There will be blood - trailer (teaser)

[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: (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

[GreenPea]

Originally Posted by grady

And now we have a poster.

link

Nice poster!

[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.

This film cannot come soon enough.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

This picture just keeps getting better and better . . .

[grady]

new trailer over at apple now.

link

[grady]

Originally Posted by 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.

dubman's friend

link

[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?