by Schadenfreude » Mon 28 Jan 2008, 06:13:28
If you get a chance, this movie is excellent.
Based on an Upton Sinclair tale, it is a gritty, realist story of an early oil wildcatter in California.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Wiki', 'T')here Will Be Blood is a critically acclaimed and award-winning 2007 film inspired by Upton Sinclair's novel Oil! (1927). It stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano, and was written, produced and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Shooting began in mid-May 2006 in New Mexico and Marfa, Texas, with principal photography wrapping August 24, 2006. The first public screening was on September 29, 2007 at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. The film was released on December 26, 2007, in New York and Los Angeles, and is set to open gradually in selected markets and in a limited number of theaters. Beginning January 18, 2008 the film played in the top 75 markets and in 389 theaters and opened in wide release January 25, 2008.
The film received significant critical praise and numerous award nominations and wins. In addition to appearing on many critics' "top ten" lists for the year, critics' associations – such as the National Society of Film Critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association – recognized There Will Be Blood with awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. Daniel Day-Lewis received a Golden Globe for his performance, and it has been nominated for numerous AMPAS and BAFTA awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The film has a powerful music score as well by Johnny Greenwood.
Let me tell you, this film has a dramatic impact of which the music is a key component.
Despite Greenwood's brilliant and original score, it has just been disqualified for Oscar nomination because the score used previous work from Arvo Part and Johannes Brahms.
I discovered Arvo Part's music last year - it's stark, austere but inspired and brilliant - and it's used to full-strength effect in this great film about the early days of oil prospecting. If you get a chance to explore the music of Arvo Part, it's a real experience. He is an Estonian Christian Orthodox composer of religious music who is able to bring combine the ancient with the modern.
Despite the glowing review of Greenwood's latest work below, he really doesn't approach the phenomenal intensity of Arvo Part and I was happy to suddenly hear Part's "Tabula Rasa" in the middle of the film.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Elisabeth Vincentelli', 'G')uitarist Jonny Greenwood has composed a hauntingly dramatic instrumental score for Oscar nominated writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson s ambitious new film, There Will Be Blood. An adaptation of the Upton Sinclair novel Oil!, the movie features Daniel Day-Lewis in what The Hollywood Reporter has described as a powerhouse performance... it s a certain awards contender.
Greenwood s remarkable compositions, written primarily for strings, have already garnered considerable praise in advance reviews. The score resembles his rock compositions only in the level of daring and inventiveness to be found throughout these tracks and in the unsettling atmosphere he is able to conjure at key moments. Greenwood s score is more indicative of his current collaborations with the BBC Orchestra as Composer In Residence activities closely followed by Pitchfork Media and The Daily Swarm.
In fact, the score incorporates material from two orchestral pieces he created in that position, smear and Popcorn Superhet Receiver,
which will have its U.S. concert premiere this January when Greenwood appears at the Wordless Music Series in New York City.
Anderson s new work is a stark period piece filmed on arid Texas plains; critics have likened it to the brilliantly austere work of such revered directors as Stanley Kubrick and Terence Malick (Days Of Heaven). The Hollywood Reporter called Greenwood s score captivating...greatly contributing to the sense that tectonic forces lie beneath the drama.
The soundtrack to There Will Be Blood will appeal to serious movie-music fans, who will appreciate this rare find: an intelligent, beautiful and deeply cinematic orchestrated score performed by the BBC Orchestra and London Sinfonietta that can hold its own next to the classic work of such composers as Bernard Herrman, Elmer Bernstein and Ennio Morricone.
1. Open Spaces - Jonny Greenwood
2. Future Markets - Jonny Greenwood
3. Prospectors Arrive - Jonny Greenwood
4. Eat Him By His Own Light - Jonny Greenwood
5. Henry Plainview - Jonny Greenwood
6. There Will Be Blood - Jonny Greenwood
7. Oil - Jonny Greenwood
8. Proven Lands - Jonny Greenwood
9. HW/Hope Of New Fields - Jonny Greenwood
10. Stranded the Line - Jonny Greenwood
11. Prospectors Quartet - Jonny Greenwood