There Will Be Blood

I watched "There Will Be Blood" last night and I decided this movie is going to leave a lasting impression on me. I can't say I cared about the story but this movie to me was so rock solid in every other department. The cinematography, lighting and sound were very impressive. People often use composition and especially lighting to set a mood but this movie also heavily relied on sound. I loved how they had this constant almost disturbing violin/cello melody playing quietly in the background, often even while the actors were talking.

The cinematography was just beautiful. There's this one shot where Lewis's fake brother was sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees. He was all in shadow (silhouetted against the background), then for just a minute he lifted his head so that his head was then in the light, he then lowered his head back into shadow again.... brilliant. They did a few things with lighting that had me thinking. For example, there's one scene where Lewis was denouncing his son and they had the son lit in a rather cold blue light. The background lighting was warm and yellowish/orange. I thought this was interesting as I would probably have done the reverse. Since the son was the nice, caring person I think I would have showed him in a warm light. This had me thinking and I'm guessing they did this to show the son from Lewis's perspective...... yes, all speculations but I love analyzing stuff like that.