There Will Be Blood: In Relation to Daniel Plainview

There Will Be Blood: In Relation to Daniel Plainview

There are a lot of elements in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood that make it special. It is excellently approached aesthetically (receiving the Academy Award for Best Cinematography), has a very intriguing setting, and is scored masterfully. However, what makes this film so rich and interesting to watch is more a study in its characters and the relationships between them. Daniel Plainview, the protagonist of the film, is an antihero. He is not a likeable character. He is so corrupted by greed and by power that his almost crazed obsessions (with a couple catalysts) drive him totally over the edge by the end of the film. Furthermore, each relationship between Daniel and the other main characters in the film tends to be very revealing about Daniel as a character. The relationship perhaps the most stationary throughout the film is his with his son, H.W. Although the relationship evolves throughout the story, H.W. is always going to affect his father in some way. In the beginning and through most of the film, Daniel Plainview evidently loves his son. Some may argue with me on this, especially after their relationship descends into Daniel screaming, “Bastard in a basket,” after his son and telling H.W. that the only reason he was kept around was for a cute face with which to buy land. However, I feel that this is more out of hurt than anything else after his son played such a pivotal role in his life. For example, during his baptism Daniel is visibly upset when he is forced to exclaim repeatedly how he has abandoned his child. But when H.W. is shipped off to school, Daniel turns to the man that he thinks is his half brother, Henry. Henry seems to fill a void that H.W. has left, and Daniel opens up to him about his general dislike about most people and his competitiveness. The feelings are seemingly not reciprocated, however, which sets off Daniel’s growing suspicion about his “brother” and leads to him murdering his false relative. Perhaps it’s not Henry’s betrayal itself but rather the nature of it; his deception cuts so deep into Daniel at this point in time–having just exposed his innermost thoughts and feelings–that it sets off this rash reaction. Both of these relationships are hugely important, but the antagonist to Daniel’s antihero is Eli Sunday, son of the Sunday ranch’s owner and manipulative teenage preacher. On the surface, Eli is well demeanored and educated, but has his own vices and concerns that are in conflict with Daniel’s. Their relationship builds on mutual disrespect (much of the active disrespect on Daniel’s part), becoming less passive aggressive and more just aggressive until it explodes and Daniel bashes Eli’s head in with a bowling pin in a fit of rage in the final moments of the film. The relationship between Daniel and Eli is particularly interesting as ultimately, both of them are willing to do whatever they need to to get what they want, but approach it in very different ways. However, in the crazed final scene, Daniel still emerges our hero and Eli our villain, and as an audience you find yourself once again cheering for someone, when you think about it, you don’t know if you should be.