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DVD Review:

There Will Be Blood

2-disc Special Edition

            

Movie

I saw There Will Be Blood during its theatrical release.  At that time, I thought I didn’t give the film my attention, because I saw it very late and was tired.  So now that it’s on DVD I was looking forward to watching it.  First I will give you a little background on the story.  The story center’s around Daniel Plainview who is played by the fantastic Daniel Day Lewis.  Plainview is a hard working man at the start of the 1900’s.  He seems like a man who is driven to succeed.  He starts out as a miner searching for silver and gold, but changes direction when he accidentally finds oil on one of his digs.  One of his crew members get’s killed in a digging accident and Daniel adopts his son.  His relationship with his son is one of love; he even calls his son H.W. his partner.  Daniel is told of a rich oil deposit in a small community named Little Boston.  It’s led by a crazy religious leader named Eli.  It’s here where Daniel’s darker side starts to show.  He quickly starts to show a whole range of emotions.  His constant battle with Eli brings all of these emotions to the surface.  This movie is not a short film and it clocks in at 158 minutes.  I found that there were some points that I was a little bored, but the performance of Daniel Day Lewis was so mesmerizing that if I didn’t know that I was watching a movie I might think I was watching a historical documentary. There were points in the film that there was no dialogue and the use of imagery tells the story.  I don’t think this movie is for everyone.  I still don’t quite understand the ending.  But I do think it’s a movie that most people should see.  It’s quite fascinating to watch Daniel Plainview from beginning to end.  He runs the gamut from a nice hard working prospector to a maniacal vengeful man.  If for nothing else of the performance of Daniel Day Lewis you should check this film out.

8.5 out of 10
 

Video

This movie has some of the best cinematography, and thankfully the DVD transfer lives up to its beauty. The detail and the colours are fantastic.  The black levels are excellent and there are many scenes that take place at night via the light of a lantern and they also look fantastic.  You will be hard pressed to find a nicer transfer until the HD version comes out.

10 out of 10
   
 

Audio

The audio in the film is of the subdued kind.  It’s generally there to add little immersing effects to the sound field.  But it does come across loud when it needs too.  The music for this film was composed by Jonny Greenwood who is in the band Radiohead.  This is his first high profile soundtrack.  What he has composed for this film really adds a lot to the tension and uses a lot of string-heavy music.  But the track is mainly dialogue driven.

7.5 out of 10
   
   
   

Extras

First let me start by talking about the packaging for this release.  I have read reviews commenting that the packaging was fantastic.  Granted the design is nice, but I absolutely hated the packaging.  It’s made entirely of cardboard.  So the DVD’s sit in sleeves which makes them very difficult to come out.  This is the type of packaging that will get destroyed over time and personally I would have preferred the standard type of DVD case.   

This is a 2-disc edition, so I would expect that there would be a lot of quality extras.  Unfortunately there are not.  There is about 50 minutes of extras and maybe only about 20 of those are worthwhile.   This is what you get:

  • 15 Minutes – Research, Etc.
  • Trailers
  • Fishing Sequence
  • Haircut / Interrupted Hymn
  • Dailies Gone Wild
  • The Story of Petroleum

The 15 minutes of research is just pictures from the era set to music.  The fishing Sequence and the Haircut sequence are just deleted scenes.  The Story of Petroleum is a silent film that was produced in 1923 to educate citizens about the oil process.  I was very disappointed in the extras.  It’s not worth it to buy this two disc edition.

3 out of 10
 

Overall

I think the movie is definitely an interesting piece of art.  You get a stunning transfer and decent audio, but I don’t think I can recommend this version on that alone.  I would suggest picking up the single disc edition, because there is nothing here that would warrant a 2–disc edition.

7 out of 10

Not Recommended (Pick up the single disc instead)