The film begins with a wide shot of a vast and
open terrain. This signifies the emptiness of our setting. We meet the
character of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis) deep below the ground in a
mining shaft. Plainview is working in absolute darkness, which was also a very
interesting lighting method in this film. This could be symbolic of Plainview’s
current economic or social position. However, his loneliness and labor is a
product of his ambition and lust for power. This ambition is visually revealed
to us when Plainview climbs out of his mine and makes his way into town to sell
his silver. All of this is done with a broken leg. This ascension out of the
darkness of the shaft is visually symbolic of Plainview’s path to power.
Plainview begins drilling for oil and becomes a more powerful figure. In this
film, they captured the setting before an action scene takes place to enhance
the importance of the setting itself for the viewer. Also another common theme
in this film was that Daniel Day Lewis, aka: God, is always mouthing on
something in every scene it seems like. Even when he beat the crap out of Eli
at his house, he was mouthing on some chicken. One of the coolest things about
this movie I thought was that the movie started out with about 15 minutes of
silence, but then we jumped into a monologue by Daniel Day Lewis.
No comments:
Post a Comment