There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood (2007) Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. From the Novel Oil by Upton Sinclair.

Some people dig for silver their whole life, and never find anything. Some people dig for silver, and strike oil. Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis won the Oscar for this role) is such a man.

There is no dialogue for the first part of the film, and dang little colour. It is like watching a sepia print sprung to life; in west Texas, that is the colour of dust, and dirt and desperation. You see how hard the life of a miner is, how hard it makes you, the only soft element in the entire prologue is Plainveiw's son, H.W. ("played" by Harrison and Stockton Taylor, later played by Dillion Freasier.) By the time the child is 9, Plainveiw is a successful driller.

He is a hard man still, but that luck of digging for silver and striking oil continues. He passes on a potential oil field because it is owned by committee, and he would never get anything done. But he is approached by a Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) who is willing to sell information on the location of an oil seep, sight unseen, for cash. They reach an accord; Paul is no idiot, and does not release the information, any information, until they have a deal. Then he tells them to look on his family farm near Little Boston.

There is oil, and there he meets Eli Sunday, Paul's twin. (Originally, another actor was slated to play the part of Eli, but Paul Dano did so well in the role of Paul, Anderson decided to change the story so that Paul and Eli were twins so Dano could take over the much meatier role.) Eli is like his twin; shrewd with his own agenda. Eli's ambition is to have a church. He sees Plainveiw as a means to that end.

Here is where I knew There Will Be Blood: Eli says he wants to bless the well. He wants Plainveiw to introduce him as a son of these hills, the shepherd of his father's flock, and then he will perform a simple short blessing. It is well played on Eli's part. If he blesses the well, and it comes a gusher, he will spiritually reap the benefits.

But at the chosen time, Plainveiw calls up Eli's sister, Mary (Sydney McAllister) introducing her as a daughter of these hills, names the well in her honor, and pronounces a quick blessing on the rig. Eli stands there, like a statue, powerless to say anything or to object, only able to seethe. That is where I knew for sure the title was right. Later, when Eli tries to stand up to Plainveiw he receives a beating, a beating that involves a lot of slapping; a beating of disdain.

Perhaps he should have let Eli bless the well; when they broke through, there was an outgassing that blew young H.W. back. Later, the rig burned, and had to be blown to extinguish it, normal enough in this day and age. But H.W. was deafened, and his hearing did not return. This elicited some of the most tender behavior seen from Plainview.

With an odd synchronicity, Henry Brands (Kevin J. O'Connor) shows up. He is Plainveiw's bastard brother. Suddenly, Plainveiw has a second right hand, the first being long time foreman Fletcher Hamilton (Ciaran Hinds).

Plainveiw sends his son back east to a hospital/school for the deaf. He does not explain it; he gets the boy on the train, then ducks off when it starts moving.

Business consumes Plainveiw. He wants to save the shipping costs of train tankers so he considers a pipeline to the sea. There is only one problem. There is one piece of land that did not sell to him when he bought up the Little Boston area, and the pipe has to go right across that land. So Plainveiw and Banks ride out to survey the route and to talk to the land owner. That night the two brothers have a heart to heart talk.

Plainveiw: Are you an angry man, Henry?

Henry Banks: About what?
Plainveiw: Are you envious? Do you get envious?
Henry Banks: I don't think so. No.
Plainveiw: I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.
Henry Banks: That part of me is gone... working and not succeeding- all my failures has left me... I just don't... care.
Plainveiw: Well, if it's in me, it's in you. There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I want to earn enough money that I can get away from everyone.
Henry Banks: What will you do about your boy?
Plainveiw: I don't know. Maybe it will change. Does your sound come back to you? I don't know. Maybe no one knows that. A doctor might not know that.
Henry Banks: Where is his mother?
Plainveiw: I don't want to talk about those things. I see the worst in people. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I've built my hatreds up over the years, little by little, Henry... to have you here gives me a second breath. I can't keep doing this on my own with these... people. (laughs just a little.)

Shortly after this conversation, Plainveiw discovers that Banks is not his brother, but a friend of his brother who stole his diary after his brother died of TB. Plainveiw kills him, and buries him, then bunks down.

And is awakened in the morning by the land owner. He is a member of the Church of the Third Revelation; he will allow the pipeline, only if Plainveiw is washed in the blood of Jesus. Here is what he has to do to get his pipeline.

Eli Sunday: We have a sinner with us here, who wishes for salvation. Daniel, are you a sinner?
Plainveiw: Yes.
Eli Sunday: The Lord can't hear you, Daniel. Say it to him. Go ahead and speak to him, it's alright.
Plainveiw: Yes.
Eli Sunday: Down on your knees and up to him. Look up to the sky and say it.
Plainveiw: What do you want me to say?
Eli Sunday: Daniel, you have come here and you have brought good and wealth, but you have also brought your bad habits as a backslider. You've lusted after women, and you have abandoned your child. Your child that you raised, you have abandoned all because he was sick and you have sinned. So say it now- I am a sinner.
Plainveiw: I am a sinner.
Eli Sunday: Say it louder- I am a sinner!
Plainveiw: I am a sinner.
Eli Sunday: Louder, Daniel. I am a sinner!
Plainveiw: I am a sinner.
Eli Sunday: I am sorry Lord!
Plainveiw: I am sorry Lord.
Eli Sunday: I want the blood!
Plainveiw: I want the blood.
Eli Sunday: You have abandoned your child!
Plainveiw: I have abandoned my child.
Eli Sunday: I will never backslide!
Plainveiw: I will never backslide.
Eli Sunday: I was lost, but now I am found!
Plainveiw: I was lost but now I'm found.
Eli Sunday: I have abandoned my child!
(Plainview glares at him)
Eli Sunday: Say it... say it!
(Plainview mumbles)
Eli Sunday: Say it louder... say it louder!
Plainveiw: I've abandoned my child! I've abandoned my child! I've abandoned my boy!

And so he gets his pipeline. And he gets his boy. H.W. is furious, but Plainveiw holds him close. Years pass. H.W. learns Sign Language, as does Mary Sunday. The Plainveiws grow rich. Mary and H.W. marry. (and are now played by Colleen Foy and Russell Harvard.) Eventually, H.W. makes his move to independence.

Plainveiw is a very rich man. He is a very angry man, a very mean man. And he is a very lonely man. Then he receives a visit from an old friend, Eli Sunday.

Eli Sunday: Daniel, I'm asking if you'd like to have business with the Church of the Third Revelation in developing this lease on young Bandy's thousand acre tract. I'm offering you to drill on one of the great undeveloped fields of Little Boston!
Plainview: I'd be happy to work with you.
Eli Sunday: You would? Yes, yes, of course. Wonderful.
Plainview: But there is one condition for this work.
Eli Sunday: Alright.
Plainview: I'd like you to tell me that you are a false prophet... I'd like you to tell me that you are, and have been, a false prophet... and that God is a superstition.
Eli Sunday: ...but that's a lie... it's a lie, I cannot say it.
(long pause)
Eli Sunday: When can we begin to drill?
Plainview: Right away.
Eli Sunday: How long will it take to bring in the well?
Plainview: Should be very quick.
Eli Sunday: I would like a one hundred thousand dollar signing bonus plus the five that is owed with interest.
Plainview: That's only fair.
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet and God is a superstition. If that's what you believe, then I will say it.
Plainview: Say it like you mean it.
Eli Sunday: Daniel...
Plainview: Say it like it's your sermon.
Eli Sunday: This is foolish.
(long pause)
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet! God is a superstition! I am a false prophet! God is a superstition! I am a false prophet! God is a superstition!
(pause)
Eli Sunday: Is that fine?
Plainview: Those areas have been drilled.
Eli Sunday: What?
Plainview: Those areas have been drilled.
Eli Sunday: ...no they haven't...
Plainview: It's called drainage. I own everything around it... so I get everything underneath it.
Eli Sunday: But there are no derricks there. This is the Bandy tract. Do you understand?
Plainview: Do you? I drink your water, Eli. I drink it up. Everyday. I drink the blood of lamb from Bandy's tract.

It's called drainage. The oil flows, and it doesn't care about the land markers above. Sixteen years Plainveiw has waited to bring Sunday low, and now he has succeeded.

One wonders did Plainview ever love anything? Oh, yes, he did. He had to; you can not hate one iota more than you love. But whatever he loved, it died inside of him, twisted and festered, smothered by a sea of ambition and competition.

This movie is really all about Daniel Plainveiw, and thus its success rests entirely on the shoulders of Daniel Day-Lewis. Is he up to the task? The Oscar committee thought so.

This movie is not family friendly, it is not comforting, it is not even enlightening. But it is good, a view into a time, and a era, and one mans soul, as black as the oil he hunted.