Oscar Talk: No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood

Posted on 20 February 2008 by Ashleigh Holmes

Right about now I’m wishing that I had thought up this whole Oscar blog thing in time to have been able to dedicate one blog per nominated film.  I say that out of complete selfishness because I want this entire blog to be about There Will Be Blood and how absolutely, insanely, genuinely brilliant it is.  I don’t want to have to spend any time on No Country For Old Men, but I told you I would, so I’ll keep my word.

I saw No Country For Old Men on a double feature day.  The first feature was Lars and The Real Girl, which will be afforded its own blog one day, but suffice to say, I was extremely moved by that film in ways I still don’t fully understand.  So maybe that’s part of the reason that I didn’t appreciate No Country For Old Men as much as the friends I went to see it with did.  We were also a few minutes late, so we missed the very beginning, but we did get in just in time to see what is one of the more powerful beginnings to a film.

Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss comes along a desolate field in the West Texas desert covered with the detritus of what appears to be a drug deal gone terribly wrong.  The story, adapted by the Coen brothers (of The Big Lebowski fame) from a Cormac McCarthy novel, follows his attempt to keep the stolen money from being recovered by the hired hit man, Anton Chigurh, played far too convincingly by Javier Bardem.  His performance solicited several “Oh my gods!” and “Holy sh*ts!” from me, so I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t win for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

The film was engaging and Tommy Lee Jones is well cast as the local law enforcement officer, Ed Tom Bell, but I wasn’t at all impressed with the ending.  In retrospect, it makes sense, given the title of the film, but at the same time, it leaves you thinking there should have been something more, which might have been the Coen brothers’ intent, but I still felt like there should have been a more complete resolution. 

I’ve unintentionally saved the best for last.  I’ve always been a huge fan of Daniel Day Lewis, so I was looking forward to seeing There Will Be Blood, but I wasn’t expecting to see one of the most gripping movies I’ve ever seen, and I’m not over-exaggerating. 

The first 15 to 20 minutes of the film contain no dialogue.  There are a few odd grunts and murmurings, but the first spoken words are from the stentorian voice of Daniel Plainview, played by Day Lewis.  I was so captivated by his voice that I found myself actually moving closer to the screen, as if I was going to be able to crawl into the film and immerse myself in the beauty of his words.  Daniel Day Lewis is absolutely riveting.  If he doesn’t win for Best Actor in a Leading Role, that screaming you’ll hear on Sunday night…that will be me screaming in the agony of injustice. 

I was already disappointed to find that the original music by Jonny Greenwood wasn’t nominated for Best Score, but I don’t think the entire score was original, so perhaps that’s why there was no nomination.  I guess I’ll have to settle for a hopeful win in the Sound Editing category.  There were several points at which I was just as spellbound by the music as I was by Day Lewis’s performance, and the times when the two were acting in conjunction were almost too much for me to bear.

Speaking of too much to bear, the loving interaction between Plainview and his son H.W., played by Dillon Freasier, was absorbing and palpable.  I was moved to tears more than once by young Freasier’s performance, and I could feel – actually feel in my gut – the consuming love that Plainview had for his son.

I just can’t say enough about Day Lewis’s performance.  He IS Daniel Plainview.  A friend of mine said that she heard someone quip that if Daniel Day Lewis gets nominated for an Oscar, he wins.  Like the ebb and flow of the tides or the rising and setting of the sun, it’s inevitable.  Oh, how I hope that’s true this time around! 

I know I said last week that I really thought that Michael Clayton had a chance at winning Best Picture, but now I really hope that There Will Be Blood wins.  Michael Clayton was good, and if nominated in another year without There Will Be Blood as competition, I think it would deserve the win.  But There Will Be Blood has that extra little bit that I hope will give it the edge over all the other nominees.  It captures the chaotic and grandiose essence of the oil strikes in the West in the early 20th century, and in that sense, I feel that it’s an instant classic.  With that being said, I’ll finish in the intriguing last words of Plainview, “I’m done now.”

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