I'm an Oilman
"I'm an oilman, ladies and gentlemen." I can still hear the deep voice of Daniel Plainview in my head. Daniel Day-Lewis delivers what I consider his best role — better even than Lincoln, which set the bar very high. There are so many things about this film I want to discuss that I don't know where to start. So instead of going through everything, I will point to three things that I think were absolutely brilliant in There Will Be Blood.
Daniel Plainview is a private person. He does not like to share anything about himself — even less his feelings. Still, a perceptive viewer will have no problem reading most of it from his face. He keeps his close circle as small as possible. Trusts no one. We get to see a successful man in his becoming, his journey, his evolution — and we get to witness the price he pays for it. Day-Lewis plays all of this without a single false note. It is a performance of extraordinary internal precision.
Then there is the relationship between Daniel and Eli. Poor Eli — a modest shepherd caring for his flock on one side, the devilish oilman followed by death, fire, and an absolute lack of faith on the other. What the viewer is actually experiencing is a battle for power. In a small and poor town you must answer to the community's needs, and those needs are easily manipulated. Because both Eli and Daniel see through each other's tricks, we get to witness a great exchange of wits — two operators who recognise each other completely and despise what they see.
The whole relationship finds its final in a bowling alley. A scene that is as hilarious as it is tragic — and one of the great endings in American cinema.
What Anderson traces with such patience is Daniel's mental journey. We meet him at the beginning of his oily adventure: hard-working, devoted, focused. The Oilman is driven and precise — he plans everything while building his empire, and he is evermore thirsty. Money is not important to him. He just likes winning for the sake of it.
But then he welcomes his brother into his life and business. He must get lonely, one might think — and maybe one is even right. He opens up. He admits that he hates most people. That he doesn't want others to succeed. This obsession starts to consume him with accelerating pace when he discovers his brother is a phony, and kills him for it without a blink. Not that lonely, then. He sends his son away when he becomes a burden. He is finally alone. He succeeded in pushing everyone away. But he has his black gold — full of hate, greed, and bitterness in a glorious mansion.
Is it a masterpiece? I'm not so sure — but it comes bloody close. The story, the acting, the picture, the music. Maybe it is a masterpiece after all.
This film comes together brilliantly as a whole. Anderson gives Day-Lewis the space and the time — 158 minutes of it — to let Plainview become something genuinely monstrous, and the film never flinches from what it has created. It earns its ending. And that ending, in a bowling alley, with a milkshake, is one for the ages.