Variety adds There Will Be Blood to its "Contenders" list for likely and deserving Oscar nominees. Citing Paul Thomas Anderson's past cinematic successes, Boogie Nights and Magnolia, Variety says that while the director has moved on from the "big tapestry" of those films, "he matches it here—and then some—with the big portrait."
Variety adds There Will Be Blood to its "Contenders" list for likely and deserving Oscar nominees. Citing Paul Thomas Anderson's past cinematic successes, Boogie Nights and Magnolia, Variety's Robert Hofler says that while the director has moved on from the "big tapestry" of those films (the sweeping look at a particular cultural milieu), "he matches it here—and then some—with the big portrait."
Hofler also points to Daniel Day-Lewis, who, in his portrayal of a ruthless turn-of-the-century oil tycoon, "displays so much furious gravitas that he recalls the onscreen work of John Huston, who as an actor was never called upon to carry a movie, at least not to the degree that Day-Lewis does here. He fills almost every scene."
An essential player in this formidable tale of moralizers and Mammon in the California oil boom is the score by Jonny Greenwood, available on Nonesuch December 18. "If Anderson has gone linear with his storytelling," writes Hofler, "everything else about There Will Be Blood has the look and sound of an epic ... Jonny Greenwood's musical compositions almost become another character in the film. Think Bernard Herrmann and Taxi Driver, another portrait of a twisted soul, with sound effects and music to match."
To read the full article in Variety, visit variety.com.
