Grand Prix 2008

Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood":
To Be and To Have
By Jorge Morales

In one scene from There Will Be Blood, oil baron Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) asks, startled as he studies a map with one of his lackeys, why there is a territory that does not belong to him. "Why isn't it mine?" he rebukes. It's not that Daniel Plainview wants to take over the land, but that he is incapable of establishing any distance between what he has and what he wants. That is the difference between greed and envy: Plainview does not covet another's property; he considers that no one has the right to possess something that he desires. One cannot feel envious if one despises or scorns the others' existence. Not only does Plainview not want what belongs to another; he does not want that person to exist. It is an even more egocentric and perverted thirst for power than that of a despotic entrepreneur who just wants to accumulate wealth. Plainview is a predator, someone who wants to trample without resistance. At some point he says something like "I don't want anyone else to be successful". The funny thing is — and here lies the great merit of the complex personality designed by Paul Thomas Anderson — that Plainview is presented early in the film as a sensible, hard-working person who is able to give and to receive affection. And it's not just a performance to fool the people he wants to swindle out of their lands, by selling his relationship with his son (who he introduces as his partner). Plainview's love is honest and intimate but, as it is later shown, not at all faithful and inalienable; it goes through crises each time his interests are at stake. If he must choose between an oil well in trouble and his ill son, he does not hesitate for a second about leaving the boy for later. In that sense, the film's title can both refer to the subterranean violence that never manifests explicitly and completely (such as Plainview's terrifying spoken threats), and to the weakness of filial bonds, which open and close up like oil wells.

Plainview is a lot like Charles Foster Kane (Citizen Kane, 1941), another baron who was incapable of sympathizing with another man's desire or pain. These characters are so focused on their goals, on satisfying their appetite, that they can only establish relationships that go beyond mere utility (like we can later see in the relationship that Plainwood has with his supposed brother) once they have control, order and peace, and once their everyday challenges do not interfere dramatically with the development of their projects. But unlike Kane, who grew up amid wealth and tries to buy happiness (or its illusion) and generate power through his money (mere egotistical arrogance, in any case), Plainview wants to become rich to get away from people, and wants power just to make sure no one else can exert any kind of subjugation. It's true that the dream is consistent with those who have lived in misery and oppression. And this could be part of Plainview's possible and imaginable past, that Anderson's film wisely leaves out. But whether wealth has been inherited or gained does not change the way it can be enjoyed, even if the goals are different like in these cases. Because it is not money that perverts; perversion comes from its use. In other words, both Kane and Plainview suffer from an affective handicap and both of them use money as a prosthesis; and through this use they corrupt their identity and emotions. When Plainview decides to get away from his son, so he is not forced to give him the attention and love he should be giving him, it is because he can do it; he has the money to do it.

Anderson's approach is solid, especially at the beginning of the film. It is structured with magnificent sobriety (an extraordinary speechless segment), invaded only by an excessively dramatic soundtrack that, though it creates a rare and sinister atmosphere, is somehow even premonitory of the way Anderson greases the film towards the end. Because as Anderson discloses elements that better illustrate Plainview's personality (during the first forty minutes we have a hint of Plainview's character, but it is still not clear enough), the film starts finding more predictable solutions such as the unmasking of the relationship with his brother.

Anderson had a work that could have been a much tighter and accurate portrait of greed, but finally gives in to theatricality through a surprise twist too close to the commonplace of the demented millionaire drowning in his own decay. Nevertheless, Daniel Day-Lewis's brilliant impersonation –he even adopts a tone of voice completely different from his own- is so resounding that his mere presence is “enjoyed” like one of the most disquieting portrayals of pure evilness.

Jorge Morales
© FIPRESCI 2008

Adapted from the text published in Spanish in Revista de Cine Mabuse.cl.

Chilean critic Jorge Morales is the editor-in-chief of Revista de Cine Mabuse.

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