Release Date: June 3rd, 2008

Audio:
Dolby TrueHD Audio English 3210 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 3210 kbps / 24-bit (AC3 Embedded: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps / DN -4dB)
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps / DN -4dB
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps / DN -4dBh

Subtitles:
English SDH, English, French, Spanish, none

Supplements:
• The Story Of Petroleum (25:37) - 4:3 in HD
• '15 minutes' Slideshow (15:33) in HD

• Two deleted scenes, Fishing (6:13) and Haircut/Interrupted Hymn (3:13)
• Dailies Gone Wild (Outtake) (2:46)
• Blu-ray Trailers

Bitrate:

 

From its opening scene, There Will Be Blood announces itself as an heir to 2001: A Space Odyssey. With a soundtrack shriek that’s pure Kubrick, the camera fades up on an untamed landscape, where lone prospector Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis) chips away in a hole. He’s driven by the equivalent of 2001’s monolith—in this case, oil: the substance that will inform everything he does, and that will make him wealthy to a point where wealth becomes his only interest.

Black gold eventually pours from the ground, of course, and when it does, a fellow prospector’s child is immediately baptized with it; Anderson spatters the lens with oil, too, initiating us into Plainview’s faith. Blood may tip its hat to John Ford and notions of collective ambition, but at bottom it’s a story of individual obsession—and may inspire a similar obsession in viewers. This is the most original and compelling Western in a year of Westerns: so new, so bleached of conventional beauty and so alienating (thanks in part to a nerve-jangling score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood) that it might as well be set on Mars.

The movie alludes to Days of Heaven, Giant, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Citizen Kane, but it’s every inch a P.T. Anderson film. Blood is not a departure from his style (as some have suggested) but a refinement, seizing on the notions of family and commerce that ran through Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999) and reworking them on a different plane. Anderson pares down Upton Sinclair’s 1926 muckraking novel Oil! to an archetypal, even operatic tale of greed and competition, culminating in an ending that’s as much a shock to the system as the frogs in Magnolia.

Excerpt from TimeOut Film Guide located HERE

 

Excerpt from Mike D'Angelo at the Las Vegas Weekly located HERE

 

 

 

Image :    NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

 

I suppose the big question is "Does it look that much better?" compared to the SD edition (Reviewed HERE) which almost set a new standard for SD image quality. I suppose 'that much' is going to boil down to a personal preference but it does look far better in 1080P resolution, IMO. This is apparent in all the expected areas - colors, contrast and detail. Black levels can be quite deep and rich. The image does look quite brilliant at times and you may find yourself occasionally swooning at the grandeur of the 'scapes' that are very painterly. Kudos to Robert Elswit's cinematography. There is still some minor noise in monochromatic blackness - of which there is a fair amount in the film and it does lean slightly towards 'blue'. But to get back to the point of whether it is worth a double-dip - I'd might have said 'it depends on your system', but I personally was blown away - more so after each viewing so I am biased. I'm guessing I've seen it 1/2 dozen times since my first review. It just gets better and better each time. It's a film you can't seem to look away from and that can be exemplified due to the greatly improved resolution factor on the Blu-ray. No disappointments here - this looks quite magnificent in all visual categories.    

 

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audio & Music: The TrueHD audio option was even more pronounced than the crisp 5.1 channel of the SD. There are some dramatic separations and I jumped a few times with oil gushers exploding from the rear speakers. The soundtrack, including "Pärt: Fratres for Cello and Piano" and Brahms' "Violin Concerto" was beautifully clean and tight. Radiohead's music impressed Anderson enough that he requested guitarist Jonny Greenwood's compose the score for There Will Be Blood. Greenwood later said to Entertainment Weekly: "I think it was about not necessarily just making period music, which very traditionally you would do. But because they were traditional orchestral sounds, I suppose that's what we hoped was a little unsettling, even though you know all the sounds you're hearing are coming from very old technology. You can just do things with the classical orchestra that do unsettle you, that are sort of slightly wrong, that have some kind of undercurrent that's slightly sinister". Fabulous. The dialogue is supported by subtitles available in English, English (SDH), French or Spanish in a white font with a black border. Like all Paramount discs this is region FREE Blu-ray.

 

 

 

Extras: Duplicated from the SD, but now in HD! - The Story Of Petroleum is a vintage featurette (1923-7) created by the U.S. Bureau of Mines in collaboration with the Sinclair Oil Company as a promotional film. It runs almost 30 minutes and is, admittedly, very interesting for background of There Will Be Blood - putting its historical significance in a more direct context. There is a 15 minute slideshow (aptly entitled '15 Minutes' and also in HD) with very old mining/prospecting/oil-boom photos interspersed with some newer ones from the film. The deleted scenes and Outtakes (found on the SD) are also here under 'Extras'. 

 

 

 

Bottom line: If you were as enamored with the film as I have grown to be - then this is an easy decision and I must say that I'm grateful to have it in my possession looking this strong. It's an amazing piece of cinema to revisit. Most friends were pretty over-the-moon about the film - especially Day-Lewis' intense performance. This film doesn't seem to let go of you and many Blu-ray libraries won't be complete without it. For those that indulge - there will be no disappointment. This is a must-own.

Gary Tooze
June 3rd, 2008

Re-capped May, 2014