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How does the saying go? Opinions are like arseholes? Arseholes like opinions? Anyway: Quentin Tarantino went on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast this week to announce his 20 favourite films of the 21st century – a list that starts with Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down at No 1 and finishes on Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story at 20, by way of a few surprises (Toy Story 3 in second spot, Midnight in Paris at 10).
But the wildest of wild takes was revealed in his No 5 pick, There Will Be Blood, when Tarantino declared Paul Dano was the film’s “giant flaw”.
“There Will Be Blood would stand a good chance at being No 1 or 2 if it didn’t have a big, giant flaw in it … and the flaw is Paul Dano,” Tarantino said, comparing Dano’s performance as twins Paul and Eli Sunday with that of Daniel Day-Lewis as oilman Daniel Plainview. “Obviously, it’s supposed to be a two-hander, but it’s also drastically obvious that it’s not a two-hander. [Dano] is weak sauce, man. He’s a weak sister.”
The film-maker shared his ideal casting: Austin Butler, who was 16 when the film was made. “Austin Butler would have been wonderful in that role,” Tarantino said. “[Dano] is just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy.”
Again, opinions, arseholes, etc – but it’s hard not to feel a bit outraged for Dano, who is both astounding and pitiful as Eli Sunday, the sanctimonious young preacher whose barely disguised greed is overshadowed by the rapacious Daniel Plainview. In fact, Dano is outstanding and transformative in pretty much everything he is in – Love and Mercy, Little Miss Sunshine, Prisoners – and is frequently touted as the best actor to have never even got an Oscar nomination. He can do unhinged (The Batman), he can do gentle humanity (The Fabelmans); his distinctive, claylike face has a strange amorphous quality that means he will probably rarely get to play a hero but will land interesting roles for the rest of his life.
There is also important background to Dano’s casting in There Will Be Blood: he was originally only set to play the brother Paul, but took over both the twin roles two weeks after filming began when the actor originally cast as Eli, Kel O’Neill, was fired because director Paul Thomas Anderson decided he “wasn’t the right fit”.
Dano was also 23 years old, early in his career and suddenly squaring up against an actor widely agreed to be among the best in cinema – a point Ellis made in his defence.
“Daniel Day-Lewis also makes it impossible to make it a two-hander because there are aspects of that performance that are so gargantuan,” the American Psycho author said.
“So you put him with the weakest male actor in SAG?” Tarantino replied, somehow forgetting he is probably the weakest male actor in the Screen Actors Guild. When Ellis asked if Tarantino had ever enjoyed Dano in any project, he replied: “I don’t care for him. I don’t care for him, I don’t care for Owen Wilson, and I don’t care for Matthew Lillard.” What does he have against twitchy white guys?
“I’m not saying [Dano]’s giving a terrible performance. I’m saying he’s giving a non-entity performance,” Tarantino clarified, which – again opinions, arseholes, but was he watching the same film as the rest of us?
