With the awards season having just ended, and the dust haze now settling (as much as it can ever settle in a place like L.A.), I think there’s just enough time for me to throw in my two cents on one of the best acting performances of 2007.
Being in London, where movie tickets cost about as much as a good bottle of wine back in the States, I was pretty much ready to give up on the idea of seeing P.T. Anderson’s There Will Be Blood on the big screen, when, quite literally out of the green, I came across a great little theater in Islington that was still showing it. The sheer convenience being too much to refuse, I paid the 8 pounds and sat down for what turned out to be two hours and thirty-eight minutes of pure cinematic gold. If there’s one thing that this movie proves beyond Clint Eastwood’s long shadow of a doubt, it’s that Daniel Day-Lewis is a living legend.
The more astute among you have, perhaps, known this for quite some time. Sure, I caught him rockin' it in Scorcese’s Gangs of New York, but I wasn’t convinced. Marty’s gangster flicks aren’t my cup of tea, you see, and I’ve never been much of a Leo D. fan either, so you’ll excuse me if I’d made up my fifteen-year-old mind beforehand. Still, it seems that ever since 1992’s The Last of the Mohicans he’s been a casting agent’s wet dream. Go figure.
But reputations are meaningless, and Daniel Day-Lewis must know this better than anyone else in the motion picture industry. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be the masterful method actor he is today. Submerging himself totally in his roles, he’s known to isolate himself completely during filming, dedicating his time off-camera to living the way his characters would. When he was doing Mohicans he built a canoe, learned to hunt and trap, and perfected the use of an ancient, 12-pound flintlock. When he did Gangs, he got sick because he refused to exchange an historically accurate 19th Century coat for a warmer (anachronistic) replacement. I’ve heard of actors getting into their roles, but the lengths to which Mr. Day-Lewis consistently goes put him in a small Hollywood elite.
In There Will Be Blood, he’s secured this position. As the film’s main character, Daniel Plainview, Day-Lewis turns in a performance that’s both magnetic and utterly explosive. Very few times in one’s life is it truly appropriate to use the word “cathartic,” but that’s best way to describe the strange brew of emotions that he conjures with this role. For some reason, he’s been given the incredible gift of being able to turn his entire body into an instrument of expression. From the first dissonant chord of the magnificent Jonny Greenwood score to the moment the credits roll, this guy actually is Plainview. You can’t help but get the feeling that the role was written for him. I’m tremendously happy he won Best Actor. I can’t think of anyone in recent years who’s deserved it more.
Go and see There Will Be Blood. You won’t be disappointed.
From Day-Lewis’ acceptance speech:
My deepest thanks to the members of the Academy for whacking me with the handsomest bludgeon in town.
The Johnny Greenwood thoroughly drank every milkshake ever produced by any composer in cinema history. It not even being a nominee was a travesty.
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