Dan the Man

Aside

Years ago I was captivated by a Titania (Midsummernight’s Dream) with the most amazing facial bone structure. Decades later I saw the same face but this time it was a young man in a strange film- ‘My beautiful Launderette’. The young man was Daniel Day Lewis and I discovered that the girl was his mother Jill Balcon, who in turn was the daughter of Michael Balcon, who owned and ran the Ealing Studios in their hey day. Daniel’s father was Cecil Day Lewis – poet laureate, and Daniel’s wife is the daughter of the late Arthur Miller – distinguished Playwright.

You’d have to be pretty special to live up to a family of that ilk and Dan is – pretty special. So one would expect nothing less than the bravura performance he gives as Daniel Plainview in ‘There will be blood’ and today I hear he has received his well deserved Oscar. Yes - this was the film we chose to see on our disappointing Saturday. My first choice was ‘La vie en Rose’ but it was the wrong day. I still wish we had seen it; I didn’t really enjoy ‘There will be blood.’ It wasn’t just the violence – ‘No country for old men’ was even more so and I rated that highly.

Daniel plays a vicious monster dominating every frame and most of the characters are liars, cheats and hypocrites. MTL thought he sounded like Sean Connery but to me it was pure (if you’ll pardon the expression) John Huston. Close your eye and listen – if you are old enough to remember. The film moves along at a reasonable pace although there was one long close up on the beach when I found myself trying to distinguish between the character’s nose hair and his moustache. There is some beautiful orchestral music along with a weird angry bees buzzing sound which made me think of the yelping music Hitchcock used ‘Psycho’ so maybe it will catch on.

One thing puzzles me. When I was a teenager I read ‘Oil ‘by Upton Sinclair and all I remember of it was when I read the babies were thrown, by the Reds, into the scalding water. I even mentioned it in a blog a year or so ago. Did I imagine it or am I muddling it with something else. Certainly there was nothing like it in the film. Thankfully. Well done Daniel!