Allegorically, they could represent the archetypal American man as it appears in the founding myths of the nation: the “self-made man” and the missionary, in other words, the plutocrat and the religious fanatic, both manipulative and even criminals. Two sinners in their own way – outside the opposite, basically similar. Because in the end, these characters are of the same nature, to both of the same coin. Apocalyptic in the procession called by such a title, Daniel Plainview is the torchbearer of the threat, and Eli Sunday (Paul Dano, excellent), that of prophecy, the two complement each other and even merge. Is this a threat? In a prophecy? From a simple prediction? A little of this, no doubt. To better understand these characters back to the title. The film is also a cosmological film about a man’s psyche. This character embodies an archetype fascinating but ultimately classic, only more outrageous than other films, its lack of justification, its radical make even scary. Misanthropy is there like a block from the depths of time, or the substance of the soul. No psychologizing, much less psychoanalysis. We will never know exactly why: we do not learn about his past. The key to this character mute, rigid, stubborn, seems impenetrable when found: this is an incurable misanthrope. It was during this stage that Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) said: “I do not like people.” He insists: “The more I watch the men, the less I like them. Such spectral apparitions, quivering faces seem to float in the darkness, and even come. Sometimes you just guess the shapes of the body, the glow of a flame, tenuous but persistent, has dangled in the faces. Besides the many fades to black, there are countless plans obscure that they are nocturnal and underground. While the plans outside, bathed in a light almost full, are legion, but in contrast, they make all the more patent the darkness of an image as invaded by the clay. In the same way, the earth, with its thick texture and dark, contaminating the image. Oil, as a promise of wealth, contaminates the mind. Oil: the blood of the land – referred to in the title. Oil gushes into streams explosives, causing fear and fascination, when one digs into the bowels of the earth. The marriage of these two elements are embodied in the earthly avatar of the element that is oil. At its core, two raw materials: earth and fire. There Will Be Blood is then directed a concrete physical space and consistent. That is to say that this film invented and deployed, shot by shot, a cosmos in itself, a physical universe. The opening of the film, mineral, sensory, immediately gives the tone: There Will Be Blood is a cosmogonic film. Even if the oil meets their expectations and made their fortunes, nothing will be as before: the tensions are intensified, conflicts occur and human values like love, hope, sense of community, beliefs, ambition and even the relationship between father and son is imperiled by corruption, betrayal … and oil. Lost in this place where everyone struggles to survive and where the only distraction is the church led by the charismatic priest Eli Sunday, Plainview and his son understand the city will be an easy pray. Daniel Plainview goes in a small town of California where he hopes finding oil in the ground.
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