There Will Be Blood is not only the title of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest masterpiece, but a promise given to the audience; indeed there will be blood. The film depicts not just the greed of man and his desire for wealth and success, but also a battle between religion and money. Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) proclaims himself that there is an inner drive in him for competition, one that forces him not only to squash his competitor, but disown his adopted son H. W. (Dillon Freasier) when he proclaims he will start his own oil business. It is Plainview’s inner drive and passion that ignites the film on fire and delivers exactly what it promises.
Anderson delivers the audience with the sight of not only literal blood but also the blood of the earth, oil. The opening shot of the film are the hills of a desert in the west during the late 1800’s, followed immediately by a dark image of Plainview deep in a mine shaft picking away at the under layers of the earth. He has penetrated the surface in a Freudian like sense to satisfy his drive to find silver ore. However, as he penetrates deeper into the layers of the earth, he eventually breaks the skin and discovers the rich, valuable, liquid store beneath the surface of the earth like blood. Once Plainview has the taste of oil in his mouth he sets out on a passionate crusade to find the veins of the earth in an attempt to satisfy his unquenchable thirst. Continually throughout the film Plainview bathes in the oil that spews from the earth in a religious like experience, in which he attempts to share with his son H. W. as he baptizes the young child with a drop of oil wiped on his forehead.
In Plainview’s pursuit for oil he also runs across his moral enemy in Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), who shares the same fiery passion as Plainview, just for the Lord instead of oil. Anderson creates a fierce battle between the Plainview and Sunday, as representative of The All Mighty Lord and The All Mighty Dollar. There Will Be Blood quickly becomes a statement of capitalism versus religion. Plainview and Sunday take turns publicly humiliating and attacking one another socially, psychologically, and physically throughout the film. Each lashes out at the other when they enter their opponents’ ring. Plainview physically beats Eli Sunday when he approaches Daniel asking for money, and forces him into a puddle of oil as if baptizing Eli in the same way Daniel often does himself. This action is only to be replicated by Eli when Daniel forcibly baptized in order to obtain the land he needs and Eli not only baptizes him in holy water, but also proceeds to beat Daniel under the guise of a religious cleansing.
The emphasis of the land as a character is shown in the Malick-like beauty and emphasis placed on the landscape in long shots and takes. Often times, much of the frame is filled by the massive Texan countryside that seems to dominate over the proportionally smaller actors in the film. It is also no surprise that it is not until the last act of the film that the characters ever spend any real time inside, even though Plainview is a rich man, and the boss, and is not required to be outside in the thick of it. It is not until the oil dries up and Daniel Plainview starts to fall apart that he confines himself indoors, neglecting the mother like figure that has provided him with everything he achieved.
It is also in this last act where Plainview is confined to the artificial walls and light of his mansion that the audience is greeted with the literal promise of blood. In an epic climax the two men, Eli and Daniel, have their final epic showdown in the bowling alley of Plainview’s mansion. Just as when Daniel needed to come to Eli for help and Eli made him declare what he was least willing to admit (that he abandoned his son), now Daniel forces Eli to proclaim what he really is despite his defiance (that he is a false profit). In both cases, it takes the other to force each of them to admit to the world what they really are; Plainview is a money hungry capitalist willing to give up family for profit, and Eli is false profit exploiting the faith and belief of many for his own personal reasons. In doing this Anderson reduces each competitor to the same level, degrading them to their lowest possible form. It is then when Anderson truly delivers on his promise as Plainview breaks the skin of Eli Sunday’s skull, allowing for the gushing of blood from the young man’s head, like oil from the earth. At this point Daniel Plainview is able to conclude the film for Paul Thomas Anderson in a self-reflexive manor as he declares simply, “I am Finished.”
There Will Be Blood
