There Will Be Blood (2007)
In this Stealer we get to look at a scene from one of the best movie made in the last decade, There Will Be Blood. The film stars Daniel-Day Lewis (Gangs of New York, In the Name of the Father) and Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine, The Girl Next Door) and was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love). I saw TWBB with about five other strangers in an old fashioned movie house, no noise or interruptions, just a good old fashioned viewing of a fantastic movie. Needless to say I am sure they were as blown away as I was at the performances on screen.
Synopsis: Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is, as he likes to remind those around him, an oil man: he finds it, he drills for it, and he makes money from it. Following a tip from a visitor named Paul Sunday, whose family sits atop a veritable ocean of oil, Plainview travels to the town of New Boston, California, with his young son. Sunday’s preacher brother Eli (both roles are played by Paul Dano) grudgingly accepts Plainview’s ambitions under the condition that he help fund the town church. As Plainview’s plans come to fruition, a series of events begin to fracture the insular world he has constructed for himself, pitting Plainview against Sunday and forcing him to become even more vindictive and ruthless. (Jump for Scene)
Set Up: Plainview is awakened by Bandy, who insinuates he is aware of the murder Plainview has just committed, when he returns Plainview’s revolver to him. Bandy agrees to lease his property for the urgently needed pipeline on one condition: Plainview must join the Church of the Third Revelation. Plainview, who has contempt for religion, agrees and suffers a humiliating initiation sequence at the hands of Eli, who makes him kneel and repeatedly confess that he has sinned and abandoned his child. Eli also repeatedly slaps Daniel’s face, with each blow shouting “get out of here, Satan!”, seemingly in retaliation for the beating Daniel inflicted upon him in the oilfield.
