Novels make great novels. They rarely make great movies. Case-in-point: There Will Be Blood. Director / Writer PT Anderson failed to translate Upton Sinclair's brilliant, character-driven novel into anything remotely close to an entertaining film.
Sure, there are some good things in this movie. Daniel Day Lewis' (Gangs of New York) performance as an oil tycoon is one. Okay, Daniel Day Lewis is the only one. Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine) has his moments, but his portrayal of a combo cult-leader / televangelist before there were TVs often jumps from sophisticated and nuanced to just simply cartoonish.
PT Anderson breaks out the long takes, giving this already slow-paced movie an even slower feel. There is some talent to that, his camera watches the scene from a distance, holding still when you want it to move and showing you exactly what you don't want to see. And though long takes have their moments (M. Night Shyamalan is famous for them, so was Hitchcock), it can be simply a by-product of lazy filmmaking (ie, I'm not sure what to do the with the camera so I'll sit it back here and just let the actors roll...). Films are visual mediums, and long takes done as poorly as they are in this film make for a visually boring movie.
I've also never encountered a film with a more annoying musical score. It feels like the filmmakers were compensating for the lack of drama in their story. It's nothing but a series of never-ending, never-relenting dissonant string chords that leave you constantly on edge, waiting, thinking, hoping something dramatic and drastic is about to happen -- but it rarely does.
And the story really is weak. Nothing interesting happens. For two-and-a-half hours we watch the life of one turn-of-century oil tycoon, Daniel Plainview; Anderson bounces us from event to event in his life, with no real sense of where we're going. What's the point? The character grows increasingly unlikeable as the "story" unfolds and we're never quite sure what his goal is, or, for that matter, who's against him.
There Will Be Blood as a film is a non-story; quite obviously, the inner-workings of this very character-centered drama (written with skill as a novel by Upton Sinclair) were lost in the translation from book to film.
PT Anderson breaks out the long takes, giving this already slow-paced movie an even slower feel. There is some talent to that, his camera watches the scene from a distance, holding still when you want it to move and showing you exactly what you don't want to see. And though long takes have their moments (M. Night Shyamalan is famous for them, so was Hitchcock), it can be simply a by-product of lazy filmmaking (ie, I'm not sure what to do the with the camera so I'll sit it back here and just let the actors roll...). Films are visual mediums, and long takes done as poorly as they are in this film make for a visually boring movie.
I've also never encountered a film with a more annoying musical score. It feels like the filmmakers were compensating for the lack of drama in their story. It's nothing but a series of never-ending, never-relenting dissonant string chords that leave you constantly on edge, waiting, thinking, hoping something dramatic and drastic is about to happen -- but it rarely does.
And the story really is weak. Nothing interesting happens. For two-and-a-half hours we watch the life of one turn-of-century oil tycoon, Daniel Plainview; Anderson bounces us from event to event in his life, with no real sense of where we're going. What's the point? The character grows increasingly unlikeable as the "story" unfolds and we're never quite sure what his goal is, or, for that matter, who's against him.
There Will Be Blood as a film is a non-story; quite obviously, the inner-workings of this very character-centered drama (written with skill as a novel by Upton Sinclair) were lost in the translation from book to film.
