"The music in the film is awful. An absolute distraction. It doesn't work as a counterpoint, and the mix is entirely too loud."
Well you're wrong.
Acutally "wrong" is too weak a term.
well, i guess i'll respectfully vote again for "not wrong", haha.
weakest link in the film. i was truly mad after i saw it, almost wholly because of the music. truly obvious and truly mixed WAY too upfront. it made me want to go home and throw away all of my penderecki and ligeti and lutoslawski (and so on) records for the havoc they (unintentionally) wrought.
i haven't been this angered by music in a film in ages...
Nothing wrote:I'd be very surprised if PTA ever makes a film as good as Miami Vice.
Don't make me roll my fucking eyes!
Where are all those ton ten websites, where they compile all the lists and such? Have they all dried up? I remember one named criticstopten.net or something, but they stopped after 2004 I think... Anyone?
exte wrote:Where are all those ton ten websites, where they compile all the lists and such? Have they all dried up? I remember one named criticstopten.net or something, but they stopped after 2004 I think... Anyone?
Yeah, that guy stopped doing the list a couple of years ago, but this guy has stepped in to pick up the slack. It's in blog format which isn't ideal for this material, but he has still compiled over 400 lists. You can look at the individual lists or the composite of all 400.
Grand Illusion wrote:The fact that, even in discussion, the score is overshadowing the film is part of the problem.
I haven't seen that at all. I've noticed it being discussed as one facet of the film. There are plenty of great films that have a prominent score which is always discussed when the film is.
It's interesting how different Sinclair's Ross is from Anderson's Plainview. Had he followed the book more closely it might've imparted more of a Metropolis vibe [thru Bunny aka H.W.] Has anyone else read or is reading the book?
On his blog, Dave Kehr loves everything except DDL:
Just in from Sardi’s, the results of this year’s National Society of Film Critics voting. Bottom line: “There Will Be Blood” scores one prestigious group and sows some hope that the “No Country for Old Humanists” juggernaut can still be stopped. Daniel Day Lewis gets more positive reinforcement for his resourceful if distracting performance in TWBB (correspondent Norm Wilner suggests that Day Lewis is not channelling Fonda and Huston as much as Noah Cross and C. Montgomery Burns, as scrambled in a David Cronenberg teleport device)...
And in an earlier entry:
My one quibble with Paul Thomas Anderson’s stunning “There Will Be Blood” is Daniel Day Lewis’s showy, synthetic performance, composed of equal parts Henry Fonda and Walter Huston. I much prefer the quietly assumed star power of George Clooney in “Michael Clayton,” Anthony Wong in “Exiled” and Johnny Depp in “Sweeney Todd.”
Compare the beginning silver miner with the ending "milkshake" millionaire. Completely different levels of performance. Daniel Plainview is certainly a tad larger than life, but the best Method performers bring out the emotional truths and marry them with the extremities of human behavior.
Does anyone know the name of the song that plays at the very end of the film as the credits begin to roll? It is not on the soundtrack and I'm going to assume its a classical piece composed by someone else. Then again I know practically nothing about classical music and it could still be a Johnny Greenwood composition. Perhaps one of you can help.
I'm not sure that I'm ready to comment on the film as a whole yet (which is a major positive), but I am surprised that so very few people have commented on the fact that Paul Dano managed to, in more than one scene, siphon the focus entirely away from DDL.
Did anyone else note a direct influence of "2001": the swell of the score on the opening shot, then no dialogue for several minutes? The ghost of Kubrick seems to haunt the film for the most part.
Klawans wrote:The emotion that Day-Lewis taps seems so spontaneous, and so volcanic, that his performance ought to be listed in the end credits as a special effect, along with the computer-generated imagery used for the fiery gusher. Even here, of course, there must have been calculation. I imagine that in preparing the performance, Day-Lewis might have worked backward from his biggest moments, planning when to hint at restrained fury, when to release a note of sarcasm or contempt and when to let loose an outburst, always increasing the magnitude toward the climax in the final scene. But this still says nothing about the complexity of the characterization--for example, the way Plainview will pet and imprison H.W. in a single gesture--or the wonderful paradox of an actor's displaying such power while being attentive to everyone else in the scene.
Finally got a chance to see it last night and it's a fantastic film - maybe my favorite of Anderson's so far. I'll be seeing it several more times before it leaves theaters.
a.khan wrote:Did anyone else note a direct influence of "2001": the swell of the score on the opening shot, then no dialogue for several minutes? The ghost of Kubrick seems to haunt the film for the most part.
well noted. when i saw it, i thought of Downey sr's "greaser's palace" (both musically,thematically and in its wordless 15-20 minutes) Both that film and Downey's Putney Swope are two relevant influences on Anderson, but I've yet to see it noted in any professional writing.
It expanded to 129 theaters this weekend, and may add a few more next weekend. Academy Award nominations will be announced on January 22. If There Will Be Blood scores big (and it's beginning to look like it might), I would look for a full wide release on the 25th.
