Amateur Afterthoughts: This movie’s title is a little deceiving. There wasn’t that much blood. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one expecting war, gore or horror - even a documentary on The American Red Cross would have worked. Instead, we have a film on the pioneering of America’s oil industry. “Blood” is some sort of metaphor. Maybe for “time” because there certainly was a lot of that - the movie was 2 hours and 38 minutes! But completely worth the extra popcorn you’ll need to fully experience the performance of Best Actor Daniel Day-Lewis. As if that moustache he grew for the role didn’t command enough attention, his voice has such powerful projection that it stays in the silence following his lines. Would it be too bold to title him “the Charlton Heston of our time?” Perhaps that is a call reserved for our parents’ generation. Maybe grandparents’?
Truby Takeaway: Becoming a drug lord, holding hostages for ransom, cooking the books - all strategies to get rich, all guaranteed to corrupt. We of course know this and most of us will opt for another plan to make out like a Rockefeller - working hard and being smart. But how can we be sure that the right means will lead to a right end? “There Will Be Blood” exposes the highly vulnerable ego of humankind. Even the oil man who worked his way up the ladder, literally, from the bottom of the well to the top of the rig, through sheer passion and persistence - he is still at risk for conscience corruption. As is the boomtown’s self-appointed prophet. As is the man who had nothing more than the clothes on his back and a blood relation to a tycoon. As is you. As is I. As is everyone.
0 Responses to “TMR: There Will Be Blood”