There Will Be Blood

I really liked the discussion after this movie; especially the comment someone made describing capitalism as being portrayed almost like a train that is rotting more and more as it moves forward. I think that would describe Daniel Plainview very accurately. His character is obsessively ambitious, hatefully prideful, and altogether very entertaining to watch as he attains his goal; to be successful enough to distance himself from just about everyone.

This movie seems very raw, not in the way it was filmed, as though it were true to reality- there's a literary artistic feel to it, making it a very colorful story- but I think the energy of it is something very raw, perhaps within the story itself or within Daniel Plainview himself. As Prof. Leeper pointed out, he's had this idea of what he's wanted ever since he was a child, seeing the neighbor's house and wanting to own it, to live in it. When he catches on to drilling as a means to that end, he pursues it relentlessly doing literally just about anything he can to reach the goal in his mind and prevent the competition from succeeding. His relationships seem to be primarily destructive, and his rival with the pastor, Eli, is one of the closest in the sense that they both have a common thread of that ambition. At one point, Eli even labels himself and Daniel as "brothers."

One of the themes we talked about was the idea of "blood." It's used a number of times,( to refer to relatives as by blood, or as Daniel used it to describe oil as "the blood of the land.") most importantly when Daniel is being baptized. The blood of the lamb, for us as Christians, has tremendous redemptive power, and that is referenced in this primary scene, and also has a connection to the latter part of the film.

Well, that's it. I'm not going to say much more about the story in general, so as not to give pieces away to those who haven't seen it yet.