(for a summary of the film, click on "What Happens?" at the bottom of this post.)
There Will Be Blood is an extraordinarily single minded film, mainly due to Daniel Plainview, the central character. Although there are many characters, with their own developments, there is nothing that happens here, unless it is of concern to Plainview. He isn't a character who pops up often, strong, unyielding, smart and seething with rage and hatred for humanity. Even when he's being polite, the menace remains, not far at all from the surface. he's a forceful man, so much so that he is never required to use force and only does so because it somehow pleases him. The interesting thing about him is, he is for the most part, simply a businessman. Financial success is the only thing he really cares about and he's certainly a very capable force in it's pursuit, not willing to be stopped by even a broken leg with a long walk ahead, or even the most fundamental human attachments. Yet for all that determination, Daniel Plainview is not inhuman, while far away from being a warm and doting father figure, he does, in his own way, form an attachment to H.W. When H.W. confronts him about going out on his own, Daniel tries to dissuade him, although his acerbic manner is not at all what H.W. will listen to. Plainview's revelation seems very much a response to being stung. In his coming to grip with this, Plainview seems not unemotional, but someone who would control his emotions, just as he does his oil crews.
He does seem to have some need for "family" which he as not examined in himself. His humoring and acceptance of Henry, the fake brother, also shows this. He includes Henry in everything despite the fact that his presence has little value. H.W. was present in a similar manner earlier, but the boy's "sweet face" was at least an undeniably useful tool. Plainview understands the power of family, although he feels no such bond. His constant representation of himself as a "family business" attests to this. We know little of Plainviews's early family life, except that he left it as soon as possible and has no interest in talking about it. When Henry mentions his sister Annabelle, Plainview seems to respond warmly, yet his own father's death doesn't elicit a change in tone. Just before he kills Henry, he asks "Do I really have a brother?" with what appears to be deep interest, enough to put off killing Henry for a few moments.
Daniel despises falsehood, although it is a big part of his own image. His instant hatred of Eli, is the most direct example. Every liar in the world, is in a sense his "competitor" and Plainview's proudest accomplishment is that he is the smartest about it. "Inferior" falsehood angers him more than anything else. He doesn't flinch when killing Henry, or at the end when battering Eli. For him, this destruction is a need and compulsion, to crush his competition. This also comes up in his meeting with Standard Oil. His threat to cut Tilford's throat could be seen as a direct response to Tilford's feigned concern over Plainview's family. The idea of God, to Plainview is a tremendous falsehood, which makes hatred of Eli, especially intense.
While Daniel is certainly a capitalist, his capitalism serves his anarchist philosophy. He sees "nothing to like" in people and will only allow weakness in the interest of serving his ends. His main desire is to have enough money that he can isolate himself completely from the world. His distancing from H.W. shows his intolerance for weakness or defect. Although because being a human being, he cannot completely embrace this position, he does seem to have concern for H.W.'s welfare. His coldness stems as much from his not knowing how to deal with H.W.'s condition, as from the weakness, however. He attempts to speak to the boy, as if one of them is just not trying hard enough to speak/hear. Like family the concept is one he doesn't fully understand and doesn't have the patience to explore, as it keeps him away from his focus, the pursuit of more money, his means of isolation. Plainview is strong, smart and relentless. His main failing is that he isn't capable of a broad understanding of people or concepts that do not serve him. To him, they are obstacles which can't be crushed, and so can only be abandoned. Daniel Plainview sees himself as the ultimate authority on the world, and as such feels no need to check his anger. He accepts it and is very aware of the "building hatred" that comes with his approach.
The cumulative effect of it is finally unleashed on Eli, the living person he appears to hate most in the world. Eli acts as if they are peers, and this is not acceptable. The two have a long history of each man understanding the other's deceptive nature. Yet, they are not peers because while Daniel would claim to be his own authority, Eli credits God. Plainview's response when Eli asks a bonus "for his church" is telling. "Good one." he says. It's easy to imagine Plainview as an Evangelist, if he hadn't found silver one day. Eli breaking his role, and then his grovelling, is what assures his doom. As Plainview demonstrates when he claims that he himself is "The Third Revelation." and that he is "the chosen one." because he was the smartest. Eli comes to represent everything that Daniel despises in humanity and existence. He doesn't however, realize how much his hatred is part of his reason for being. Plainview enjoys his cruelty. His smirk while playing along with Eli, just waiting to reveal that he has beaten him as well as his amazingly contemptuous remarks, all come without much effort. He savors this destruction, and when it's finished, he realizes that he himself is finished as well, as he tells the butler. With H.W. gone, and Eli destroyed, and no "family" left, he is left with the problem of "what would I do then?" as he asked the reps from Standard Oil at one time. He has no more appearance to maintain as he has earned his isolation. He exists to make money, and to destroy his competition and both of these pursuits have come to their conclusions. So at that point, Plainview is lost, destroyed himself, although he may continue to live.
The film itself is a work of art. Although it's a period piece, it still feels relevant, mainly because of the great attention to detail and Plainview's impossibly large figure. P.T. Anderson, as usual uses the soundtrack to interesting affect, not relying on traditional background music, but using the background to drive the mood to a fever pitch. The environment feels authentic, the oil operation incredibly large, while the houses and spaces people otherwise inhabit are typically very small, until Plainview's house at the end. The movie Plainview's dialogue is incredibly sharp, showing us that as well as being physically imposing, this man can flay you with his tongue. Daniel Day-Lewis' performance here is truly one of a kind. He fills in the skin of this flawed monster, showing unimaginable menace with his inflections and his offhanded glares. He realizes that slapping Eli in public is far more humiliating than a regular beating. Even his choice of abuse shows the man's contempt. Every step the character takes is a reflection of the man. Despite it's vast settings the film is very much the tightest of character studies. Although the other actors involved all do their jobs impeccably, Plainview absorbs everything. Paul Dano as Paul/Eli is also quite good here, although like everyone else, he is diminished by the film's centerpiece, coming across as a weak contrast to Plainview. Where Plainview is large and effortlessly loud, Eli is slight and has to work for any volume, resorting to cheap theatrics to convince. Eli's deception is not convincing and he is so much weaker than Plainview, there is no doubt that he'll be destroyed.
There Will be Blood is certainly about Greed, deception, capitalism and false prophets, but not entirely. It's also about the difficulty of sustaining those absolutes. While it would be easy to believe that Plainview's character is unstoppable, he is not. It's his own force that destroys him. He enjoys "building the hatred" but there is nothing in the world that he loves. Isolation only gives him more space to drink and pass out wherever he likes, his money assuring that this will not be questioned. He spends much effort to be larger than life and can't possibly cope with the person he's built being contained when there is no destruction left to savor. Plainview can only hate humanity through its representatives. As such, he doesn't hate the church or God, he hates Eli, because he can be destroyed.
He can't destroy "family" or his need for it, so he settles for Frank and H.W. In the end the only thing that can bring him down is his own impossible weight, and it's in a sense, his amazing greed which consumes him. Whether the final scene is reality, or fantasy entirely produced by Plainview's own mind could be debated. I chose to view it literally, as the entire film is Plainview's experience. And the confrontation is very much his reality in any event. It's a fitting ending, as a hatred as great as his could only come from having himself as it's object. In some strange way, it's his own doom that he savors, satisfied in some small part that he himself performed it. He has exactly what he wanted, isolation from the world, muttering on the floor of his private alley having destroyed everything that was false within his reach.
