There Will Be Blood: A Review

I found myself surprised in the early moments of There Will Be Blood, the latest critical hit from one of my favorite directors, P.T. Anderson. The film stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a prospector turned oil baron, documenting his rise to power and the consequences of his success. The last time I saw Lewis it was in The Gangs of New York, where he played Bill ‘The Butcher” Cutting, one of the most deliciously evil characters in recent film history. The look of the character Plainview is a clear echo, intentional I’m sure, of Cutting, and so anytime we look at him early in the film, there is a natural instinct to dislike him or to not trust him.

But then we watch Plainview. In a fascinating sequence, the opening moments of the film, without using a single word, draws us into this man’s existence. We see him as a lonely prospector, risking his life mining for silver on his own. We see him with a small crew a few years later, working hard to dig his first oil well. When one of his crew member’s is killed, we see him take the man’s son in his arms, embracing him as his own. And we flash forward again, this time to Plainview as a legitimate “oil man,” trying to convince a town to lease him their land. As he talks, he speaks of family values and integrity, and even walks away from the deal because of the dissenting voices in the room. And we think, maybe, just maybe, this guy really wants to do it right.

We’re left with those lingering impressions even as the story slowly takes an ominous turn. The heart of the tale is found when Plainview is approached by Paul Sunday, the son of a poor goat farmer in remote Texas. Paul knows that there is oil on his land, and wants to work a deal with Plainview to let him mine it. Daniel pays Paul $500 as a finder’s fee, and then begins his investigation. This is a time when oil companies are jumping over each other to find the next big claim, and so Daniel has a deliberate process that he must go through as he begins his efforts to buy up the mining rights for the town.

It is at this point that we are introduced to the other key character, Paul’s brother Eli. Played by the same actor, it can be a bit confusing to make the connection, but where Paul has quietly put together a business deal than can give him his start in the world, Eli is concerned with weightier matters. He is the minister of the “Church of the Third Revelation,” the local charismatic church that is a major influence in the town. Because of his influence, Eli wields power, and despite his somewhat restrained demeanor, we quickly realize that he is very deliberately using that power to accomplish what he wants.

It is here that we begin to see Plainview’s character emerge. He is passionate about mining his oil and building a pipeline to the sea, and to do that he must placate those who can stand in his way. He does his best to get along with Eli, even as we get glimpses of his antipathy for him and his brand of religion. But as his efforts encounter barriers, Plainview finds himself required to play to Eli’s world more than he would like.

As I was watching the film, I kept thinking of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the classic Huston/Bogart film that deals with the emerging greed and obsession among three prospectors. Afterwards, I was intrigued to read that Anderson would watch Madre every night before filming. But where Madre dealt with an emerging greed that consumes otherwise decent people, Blood seems more interested in exploring a rage that is suppressed and finds ways to emerge. Looking at the film from the end, I don’t think he’s asking us to think of Plainview as a good man gone wrong, but to think of him as a man whose evil inclinations found their voice through a lifetime of self-serving pursuits.

That kind of picture of Plainview sits alongside a view of Eli that is pretty similar. While his brother uses his fee to start a nice business and to care for others, Eli continues to use his religion as a way of gaining power, influence, and wealth. In one of the most poignant scenes in the film, Plainview is able to get Eli to shout out “I am a false prophet and God is a superstition” over and over. It is exactly what we have come to know that Plainview thinks of Eli, and our opinion of him by that point isn’t much different.

There Will Be Blood is a powerful picture of greed and the consuming nature of sin. Plainview is consumed with himself and his own greed, and oil becomes the means by which he pushes away every good thing in his life. Eli finds that religion serves the same ends. Both are tools to pursue what it is they want. “God” for Eli seems nothing more than a word to speak that offers the prospect of power and control. Even when both get what they want, it is clear that their end is hollow, as everything of meaning is lost to them by the end.

The film is filled with quietly modest people that offer a different kind of model for living. But what it doesn’t see is how the search for power and control, whether that is gained through wealth or religion, can end up well. There’s a healthy challenge there, to recognize our own inclinations for evil desire and our ability to justify using good things, even the best of things, to serve those ends.