There Will Be Blood

I Told You I Would Eat You

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As this year's most robust mainstream effort to put up a legit rivalry with No Country for Old Men, this weighty, rigorous drama inspects what functions and effects humane values, morals, even belief systems may operate by when the main agenda of the protagonists is nothing less than to acquire All-and-All-beyond-All that highest ends of the era's business professionalism has to offer.

The name of the game is Daniel Day-Lewis here, the trademark persona element There Will Be Blood relies on, as he is not only a brilliant businessman, he is quite the effective politician as well, as, frankly, all potent businessmen should be. This here statement is a thorough, precisely rendered journey into the late 18th and early 19th century, where and when oil already was as vital as blood in America. Surely, Mother Earth is more than ready to give her blood for you so profit could be realized, yet question arises if there are higher prices to pay than setting up an oil driller - and, in case there are - are those prices worth paying for at all?

Director Paul Thomas Anderson relied on the book Oil by Upton Sinclair to write the screenplay for There Will Be Blood, thus he had the chance to select the components of the original text he found most suitable for a motion picture narrative form. Cinematography and other various key presentation factors are absolutely of top notch efficiency here, the viewer is transported to a late Wild West trying to get it's bearings to face an industrial revolution via an illusion strong enough to forget it could be doubted. Anderson takes his time to precisely account the mood and the environment, yet his buildup is eager to use all that stupendous amount of oil present to fuel itself and carry you to levels of utterly compromised inner values that you are yet to see, this much is guaranteed.

The story concentrates on Daniel Plainview, who, staggeringly, is NOT personified by the amazing David Hasselhoff, no. He is given you by Daniel Day-Lewis, also we are to witness his career by the time he is a well recognized "oilman", - as he prefers to define himself - thus he is in the stable possession of the Golden Rule of All Oilmen already. Want to know what that is? OK. I will tell you.

Sure, you can drill MUCH oil. But it is even more damn sure that you can NEVER drill ENOUGH oil.

He gets a tip from a young man in exchange for some instant financial palm-benefits about a site that is guaranteed to contain an amount of oil worth massively drilling for. Plainview quickly takes his blatantly efficient charisma and his son to investigate the region in question, and soon, hardcore workings are to commence in the area. There Will Be Blood quickly, cleverly focuses it's attention on a character trio to form the key conflicts upon, and conflicts surely do arise when the drill turns out slightly different than expected. Plainview's son gets permanently, though, as for the narrative form: quite cleverly damaged during the drill, while the tipper who sold the information about the site already seems to be somewhat of a clever/malicious fraud by the time the kid injures.

This third character - the second being the son, I factually confess - of Paul/Eli Sunday is rendered by Paul Dano, yet, save his amazingly sneaky act of personifying himself as his brother to sell out the tip, we are to count with his presence as the Priest of the village. Also, a rather compromised at that, this one is. He can be reasoned with though, even better: when sweet smell of profit seems to manifest, money certainly proves to be even more sophisticated of a talker than belief, IF and WHEN you would ask for his personal, ultimate input on the issue. Just be sure to position yourself in a way so he could see the money bag you brought to the table.

We will concentrate solely on the driving factors in a short while, yet it is still important to account on an interesting moment of the story, as it seems to be a focal point to signify the start of a subtle, yet radical turnaround There Will Be Blood develops upon. This is the blessing of the drill, more precisely: the not-blessing of the drill. Plainview is certainly aware that Eli is a fraud, so he decides to ignore the Priest's suggestion of a much needed blessing when works are to start with inhabitants of the village watching it.



Things turn out partly fruity, partly sour with Plainview's son damaged in the process, but the most surprising aspect to surround this certainly memorable drill is Eli's reaction. This man sewn a mask for himself using carefully selected elements of a Christian belief system, but it is quickly becoming evident that he forged this mask and mastered it's usage just as a personal survival strategy and prefers to talk profit even when timing is not quite the appropriate for that. This notion is emphasized clearly via a scene concerning piles of muds, Daniel Plainview and Eli, even.

If you are starting to feel for the main protagonist Plainview, I encourage you to. But I assure you as well: he does not need your sympathy. He hardly needs anyone's. Thanks to Day-Lewis's masterful performance, you believe every single word the character shares of his inner, true reality, of how he is incapable to see something worth liking in others for most of the time, of how smoothly his general hatred towards all people is working. How easy it was to build that hatred up, piece by piece. A deeply fearsome/legit - you decide baby, me just writes here - character you witness in Plainview, a human to seemingly being in an absolute harmony through this bizarre unity of himself, profit and ignorance. Ignorance that is not forged out of stupidity, but of well determined, even well researched, justified intentions to be ignorant. In Plainview's reality, profit is the only option, the only way, the only challenge worth living and make an effort for. Or: is that? He has a son, remember? Has he a son?



Sure he does. In fact, his son is the one and only thing to connect him to hmm, shall we say: humanity. While Plainview is a brilliant speaker and thus very good at negotiating or tell people what they want to hear, in reality he does "nothing more" than turns debates into substance to fuel his own, personal agenda. This is what a skillful businessman does. Ask J.R. Ewing or Plainview. They won't admit, of course. But they won't deny, and this is the part to give them away.

From a good businessman,

"Yes" means: "Maybe."
"Maybe" means: "No."
"No" - THIS you will NEVER hear from a good businessman.

See how masterfully and ruthlessly Plainview sedates the entire village population like a "decent populist politician" would do? He talks about giving purpose!, an infrastructure!, a brighter future! for the region, yet it probably will shock you to the core that he speaks all these sweet sentences only to build an armor of wishful promises to cover himself in, after all, who would be foolish enough out of two hundred villagers to put up any arguments when a New Priest just born before their eyes and IT spoke the WORDS they never dared to dream of - though they are still not sure if they would wanted to. And this is the key element here. Anyone to antagonize Plainview: have lost already, as Plainview never promises any less than a bright prospect. Even better/worse: Plainview is indeed in the position to guarantee you both a bright or a dim future.

His son is the only individual to spill honest, uncompromised feelings of love on, and Plainview have came to peace with this, arriving at a point where he does not need any more persons to feel similarly for. Now his agenda - as he explicitly states - is to form enough profit of oil to establish his very own personal realm of wealth and luxury where he and his son could live in without any relations for those fool people would need to be maintained. The only obstacle between Plainview and his vision is composed of other men of immense profit, other interests to pose as forces compromises must be formed with. See the picture below? Get the hint, yes?



It is supersweet to have oil. It is not so supersweet to sit on it. You want to sell it, so you want to transport it. Other profitmen - the Railrodmen! - already established means for this, yet they have a tendency to ask for spicy prices if to take stuff to point "B" from point "A". Plainview despises them, as he despises all rivals. Every entity to share an interest in profit realization is a potential rival. A stupendously strong sketch is offered when the protagonist and his son are sitting in a restaurant, trying to have immense fun and a decent meal, though having a good time poses as something of a massive challenge due to the boy's injury. The Railroadmen! happen to visit the establishment as well, causing you a brutally strong insight unto how sorrowfully, how hopelessly alone this man of stupendous profit Daniel Plainview is. He has absolutely no air/vibe to co-exist with these other profitmen, he indeed does have so hard of a time tolerating their very, passive presence that he fails to do so eventually, and puts up some utterly redundant, silly social atrocity to emphasize his self-proclaimed superiority over these other forms of existences, fools and infidels enough to share his interest in profit creation. One of the most potent scenes in the buildup, in my opinion.



There Will Be Blood offers a hilarious conclusion to itself, taking it's prior events and assumptions to be weighty enough to form the shape of a future that has but a pretty little left to it. You will get a rather thorough glimpse of the later days of the characters, an occasion and elegant method to wrap this effort up via a form of fatalism that is blatant enough to spill tears of sorrow and tears of laughter out of itself. The most satisfactory appeal is that it manages to do both at the same time.

Suffice it to say that Plainview did not change his mind about how life should be lived through, now how could he change his way of thinking, when he spent all those times working to form an existence able to establish a legit, strong field for him to live through this particular peace he pondered about and cautiously wished to come. Let us conclude by saying that the final encounter between Plainview and Eli accounts thoroughly on the peace/restlessness they could arrive at. Tells you how far and how much some are willing to go or sacrifice to attain what is wished for, whether it is profit or a false conception of peace.

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