia and looking at the worst parts of yourself."
Taken out of context, as I've done so here, that sounds like a self-flattering synopsis for his own movie, doesn't it? Those words -- greed, paranoia, ambition -- trigger distinct images in my head, namely ones of Daniel Day-Lewis browbeating a gangling zealot in a bowling alley. But Anderson isn't talking about his movie; he's talking about his favorite movie, The Treasure of Sierra Madre.
I mention this because, as with Quentin Tarantino, Anderson is a filmmaker guided by his cinematic obsessions. He hails from the "video store" or "VCR" school of American indie cinema. That is, he learned his craft through osmosis, by exposing himself to tape after tape, DVD after DVD, of the classics. Films like The Treasure of Sierra Madre comprise the foundation of his filmmaking powers.
There Will Be Blood stands among his best work because it satisfies on so many levels. The movie succeeds as a sociopolitical screed, a period drama, a family drama, an acting showcase, a rise-and-fall epic, a compelling yarn, and, of course, as a cinephile's wet dream. Anderson channels his influences (Malick, Kubrick, Madre) into a seamless, coherent whole. There Will Be Blood never feels like a highlight reel of Anderson's favorite movies. Watching a film like Kill Bill Vol. 1, on the other hand, feels akin to sitting in a friend's living room, swirling my drink in silence, as he manically shuffles through records, letting 30 seconds play, only to chirp "oh, OH!" before pulling a new vinyl out of its sleeve. It sure seems fun for him.
There Will Be Blood doubles as an immersive character study and an origin story of American values, both familial and political. It grounds Big Themes with concrete specifics; who can forget Plainview's bromides, Eli Sunday's impish requests, H.W.'s silent sadness, or the film's anamorphic visual beauty? As such, the movie approaches that holy grail of storytelling: allegorical potency coupled with the immediate pleasures of a gripping narrative. There Will Be Blood is a standalone work of modern art indebted to, but never reliant on, the thousands of cinematic images swirling in Anderson's head.
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