Oscar Nominee: There Will Be Blood for Art Direction

BuzzSugar — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:30:53 -0800

In the days leading up to the Oscars, I'll be featuring the nominees in the various visual categories. This week, I've been looking at the nominees for Best Art Direction, which encompasses the entire look and feel of a film from the scenery to the lighting. Today brings us to the last of the nominees: There Will Be Blood.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson and gang did well with capturing the dangerous and spooky atmosphere of the oil industry at the beginning of the 1900s. Every frame portrays a dusty, dirty and oil-splattered world, all in that palette of slick blacks, coarse browns and sometimes fire-gold.

The film makes great use of its landscape, setting its characters against a barren desert or a shockingly blue sky. A few scenes - such as the one where an oil rig catches fire, ultimately tumbling to the ground in a heap of burning rubble - are particularly stark.

For more stills from There Will Be Blood, read more.

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Photos courtesy of Paramount Vantage