Oscar-Winning Film to be Screened at the Smith Opera House
Nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, "There Will Be Blood" is a bold and sprawling epic about false prophets and massive profits set in a stark and dramatic oil-rich landscape.
At first sight, this period piece by director Paul Thomas Anderson ("Boogie Nights," "Magnolia") seems to be a major departure from his previous films. But, upon closer inspection, this represents the evolution of a hugely talented and increasingly mature filmmaker. Not only is the story set in California, where most of his films have been situated, but it focuses on brooding, troubled souls and exposes shaky family bonds and the corruption of power and greed, just as his previous works have.
Anderson’s majestic tale is both fearfully grandiose and wonderfully eccentric. A strange and enthralling evocation of frontier capitalism and manifest destiny set at the dawn of the 20th century, "There Will Be Blood" recounts the tale of a ferociously successful wildcat oil driller with the allegorical handle Daniel Plainview (Best Actor Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis). The telling is leisurely and full of process: From the deliberately dark and fragmented prologue to the wildly excessive denouement, this movie continually defamiliarizes what might sound like a "Giant"-style potboiler.
What’s so remarkable about this film is not its time frame but the wealth of its detail (the production was designed by Oscar-nominee Jack Fisk), the eloquence of its images (the Oscar-winning cinematography was by Robert Elswit), and the sweep of its ambition.
The story of Daniel Plainview’s ascent to the top of the heap is at one and the same time a study in abnormal psychology and an anatomy of untrammeled entrepreneurship.
"There Will Be Blood" is a searingly intense and artful tale that grabs hold of the viewer from its jarring and wordless opening scenes and doesn’t let go. It is rated R and has a running time of two hours, 38 minutes.
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Date and Time
Saturday Apr 19, 2008 Tuesday Apr 22, 2008
April 19th, 21st, & 22nd at 7pm
Location
Smith Opera House82 Seneca StGeneva, NY
Fees/Admission
$5 general admission$3 students & senior citizens
Website
Contact Information
315-781-LIVE (5483) or toll-free 866-355-LIVE (5483)
