The Method of Daniel Day-Lewis

Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood surprised me. His performance is just as impressive as all the buildup promised, yes -- a bold, mesmerizing performance -- but the thing is it's a highly actorly, highly theatrical performance, dominated by an assumed voice that comes rolling out in the seductive but stately modulation of a robber baron or a corporate chairman or, as many have noted, John Huston. The voice exists almost apart from Day-Lewis: You could queue it up like an old record on a vintage gramophone and broadcast it out into the desert. For all the talk about Day-Lewis going beyond mere acting to create an entire original person, he doesn't inhabit this oil man, Plainview, so much as he constructs him, raises him up on the landscape plank by plank: Tall and steep-angled, with his emotions--his primal few emotions--forcefully channeled up and out, Plainview is a human oil rig. This isn't DeNiro in Raging Bull or even Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. It's rough-hewn artifice and, in a way, as mannered as Day-Lewis's turn as a sweet young Edwardian prig in A Room With a View. His performance works perfectly in Blood because the movie, which is superb, isn't strictly naturalistic, either: It's a booming, cold, angry parable about the American character and American greed -- these things may or may not be identical -- and its violence is thunkingly loud and jarring. At times it feels as strange as a hybrid of Days of Heaven and Punch-Drunk Love. The crazy ending, which comes loping in like a rabid dog, is certainly going to have audiences talking and debating, and they'll also be trying to figure out Day-Lewis's performance in these last few scenes, where the tone is tragic-farcical: He's like Jack Nicholson in The Shining with better diction. There will be ham.

Comments

[jemand]

For those who have seen the movie, how was the sound track?

I am looking forward to seeing this film. After reading below I can tell that some people seem less than enthralled with Lewis' method. I love what he does in everything he does. And part of the reason is that I don't think he gives two shits about anything that we think or the critics think. I really think he does it for himself which is why he only does films every four years or whatever the gap might be. I would personally give up all the major movies every year to have four or five like this. Why? Because even though people disagree about movies like "There Will Be Blood" it is art that has people talking; and on a slightly intellectual level. I guess I'm so tired of shit that Will Smith and Tom Cruise and Hillary Swank put out, it is all mindless drivel and mildly insulting. I'm just happy to see people moved to have intelligent opinions about a movie, whether they like it or not.

[Steven Weber - Huffpost Blogger]

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He is a thoroughly theatrical actor in a thoroughly theatrical film, and I mean that in a good way. Paul Thomas Anderson's films are soaring operas and often reach towering emotional heights, while still accurately portraying the subtle, often contradictory and confounding foibles of human nature. While Day-Lewis's Hustonesque tones might cause some to be distracted, I felt that in Anderson's brilliantly constructed universe, it might have been John Huston himself who, having met or observed Plainview during one his many and storied adventures and co-opted the man's characteristics as the perfect persona to compliment his own ambitions. As artists both Day-Lewis and Anderson never merely simulate the banal versions of reality in their work as so many others do, but rather take the bold, inventive risks to create a better, fuller, more profound version of the truth and present it unflinchingly for the audience to experience intellectually and emotionally. The tender scenes between Plainview and the infant HW aboard the train are as beautiful and serendipitous as Brando putting on Eva Saint Marie's glove in "On The Waterfront" or Mark Ruffalo caressing a wayward moth while speaking with Laura Linney in "You Can Count On Me". Rare, rivetting and truly gorgeous. Those moments are what Day-Lewis and Anderson are all about, demonstrating their complete command as artists while having complete humility in the face of creativity. Yes, I am writing this on Ambien but goddammit I mean it!

[BillSeward]

I actually saw his Hamlet in London years ago. It was the best one I've seen, and I've seen Kevin Kline's and others. As an actor myself, I marvel, however, at the humorless quality of his work, and the saintliness of his approach. You can't out-Brando Brando, and most actors past a certain age have moved on from the "call me my character's name at all times on set" silliness of Day-Lewis' behavior. It's indulgent and selfish, in a collaborative working situation, to insist on that kind of treatment from your peers. You'll notice, even with Brando, that a lot of actors just thought it was a pain in the ass. Save it for the stage, so to speak, when you're in the moment, let it rip, but, we're all adults here, and I'd rather not have to call you Mr. Piggywiggles so I don't break your zen during a 15 hour day.

I heard he walked out on his Hamlet during the ghost scene a week or so after I saw it, and, I totally get that, but his explanation that he was spooked by his real father's death and that the scene became unbearable, is less plausible than, doing Hamlet 8 shows a week is living in fucking hell and he wanted out of the job. THAT I understand.

I haven't seen "There Will Be Blood," but the clips are striking. He seems to be drawn to doomed, profoundly angry men. That's cool. And the voice, which is totally lifted from John Huston, cracks me up.

Having said all that, he's one of the best - just a little observation that his act has been done and he could lighten up a little.

[Bakersman]

I have always admired DDL, but have to say I found both this movie and his performance a big disappointment: overwrought and underdefined at the same time. And the biggest crime, dull. DDL's choice for this performance was ham-fisted. He was channeling Popeye, the Sailor Man. I'll give him credit, he maintained the "Argggg!" all the way through it.

But I wish he'd work more than once every four years. Even when DDL misses the mark (which he did for me in this movie) he's still never less than watchable and interesting. I may not like the choices he makes but he inhabits them and that I admire.

[TheDude1369]

great actor. i repeat great actor.

[chimezatmidnight]

That's an excellent post, Mr. Gliatto.

What Day-Lewis has always done is what amounts to "English method" which was created by Henry Irving. As you put it, everything is "constructed" externally, detail on detail, layer on layer.

It's a technique which can startle, shock or simply turn after more than an hour from impressive to excessive and oppressive.

Irving by the time of his death was out of fashion. It took 20 years for it to take another generation of English actors in its thrall.

Olivier practiced it in the only way it can be done -- obsessively. Ralph Richardson didn't. Which is why he became the greater tacit influence on post-war English and Australian actors.

Now it's in a cyclical restoration with Fiennes and Day-Lewis. I'm very happy to watch both of them. But I think they could both stand a look inside Blanchett whose layers expand and unfold from within.

PS. So what American leading actor of our time did something suggestive of the Irving approach?

I'd have to say it's Dustin Hoffman. Much of the best of what he does is accreted from the outside pretty brilliantly, including his Benjamin Braddock whose obsessiveness connects with the actor's. The strength of his best characters is less in who they are than how they are seen to move, to speak, to react. He doesn't always do this: he's wise about when his leads are really parts of ensembles like his Carl Bernstein.

Oh, yeah -- if you want to get an accurate sense of a Henry Irving characterization, just return to Bram Stoker's Dracula. Stoker was Irving's stage manager and acolyte -- he even wrote a two volume memoir of his life around Irving and the man's powerful affect upon him.

[Wilsonfisk89]

Agreed. Greatest American film since Pulp Fiction nearly 15 yrs ago? Methinks so...

[QueenCeleste]

You have me so curious now to see it!