There is Blood, Indeed

I finally was able to see the movie “There Will Be Blood” and the much talked about Oscar-winning performance by Daniel Day Lewis.  I must say I came away more than impressed.   Although I originally felt Tommy Lee Jones’ performance in “In the Valley of Elah” was worthy of the best actor award, I now agree that Lewis deserved to win.  It is a bravura performance, the likes of which we very rarely see on screen.  Paul Thomas Anderson’s film borrows liberally from many sources but I was particularly struck by how much influence John Huston’s 1948 masterpiece “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” had on Thomas.  Much like Humphrey Bogart’s Fred C. Dobbs character in that film, Lewis’ Daniel Plainview is the picture of paranoia, fear, greed and, ultimately, madness.  He inhabits this successful oil baron with hints of kindness and humanity at the start but ultimately takes the character down a path to a pathetic end.  This is similar to the downslope of the Dobbs character in Huston’s film.  Viewing these movies back to back really enhances the similarities between the two. Besides both being westerns, they both deal with the consequences of greed and paranoia and how they isolate human beings.  Not to mention that Lewis actually sounds like John Huston.  If you listen carefully, and were to close your eyes, it is as If Huston is delivering the dialogue.  It really is an amazing piece of voice inflection.  (If you aren’t familiar with Huston’s voice, check him out in 1974’s “Chinatown” and you’ll see what I mean.  Thomas has always made no secret of the fact that Huston is a big influence on him as a director and Lewis’ role puts that on full display here.  So, if you enjoy character driven movies with a commanding presence in the lead role, this is the movie for you.  I’m not a big fan of westerns in general but Lewis is so good here it doesn’t matter what genre the film falls into.  This is a performance for the ages that should be considered masterful regardless of genre.