Personally, I thought the performances in There Will Be Blood, Both Day Lewis's and Dano's were very mannered, showy and external. A lot going on on the surface - accents, physical tics, quirky line readings - but not a lot of emotional accessibility or truth. The whole movie I was very conscious of watching actors performing as opposed to watching characters interacting. It's a style that worked for the movie, and in that sense I would say that Dano and Lewis were evenly matched.
I have seen Mr. Dano in many films and a couple of plays, having followed his career closely since his mesmerizing performance in L.I.E. I would have to disagree with the OP as I think Dano is a fine actor. I thought he did a nice job in his brief role in the rather unfairly maligned Taking Woodstock and as always I look forward to seeing what he does next.
On a slightly different note - can anyone tell me the song played during the VW trip scene. I found that I knew all the words, but cannot for the life of me rember the artist or song title.
reply
share
dalieberman
15 years ago
Nevermind. I figured it out. Its Red Telephone by Love from their wonderful (but obviously neglected by me) album, Forever Changes.
reply
share
Yawsbass
15 years ago
I agree with you completely. I felt that entire movie to be very showy and by definition "great film-making," but with absolutely no depth or substance. Daniel Day-Lewis' performance was great, but I thought it was much better suited for the stage than film; he came off too over the top in most of his scenes. Paul Dano, however, I thought was just terribly miscast. Where Day-Lewis went over the top, he went even further and completely hammed his part up, but he didn't have any depth to back it up and make it interesting, and I cringed in nearly every scene he was in. To this day I don't understand the accolades that film receives.
reply
share