There will be blood - trailer (teaser)

[grady]

Finally we get a glimpse of the new film from Paul Thomas Anderson.

This piece was released by PTA and his co. to the cigarettes and red vines website(the unofficial-psuedo-official website devoted to pta).

link (http://www.cigarettesandredvines.com/main.php?id=N01)

Between this film and the new coen bros. film, No Country for Old Men, fall cannot arrive soon enough.

[b.miller]

yeah they both look really really great.

[grady]

And they both were shot in the same parts of Texas too! And you live in Texas too b.miller!

[b.miller]

therefore I'm really really great!

[grady]

Damn you Brian and your Texas connection!

[Stephen]

Between this film and the new coen bros. film, No Country for Old Men, fall cannot arrive soon enough.
Just watched both these trailers but the new Coens film looks set to be something very special indeed...

[Scott Warner]

Grady just pointed out that there was a thread dedicated to this already. I've been err, busy so I missed this! looks amazing

[GreenPea]

Yeah this looks good!

[grady]

Another older link worth checking out Scott and everybody is this photoblog-ish site that Paul Thomas Anderson had put up as he was shooting the film last summer.

old thread (http://www.darktrain.org/dirty/forums/showthread.php?t=3662&highlight=paul+thomas)

link (http://www.littlebostonnews.com/index2.php)

link (http://www.littlebostonnews.com/pastissues/pastissue_052906.html)

There are some nice candid shots of the pre-production planning leading up to the shoot with wardrobe, camera test info, pages from Moby Dick, and then some shots from the shoot.

Info on this film seems to have been pretty tight which is the usually operating procedure when PTA is shooting a film.

[GforGroove]

this is going to be my bullet proof with PTA.. since westerns aren't my cup pf thing .... at all........! but i trust him.. probably i'll be bitching about the cowboy thing when i get to see it :p

[grady]

So this past weekend 20 minutes of the Paul Thomas Anderson film was screened at the Telluride Film Festival. What follows is a compilation of reports about what was screened. As people on this board are fans of Mr. Anderson's work, I thought it was right to spread the word.

Variety's Mike Jones: "The 20 minutes ... established the mysterious film finally as a frontier epic. ... In a series of well-cut scenes, the Telluride audiences watched rabid oil prospector Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis), manipulative and shrewd, work to buy the oil-rich land off of ignorant homesteaders. ... Day-Lewis’ performance both repulses and attracts. He’s a wonderfully successful snake charmer. His words are like Norman Rockwell painting –- promising the American Dream to the scared locals he buys out."

From EW.com:
As for There Will Be Blood, the first rumors had the film premiering in its entirety as part of a festival tribute to Daniel Day-Lewis; the second set of rumors were less optimistic, with P.T. Anderson supposedly bringing a 40-minute piece of the movie. The reality turned out to be even less: just 20 minutes. But as singular reels go, this one was a doozy — I kept checking my watch, hoping the excerpt wasn't about to wrap up.

Anderson claimed that this was the only reel of the film that was finished enough to show, but it sets up the plot's multiple conflicts so neatly, I had to wonder if he didn't pick this segment because it just makes for a great, self-contained trailer for the film.

As Day-Lewis told the crowd, it's "really, really, really, really loosely based" on the Sinclair novel (I forget how many times he said "loosely," but I believe it was about five). It's also hardly recognizable as an Anderson film, from the looks of things, not being an ensemble piece, for starters.

Yet to to the extent that his pictures tend to focus on weird extended families in general and father/child relationships in particular, it's easy to see Blood as part of an Anderson throughline.

In the excerpt, Day-Lewis, playing a self-styled "oil man," is first seen telling his young son that he plans to buy some crude-rich land under false pretenses, making his kid complicit in his duplicity. Soon, he's buying a plot from a naïve farmer whose intensely religious and suspicious son looks like the film's principle antagonist.

But there are other potential enemies set up, since Day-Lewis tells the workers he brings in to work the desert land that the area will be irrigated and literally bear fruit, and they'll set up a thriving town there. Unless you've seen more verdant oil fields than I have, you know that particular plot thread probably won't end happily either. But we'll all have to wait till December to see the promised red stuff of the title.

From Spoutblog (http://blog.spout.com/2007/09/01/telluride-2007-there-will-be-blood/): (WITH SPOILERS OF THE REEL):
I’ll have more on the Daniel Day-Lewis tribute in my diary entry later tonight, but first thing’s first: almost two hours into the tribute, Day-Lewis said, “Oh yeah — let’s invite Paul up here now,” and Paul Thomas Anderson took the stage to introduce 17 minutes of There Will Be Blood.

Anderson called it “the third reel,” but my first impression was that it played more like a product reel, with what felt like an entire second act condensed into less than 20 minutes. But thinking back on PTA’s body of work, this kind of temporal pacing wouldn’t be unprecedented–the guy loves his montages, and what we saw was so impeccably, purposefully edited to a gorgeous score (violin heavy, by turns subtle and scary–it’s so dynamic that it might be an existing piece of music, but if so I’ve never heard it before) that it could conceivably play within the film. And, could very well be amazing.

The footage opened on Day-Lewis’ character, an independent oil prospector named Daniel Plainview, in the middle of a trip to a ranch with his young son. They’ve told the Sunday family, the owners of the ranch, that they’re quail hunting, but really, Plainview is looking for oil. They climb up a steep rise, overlooking a vast expanse. Plainview tells his son his plan to buy the land and build a pipeline, so he can move the oil without shipping costs. The kid asks his dad how much he plans to pay. Plainview says, “We’ll give them quail prices.”

Cut to dinner at the Sunday Family shack. The shack is dark and dingy, and you can see a housefly buzzing around the dinner table. Plainview offers $3700 for the land. Old man Sunday stutters that God has sent Plainview here, but his son Eli (played by Paul Dano), is suspicous. “There’s oil here,” Eli says. “I know there is.” Eli says he wants $10,000. “For what,” Plainview asks. “For my church,” Eli responds. Shot-reverse shot, extreme close-ups. They have a deal.

Plainvie goes to a real estate broker, asks him to see a map of the land around the Sunday Ranch. He pulls out a notebook and takes notes of who owns what: he wants to buy it all.

This is where the score comes in for the first time: propulsive, screechy violins. It’s the aural embodiment of gears working: Plainview’s mental gears, the gears of labor and capitalism as he puts his plan in motion.

A train pulls into town, and Plainview meets an older gentleman who appears to be a rival at the station. Plainview tells him he’s laid claims to this territory and encourages the older gentleman to “go east.” The old guy looks like he’s battled with Plainview before and no longer has the energy. He applauds Plainview for using his little boy to grease the wheels of his entry into the community. He puts his hand on the boy’s soldier and tells him that if he ever wants to sue his daddy, he’ll draw up the papers. “You should be getting half of what you’re dad’s making.” The older gentleman gets back on the train and rides out of town.

The little boy wanders around at dusk with Mary Sunday, a blonde girl about his age. She asks him how much money they’re all going to make. The boy says, “It’s hard to say.”

Cut to Plainview and the boy, sitting around a campfire. The son tells his father that Mary’s father beats her when she doesn’t pray. Plainview absorbs this information.

Cut to Plainview’s office. The real estate broker says one landowner doesn’t want to sell without speaking to Plainview directly first. Plainview says, “He’ll come around.” He leaves his office and goes into a large room, where a large group of landowners have gathered. He begins giving them a speech about all of the improvements his operation is going to pay for: schools, agriculture, roads. Most of this plays over gorgeous, dark shots of miners getting off a train , flooding the area, building a camp. Cut back to Plainview: are there any questions? Only one, from Eli: “Will the new road lead to the church?” Plainview says, “That’ll be the first place it leads.”

Dissolve. The camera scans the camp; there are now chickens, horses, women. Plainview is in his office, and he hears singing. He looks out the window and we see a wide shot, from above, of Eli leading a group of bible-toting singers through the camp.

Eli comes up to Plainview’s office. He asks Plainview if “there’s anything the church can do for you?” He says he knows they’re christening the oil derrick the next day, and asks Plainvie if he’ll introduce him as “the son of these hills” and allow him to give a blessing. Plainview agrees.

Cut to the ceremony. Plainview, flanked by his son and Mary Sunday, gives his own God-infused speech to an assembled crowd. He refers to Mary as “the daughter of these hills.” He does not invite Eli to give his blessing. Plainview’s son releases the drill; it comes up slick with oil.

The crowd disperses; a celebration begins. Kids run around a large picnic table. Plainview stops Mary and asks if she likes the dress he bought her. She says yes. He asks her if her father still hits her. She shakes her head. “No hitting,” Plainview says. He tells her to go play and not to come back. She does. Plainview sits back, and we see Mary’s father has been seated across from him at the table, watching all along. Plainview pulls from a flask.

The end.

[dubman]

i think a friend of mine interned for him on this movie.
it all happened because he stood up during a Q and A and compacted his intense appreciation of him along with mentioning that he was a film student and thought the most direct way to acheive a dream would be to just ask him, so he did.

paul mulls it over and says "sure, see me when this is done"

and that was that.

[Scott Warner]

super stoked.

[grady]

And now we have a poster.

link (http://www.aintitcool.com/images2007/twbb1.jpg)

[GreenPea]

And now we have a poster.

link (http://www.aintitcool.com/images2007/twbb1.jpg)

Nice poster!:cool:

[grady]

First the poster, and now the full trailer just went up today. An interesting credit to note is the following, Original Music by Jonny Greenwood.

trailer. (http://www.ifilm.com/video/2893739?ns=1)

This film cannot come soon enough.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

This picture just keeps getting better and better . . .

[grady]

new trailer over at apple now.

link (http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_vantage/therewillbeblood/domestictrailer1/)

[grady]

i think a friend of mine interned for him on this movie.
it all happened because he stood up during a Q and A and compacted his intense appreciation of him along with mentioning that he was a film student and thought the most direct way to acheive a dream would be to just ask him, so he did.

paul mulls it over and says "sure, see me when this is done"

and that was that.

dubman's friend

link (http://futureshipwreck.com/?p=135)

[grady]

I went to a midnight showing of the film last night as Portland was one of the 29 cities in the States showing the film.

WOW.

That was a pretty incredible film. There is so much I want to say about the film but don't want to spoil any of it for anyone anticipating seeing this film. The less you know about the film, the better.

But yeah, the score is perfect, the photography is transporting, acting by Day Lewis just levels you at times.

It's strange for a Paul Thomas Anderson film too as at times it feels so remote from anything he's done to this point in his career but then there is a familiarness to it all.

Anyone else see it this weekend in NY/LA?

[Scott Warner]

I saw this at the Arclight Hollywood on opening night. I'll write more later... I thought it was a damn fine film but I'm not sure I liked the ending.

[grady]

I saw this at the Arclight Hollywood on opening night. I'll write more later... I thought it was a damn fine film but I'm not sure I liked the ending. The more I've thought about the ending since seeing the film on Saturday night, the more I've come to admire it in it's audacity and as a conclusion of the film's story.

[Aaron Contreras]

Was there a point to any of that?
The discordant music annoys me - I feel it is a cheap wrench of the emotional lever to provoke an audience reaction - perhaps because the actual events of the film are dragging.

I enjoyed the acting and it didn't feel like it was as long as it was...but was there a purpose to any of it?

[Strangelet]

The more I've thought about the ending since seeing the film on Saturday night, the more I've come to admire it in it's audacity and as a conclusion of the film's story.

really? i thought it became a parody of itself at the end. delving into black comedy really seemed to make a disjointed mood.

Also the characters were well wrought, it was powerful, beautiful, blah blah blah, but it just didn't mean much to me in the end. mainly because nothing was explained as far as motives go. Why does plainwater hate people? any reason? just does?

[kid cue]

i thought there was a point to the film -- not to give a reason for why the characters did what they did, but to systematically break down what definitely *weren't* the expected reasons. i think the ending drove home the film's sort of existential core -- it's not that the things that happen to us are completely random, it's that the way we act fundamentally is?

pasted this from an email exchange i had ... SPOILERS AHEAD
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I thought a central message in the film was that life-defining decisions aren't influenced necessarily by the usual Big Ideas such as love, friendship, spirituality, financial success, etc., but rather by the subconscious or automatic tiny connections performed by the brain in (programmed?) response to idiosyncratic personal urges or needs--for instance, Plainview's pointlessly competitive streak, Eli's overconfidence or narcissism--much more character defining than his apparently incidental spirituality, the father-son bond falsely (!) perceived by H.W.

To me it seemed Plainview had come to love his "son" around the time he went deaf--but this feeling was a function of their having spent time together, and the false relationship he'd projected over the two of them. As soon as his son had grown and no longer served Plainview's own business, the relationship seemed to be one of strangers. Likewise, the son's love for his "father" seemed to disappear as soon as the words "you are not my son" (paraphrased) were spoken aloud. The thesis seems to be that the big Feelings come after the little ones that serve our various personal interests--a sense of self (Plainview's competing), a sense of belonging ( H.W.'s devotion to family), a sense of purpose (Eli's Christianity, basically secondary to what turned out to be his monetary needs--we saw these earlier in his dinner-table dealing with Plainview). I thought it was really cool that we (or at least I) grew fond of Plainview's supposed brother, after the film seemed to depict the two of them getting well on, implying some great future sibling partnership ... until we realized we'd been we'd been subject to the same emotional magic trick as Plainview himself! And then our (my) feelings of attachment for that guy disappeared in an instant.

[grady]

really? i thought it became a parody of itself at the end. delving into black comedy really seemed to make a disjointed mood.

Also the characters were well wrought, it was powerful, beautiful, blah blah blah, but it just didn't mean much to me in the end. mainly because nothing was explained as far as motives go. Why does plainwater hate people? any reason? just does? I can see how it can be taken as a parody or delving into black comedy but at the same time, the ending feels like a sucker punch of sorts that I feel catches people off guard. That said I found it worked for me.

Fair enough, nothing was explained as far as motives go for Plainview other what we glean in his conversations with people like his brother, but the same argument of lack of motive other than the most simplistic can be said for a multitude of film characters and one that immediately comes to mind is Anton Chigurh(sp) in No Country for Old Men.

Can you say what his motives are other than the pursuit of money? Does everything require explanation in a film or a book? Is ambiguity a problem? Just a few questions to consider as something I view signify one thing in a story is taken entirely differently by someone else. I have a perfect example of this from No Country for Old Men but don't want to get to carried away.

[GforGroove]

this is going to be my bullet proof with PTA.. since westerns aren't my cup pf thing .... at all........! but i trust him.. probably i'll be bitching about the cowboy thing when i get to see it :p

First at all. No cowboys. Only oil men. Im zero into countryside type of stories and sort of stuff in the plains before the 50's. but this was fabulous.

Intense!. super intense and wow. Really. that was something.. I dont feel bad about missing Cloverfield at all.!

and the end is fantastic!! so catartic and so over the top. I really dont understand why people dont liek the end if its just a perfect climax. All the "feelings" and "emotions" are so out of control that is just like pure human and animal instict. i think is a really brave ending.

the tension in this film is five stars, Daniel Day Lewis is terrific and that church freak is so crazy good.
I love this subtext about power and guilt.

One thing: the music is SO loud.

[Caprice]

I saw this film last night.

SPOILERS:










I thought it was brilliant. IFC has been showing boogie nights almost 3 times a week now and i cant stop watching it. It just, pulls you in. But with that said, PT Anderson's work here is no different. It sucked me in. Oh, and

Jonny Greenwood did a dang fine job on the score. Dang fine.

The score was so, mechanical. Helping us see the transition of Plainview from man looking for silver, then oil (money). Into a machine, the great monopolizing machine that most oil companies were back then. The part where the oil rig caught fire, and was destroyed seemed sort of like, his true baptism to me, a baptism by fire if you will. The point where he hit it big and his time to run higher than before came.
I will admit though. It all had me glued to the screen until the part where he met his brother. Everything seemed to just, slow down and take a break. all the scratching around in the dirt turned into "business."
Paul Thomas Anderson is an amazing director, simply just, amazing. And of course, we know who did a good acting job.
Now the end. I think it was a good ending. I mean, im probably missing something entirely, but it seemed to just, finish the movie but still keep the story of Daniel Plainview going on. Just like the oil monopolies from back then. They crushed whoever and just kept on going until they died alone with all their money.


brilliant film, i give it 9.5/10 just because of that whole, slow down pacing.

[dubman]

saw it a second time last night and despite taking in the extra details and processing it more critically, i found that when the third act came in i was really just waiting for the final bowling scene.

spoilers

there's the first scene, the baptism, the mudfight, the sermons, the confessions, the business death threat... all those scenes are wonderful to watch, but that final scene is 15 sustained minutes of daniel's final fullfillment of his constant hatred for the things he sees in people and especially what he sees of himself in others. his son was basically what was keeping him tethered, and losing that part, along with having acheived the dream he needed a good business face to attain, let him show/react as he always would to his dim view of humanity and it's structures, especially that of religion, without censor. paul dano's eli was practically a validator of his most misanthropic views, and experiencing a conman trying to con a fellow conman reignites his vicious competition with no business or social restraint to keep him from expressing his full disgust. i'm not surprised it ended in murder, nor that he became strangely comical, because the desire to humiliate necessitates some way of belittling. the first time was slapping him repeatedly, getting on top of him, holding his arms and pushing mud in his face. the last scene was a hatefully condescending and childish lecture that was primarily fueled by eli's desperation (he could barely stand up before), chasing him around, throwing him in the lanes for target practice, acting and hollering in a way that would be funny if the target didnt feel so trapped with a rage that couldnt be reasoned with, so instead it's just terrifying for eli, because it's the thought of them having fun while intending to probably kill you, but funny for us.

the scenes in between the many, many highlights of the movie seem to be there as character building, daily motions, either reinforcing his obsessive/dismissive nature or adding depth to his relationship with his son, but a lot of time i was struck with the feeling that these senes were added JUST for that, as if it was a conscious acknowledgement that this kind of quiet is the kind thats respectable and favored. it's what makes it LOOK like high-end movie making. luckily for PT, it mostly lives up to that idea by being an excellent story overall, but it's still too self-conscious about it to really lose myself in.

first time i saw it i was blown away by the end scene enough to give it a 9. seeing it again did make the faults more apparent: the half brother storyline helped to flesh out daniel some, but felt unwelcome and awkward (fitting i guess, but not especially enjoyable to put up with all the same). and while the poker-faced character of HW was fun to experience and unique, skipping ahead 12 years from a sensory and emotional victim into someone thoughtful, emotional, married, and sensitive was, if not a big jump, then at least noticably ignoring that transition. again, maybe necessary for the sake of a movie, but lacking nonetheless. but i cant tell if i like those 'faults' because a perfectly oiled (haha) movie is a boring one, or because these faults never really distrupt the tone or feel out of sync from the overall vision.

i wouldnt rate it any lower, it's just not the blown-away, movie-of-the-year, oh-my-fucking-god experience that the gradually building climax had me thinking as i left it the first time, though it is a truly excellent movie.

that last 15 minutes though... i mean, i couldnt be happier with that.

DRAAAAAAAAAIIIINNNNNNNAAAAAAAGE

[dubman]

looking for other reactions to the movie, i had no idea that the ending was so controversial. i can't see how it doesnt make sense or that it isnt fitting. it wasnt jarring at all, and if you didnt see it coming while watching the movie, you could at least have seen it coming in hindsight.

but i guess not. yes, the scene itself is bizarre, but not in the way that it doesnt make sense.

i found this excellent article someone wrote about it that explains it better than me here:
http://www.thesimon.com/magazine/articles/guy_movies/01510_there_blood_there_also_hysteria.html

...this shift in venue is vital for making sense of the end. We’ve never seen Daniel completely enclosed in these kinds of ornate, wealthy surroundings. He’s always been either in a mine, in an oil field, making a play for someone else’s property, or ever so briefly in the small shack where he slept and the roughly built church where Eli preached. He’s been in process, outdoors, claiming the final frontier. Now he owns everything. He has nothing left to carve out and conquer. A mansion is not his natural habitat, and so he amuses himself by shooting his rifle at a stuffed buffalo head—when he’s not getting snockered in an indoor bowling alley one suspects has never been used. The monomaniacal energy for empire building, and the hatred he feels for just about everyone on earth, have nowhere “productive” to go. And when that kind of inner sewage builds up, well, think of what happens with that flaming oil geyser. Yep, it explodes over the top. His first confrontation with the adult H.W. reveals how any affection he may have felt for his son has been curdled by his circumstances. Daniel is a man who has become accustomed to having his way and getting whatever he wants. He’s also deeply invested in how his personal father-son myth is as key to his identity as his business. H.W. getting married and leaving Daniel’s company is a double betrayal. He puts his wife, a Sunday, first, and dares to become the competition. Daniel lashes out accordingly. That he doesn’t inflict violence on H.W. is, perhaps, just plain luck. Eli, of course, isn’t so lucky. Kudos to Paul Dano for both holding his own against Day-Lewis, and making Eli such a baby-faced and believable snake in the grass (and snake oil salesman, I suppose). When he shows up in Daniel’s bowling alley, you just know this isn’t going to end well. Daniel’s been primed: he’s been waiting (and wanting) to crush Eli for years. He’s also lost his hope for a family man tycoon legacy with H.W. He’s pissed (in all senses of the slang term). And anyone who gets his jollies by firing his shotgun inside his house isn’t going to respond with rationality and self-control when he finally gets his chance to take out all of that pickled rage on Eli. Daniel plays it straight at first, stringing along Eli in a manner that recalls their baptism face-off. Once again, he gets his last financial laugh. This time, however, there is nothing and no one to hold him back like the first time Daniel shoved Eli in the mud years earlier when he asked for money. No bystanders to grab him. No son he must consider. No business to build. No community to woo. No “civilization” he must abide. Needless to say, he goes absolutely off-the-rails, head-over-heels, batshit crazy. And what better way to viscerally convey madness than with a jarringly lunatic ending featuring a truly horrifying murder with a bowling pin? The bizarreness of Daniel and Eli’s fight in the indoor bowling alley becomes a metaphor for Daniel’s cracked psyche, complete with his deceptively simple response when his unflappable butler comes to check on him. For all the damage and exploitation his fanatical drive for success has engineered, Daniel Plainview does not deserve anything resembling a triumphant or happy ending.