Of Earth’s many unanswered questions, by far one of the most important is, which was truly the best film of 2007 - and, dare I say, the 21st century - There Will Be Blood or No Country For Old Men (sorry, all you Jesse James contrarians)? To this day, both films continue to remain the stuff of legend, sitting primly at the helm of film bro letterboxd lists and the IMDb top 250. But which movie is objectively, quantifiably, and unequivocally better?
There are countless reasons as to why this question has not yet been resolved by cinema experts or the general public alike. Firstly, either film has acquired a staggering amount of accolades and critical acclaim over the years. Although No Country went on to win more Oscars in 2008, with a monumental sweep that included wins in the Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, and Best Writing categories, either film still received eight nominations total that year, with There Will Be Blood featured in three of the four aforementioned categories. Meanwhile, Paul Thomas Anderson’s film also made huge sweeps at other major award shows, with himself and Daniel Day-Lewis winning big at the SAG, BAFTA, and Golden Globe Awards.
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Another reason why it’s nearly impossible to pick between the two is because they are so similar - or at least, appear to be. Both films were shot in the deserts of Marfa, Texas, at the same time - so close to one another, in fact, that production on No Country was shut down for a day because Anderson’s smoke drifted too near. Furthermore, both films revolve around evil, monolithic men who do and hurt what they please, when they please. Both are set in a barren landscape of nothingness. Both are based on novels by extremely prominent writers, if close to a hundred years apart. Both have the capacity to chill us to our core. But whose ghost will linger with us the longest?
Chigurh v. Plainview: America’s Psychos
Miramax / Paramount Vantage
Much of what contributes to the legend of these films is the seismic performances from either of their leads. Although, in Bardem’s case, it might be unfair to qualify him as such, as the majority of the film is shown through Brolin’s character’s perspective. If there’s any film in which the villain is most apparently the main character, it’s There Will Be Blood.
Due to both Day-Lewis’s and Bardem’s career-defining performances, it would be unfair to say that one character is objectively more nuanced or compelling than the other. Yet, if it’s realism that one values most from a film, perhaps it’s No Country that they might turn to. A 2017 psychiatric study found that Anton Chigurh is cinema’s most accurate portrayal of a psychopath to date, out of a list of nearly 400 films. This isn’t surprising; given Chigurh’s effortlessly soulless demeanor - he feels more like a force of nature than anything resembling a human being.
However, for what Chigurh might maintain in authenticity, Plainview certainly makes up for in his unfettered charisma. Maybe we know that Chigurh is beyond saving; after all, the level of danger he evokes is compared to that of the bubonic plague in the film. For Plainview, there are things we are left to wonder. Did he ever love his son, H.W., i.e. the “bastard in a basket”? Did salvation ever exist for him, if far, far off in the distance? In the scene where Eli Sunday baptizes Plainview, who exactly is manipulating whom? These are all things we are left to ponder throughout Anderson’s film, maybe making There Will Be Blood a more provocative feature. But then again, few things are more provocative than the fear instilled in us by one Anton Chigurh.
Winking Visions of Brutality
Paramount Vantage
Though connected, Anderson and the Coens’ visions of brutality are far from interchangeable. This goes for thematically as well as aesthetically - each film is deeply idiosyncratic in how it chooses to approach the topics of greed, avarice, and their consequences. While No Country examines them for a philosophically nihilistic approach, There Will Be Blood uses these ideas to indulge in a more concentrated character study.
There Will Be Blood is perhaps more aesthetically memorable than No Country, featuring an array of breathtaking shots and a searing score from Jonny Greenwood. However, this is not to say that No Country isn’t equally as aesthetically accomplished in its own right. Its sparseness is the main contributor to what makes the film so haunting. We don’t need music, or closeups of faces, to be deeply unsettled in our gut. When shown through Chigurh or his victims’ perspective, wide, searching shots of the landscape are more than enough to unnerve.
In this way, No Country is arguably the more accessible film of the two. In There Will Be Blood, everything is a symbol, ripe for English class picking-apart. No Country might be more down to earth; however, this is not to say that makes the film more entertaining. Maybe it does the opposite.
Legacy Beyond the Screen
Miramax
Any marking of a true masterpiece is the legacy that it leaves behind. What did these movies do for movies at large? How do they challenge us to see the world differently, to open ourselves up to discomfiting new perspectives?
There Will Be Blood is an uncompromising takedown of American capitalism - because of just how glaring and ruthless it is, many say that Anderson is the one with the more singular vision. But is this automatically true, just because the film appears to be more ambitious? A goal of cinema is to tell a story, and to tell it well - in this regard, No Country adapts Cormac McCarthy’s novel perfectly to the screen, with such a degree of aesthetic precision and nuance that the Coens could never make a film again and still be remembered.
The onus is thus on the viewer to decide what it is they really want from a film. No Country may be less dense, easier to follow - There Will Be Blood might be the singular work of an auteur who’s now become an esteemed household name. However, these very qualities that make either film so great are also what one-ups them against the other: no film can really have it all. Both of these critical and commercial masterpieces should go down in history, and stay there - for different reasons.
