There Will Be Blood

Blood, sweat and tears

Author: Nicola Lee

 

Warning: this article contains plot spoilers

 

There will be compelling characters. There will be an epic narrative. There will be beautiful cinematography and Daniel Day-Lewis on top form. There will be Oscars.

 

Nominated for no less than eight Academy Awards, as well as having already won many awards including a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood is an unflinching look at greed, ambition, and the darkness in the human soul. This rather grim story is inspired by Upton Sinclair’s book Oil, and set against the backdrop of the California oil rush of the early 1900s. Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a self-proclaimed oil man. Having discovered oil in his gold and silver mine, he quickly expands his business, using his newfound wealth to acquire more oil-rich land. Tipped off about a small town which is oozing with oil, Plainview heads to Little Boston with his young son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier). Here they find an ocean of oil, along with a sea of troubles. H.W. is deafened by an accident at the oil well, and Plainview sends him away to school. A man turns up claiming to be Plainview’s long-lost brother, Henry (Kevin J. O’Connor), but ends up leaving him more alone than ever. And all the time, Plainview is confronted with opposition from the teenage church leader, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), who not only covets a share of Plainview’s riches for the church, but also seems intent on claiming his soul.

 

From the moment we meet Daniel Plainview he is clearly a driven man. His desire for wealth is so strong in the opening scenes that even an accident resulting in a broken leg doesn’t halt his search for precious metals. As he claws his way up through the oil business, Plainview becomes more and more ruthless in his pursuit of riches. Abandoning H.W. and disposing of anyone who fails him, Plainview eventually achieves everything he has dreamed of. But at times it seems he has lost everything that made him human along the way. At the height of his success, Plainview has a fortune and a beautiful house complete with underground bowling alleys, and at the same time he seems miserable, constantly drunk, and on the edge of insanity. Earlier in the film, he had confided in Henry, sharing his outlook and goals in life: ‘I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I want to earn enough money I can get away from everyone.’ Now at last he has achieved that aim and is completely alone. Plainview builds his life on money, ruthlessly discarding any thing else that gets in the way, and the result is that he is left with nothing but the money for which he worked so hard.

 

 

Continued