Rewind to 1995. I’m in Brighton, staying in a squat where some friends are living. There’s a lot of dope being smoked, and I was known to partoke myself at this point. And we’re in a big room, the one where most of what passes for activity in the house seems to happen. Most of those present are chilled types, so the intrusion of a boisterous alpha male trying to score coke is notable. Wayne, the guy in question, makes quite an impression on the dopy throng, but not the one he probably had in mind. When he leaves, failing to acquire cocaine, a leather-trousered Jim Morrison wannabe mutters in his wake, ‘Man, that cat: he wasn’t for real’, and pretty much everyone in the room nods sagely at his pronouncement.

Not that the actual Jim Morrison was any more convincing, come to think. I mention this having been to see There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson’s spellbinding new offering, featuring Daniel Day-Lewis as a badass oil tycoon who has an ongoing difference of opinion with a local revivalist preacher. And it’s D.D-Lewis’s holy roller number when he’s baptised that brings to mind Jim Morrison. Specifically, the bit on that Doors live album when he’s going into meltdown mode about how ‘You cannot petition the Lord with prayer’. Yes, it’s ludicrous – and electrifying. Histrionic – and compelling. All the more so when you’re 17, which is when The Doors are any kind of feasible.

Anyway, there’s a bit of Jim Morrison at times in DD’s performance: I found it captivating and appropriate, given the epic scale of the emotions as found in the script. Others may find it over the top. Either way, it’s P.T. Anderson (same initials as Barnum, see?) who you should address enquiries too: he wrote as well as directed the film. Besides, how else could you perform the scenes that Lewis was acting? Yes, there are a range of choices available, but some are more suitable than others. Just A Gigolo has been covered by plenty of people, and I love both the angular and idiosyncratic take that Thelonious Monk has on it, and the sheer glorious bombast of Dave Lee Roth’s performance. Lewis’s take on oilman Daniel Plainview is the filmic equivalent of Dave Lee Roth in full chaps-wearing flight, no irony to be had.

So, go see this film as soon as you can – you’ll want to see it again while it’s still running. Second time round, take a notebook with you: there’s enough detail on prospecting for oil to serve as a foundation course, a minutiea of information elegantly integrated into the opening 20 minutes or so that’ll have Esso quaking in their boots by the time everyone’s dug wells in their gardens and local parks. And if you’re sniffy about material wealth but keen on spiritual and community status, pay attention to Paul Dano’s performance as the faith healing minister of the Church of the Third Revelation; there’s a guy who knows how to work an audience.

Where this film ranks alongside Anderson’s others I’m unsure; he’s one of my favourite directors, and Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love rank highly among my top films. It’s got the emotional intensity of both of those, plus visual and musical excellence too, the latter courtesy of Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, whose orchestrations are powerful and entirely appropriate to what’s on screen (mind you, there’s some Arvo Part and Brahms in there too, so Jonny can’t take all the credit). What’s new here is the sheer breadth and depth of the story, which functions both as a history of the industry that fuels America and created the wealth of many of its elite, and an emotionally overpowering tale of a man who in achieving his material dreams loses sight of everything that truly matters. Towering stuff, and There Will Be Blood gets my very highest recommendation.