There Will Be Blood

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I wrote this paper last quarter for a film music class.

“If I Say I Am an Oil Man, You Will Agree” – The Abortive Self-Deification of Daniel Plainview

“If I say I am an oil man, you will agree.” At first glance, it seems like nothing more than a harmless and matter-of-fact, though strangely constructed, statement of purpose and summary of personal identity. Daniel Plainview (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) is a fast-rising oil magnate in turn-of-the-century California with ambitious aspirations of expanding his operation to new territories. But in this key early moment in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, Plainview subtly plots the course of the rest of the film’s gradual, exploratory descent into Daniel’s fundamental drives and urges.

One would normally say “you would agree”, using the conditional form of the verb, but as the narrative progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that this usage of the declarative form was no accident. Daniel is revealed as a manipulative, paranoid, and ruthlessly ambitious man who struggles savagely to demolish any perceived competitor. Plainview, in his ironically animalistic quest for apotheosis, reveals most evidently the true essence of his sociopathic megalomania in his relationship with his adopted son H.W. and his false half-brother Henry, who are at different points in the film the two most important people in Plainview’s life. There are two particularly crucial scenes depicting Daniel’s interactions with these companions that are aided by deliberate musical and cinematic choices, furthering the audience’s understanding of Daniel’s psychology that fuels his ruthless ambitions and ultimately, his bitter downfall.

The director the film is Paul Thomas Anderson, whose previous works include Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Punch-Drunk Love. A self-taught filmmaker in the vein of Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh, he has been quoted as saying that he learned the craft through studying thousands of films along with director commentary. Anderson’s work is known for its focus on realistic, flawed characters and stories of dysfunctional families, loneliness, and alienation. He is regarded as one of the most dynamic and promising directors in recent years (Modell).

The composer of the film is Jonny Greenwood, best-known as a guitarist for the influential British rock band Radiohead which is known for its enormous fanbase as well as its consistent critical successes. Greenwood, a classically trained musician, was sent a copy of the film by Anderson. He returned a few weeks later with hours of music, much of which was directly scored into the film, although portions of it were taken from other existing compositions he had made. Greenwood’s only previous experience in film music was his work on the 2003 documentary Bodysong (Schiller).

The film spans the years 1898 through 1927, covering a period of enormous social and political upheaval in America broadly referred to as the Progressive Era. The reforms associated with this time are not portrayed in much detail, but nevertheless, this sociopolitical climate creates an effective canvas to paint a portrait of Plainview as a man. The years following the Civil War were a time of enormous economic and population growth in the United States that created the modern industrial economy. The corporation became the dominant form of business organization and business operations were transformed by new management philosophies (Sabin).

This tremendous growth in income and industrial production was fueled by ultra-rich businessmen like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan who were also decried by reformers as “robber barons”, who believed they cheated to get their money and used it to subjugate the common people. Progressive reformers of the time were concerned with, among other issues, corruption, the course of industrial modernization, and economic policy, seeking ways to combat the perceived unfairness of a system that, in a very short time, had radically transformed life in America. The film itself was inspired by Upton Sinclair’s Oil!; Sinclair is best known for his “muckraking” 1906 novel The Jungle, which condemned the corruption and poor health conditions of the meatpacking industry during this time. The fictional Plainview fits comfortably in this group of industrial capitalists, who were united by their singular motivation of self-aggrandizement and were often ruthlessly competitive in their pursuit (Sage).

Another important event in this time period was the early development of modern psychology, spearheaded by the groundbreaking work of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Wilhelm Wundt, and others. Freud, in particular, is well-known for his psychoanalytic theory which states that human behavior, experience and cognition are largely determined by innate, irrational, and largely unconscious drives (Quigley). The study of psychology dates back to ancient times, but its introduction into the laboratory setting did not occur until the late 1800s; this coincided with a rapid expansion in its scope as well as acceptance by the public. The concept of psychological disease (which Freud contended was a result of conflicts between conscious and unconscious approaches to reality) became more well-defined during this time as people began to accept that there was a much wider range of mental disorders than just insanity. As the film continues, it becomes increasingly clear that Daniel’s behavior fits the psychological definition of megalomania, a condition characterized by delusional fantasies of power, relevance, or omnipotence centered on the desire to be powerful and feared, rather than charming and loved (Mkokeli).

By the one-hour mark of the film, Daniel, who began as a run-of-the-mill silver miner, has by a combination of luck and personal will become the primary financier of a small and deeply pious community in rural central California in return for exclusive drilling rights at the town’s extremely productive oil well. By now, he has also spent a considerable amount of time with his adopted son H.W., who he begins to raise as his own after one of his workers dies in a drilling accident. H.W. is his close companion at all times, and Daniel is keen to begin educating him about business strategy from a young age. H.W. is a quick learner and Daniel proudly presents his son as his business partner, but he is careful never to mention the truth about their relationship. “I’m a family man; I run a family business. This is my son and my partner, H.W. Plainview…”

Unfortunately for Daniel, there is a crucial scene at this point in the film that will completely re-define his relationship with his son. On a seemingly ordinary day at the oil derrick, a sudden, thunderous explosion from the well causes H.W. to permanently lose his hearing. Daniel is devastated that he is no longer able to communicate with his son. But as he reveals in their subsequent interactions, it becomes clear that, from the beginning, Daniel was only interested in H.W. as a sort of receptacle, a person created in his own image that he could control but also confided in which is now no longer possible – his “creation” is now corrupted and unsalvageable.

The scene begins with a shot of Daniel’s workers tending to the oil drill and making sure everything is running smoothly. The camera zooms in toward the drill and then shifts slightly upward to show the diminutive H.W. calmly perched on the roof of the derrick. There is a brief cut to Daniel working quietly in his office a few hundred feet away from the well. The camera then returns to the well and closes in on the drill itself. Suddenly, at 1:00:44, the whole well begins to tremble violently, prompting the man closest to the drill to loudly warn his fellow workers to run. Immediately afterward, there is an extremely loud explosion, the force of which flings H.W. off the roof like a rag doll onto a lower part of the building. For a brief moment, the viewer is brought into H.W.’s new sound world, where nothing can be heard except a low, hissing breeze. The camera then cuts back to Daniel in his office, who immediately gets up and runs toward the well (which is now spouting an enormous tower of oil into the sky). Another one of Daniel’s workers has a head start; he runs toward the derrick and climbs the low roof that the now oil-drenched H.W. is lying on and hands him down to Daniel.

Up till this point, there has been no underscore. As soon as Daniel begins carrying his son away from the wreckage at 1:02:00, Greenwood’s “Convergence” (adapted from Bodysong) begins to play. The music begins with a tuned drum played in a simple, ostinato rhythm. As Daniel is dashing back to his office with his son in his arms, the tuned drum is quickly joined by progressive layers of additional percussion playing a similar rhythm, but each slightly out of time with one another. Two woodblocks, a shaker, snare, and cymbals enter the fray in a cacophonous but still rhythmic fashion with a depth of sound that fills the entire sonic space.

Upon returning to the office, Daniel tries to console his son and asks him repeatedly if he was hit in the head. H.W. struggles to respond and can only repeat twice that he cannot he hear his voice. In this cut, the two actors’ voices are given precedence over the score, which has retreated in volume. Daniel continues to console his son, telling him he is safe, but begins to realize that he has lost his hearing. Suddenly, at 1:03:25, there is another explosion at the derrick, this one creating a large tower of flame. This event signals the entrance of dissonant, buzzing violas which weave in and out of the score periodically and without warning. Daniel looks over at the derrick in visible distress and tries to tell H.W. that he has to leave briefly to tend to the well. H.W. cannot hear anything and panics as Daniel tries to leave, pleading desperately for him to stay. As Daniel exits the office, the music returns to full volume.

In the next few cuts, Daniel and his crew are shown trying to control the situation. There is one cut with the still camera pointed upward at the tower of flame as daylight starts to disappear. At 1:05:37, there is a frontal medium close-up of Daniel and one of his lieutenants Fletcher Hamilton gasping for breath while staring at the wreckage, their faces illuminated by the flames. Daniel, who is completely covered in oil, looks over and barks, “What are you looking so miserable about? There’s a whole ocean of oil under our feet! No one can get at it except for me!” At 1:06:18, the percussion arrangement is suddenly reduced to just two impact notes per bar with the actual instruments mixed together difficult to distinguish; the timbre has a mechanical quality that sounds like metal doors slamming, and also conjures the oil drill. Following this, at 1:06:34, the camera returns to Daniel and Fletcher, who asks Daniel if H.W. is okay; Daniel’s reply is three words: “No he isn’t”. Fletcher leaves presumably to check on H.W. while the camera zooms in on Daniel’s oil-soaked face staring with an animal-like expression at the wreckage. By now, the sun has set completely.

At 1:06:40, the metallic percussion is joined by a clamorous low brass and string undercurrent. The whole underscore begins increasing in resonance and becomes more claustrophobic and enveloping. This sonic backdrop serves as a bridge to the next cut where it is daylight again and Daniel orders his men to blow up what is left of the derrick with dynamite to put an end to the fire. The percussive backdrop of the score remains more or less the same throughout the scene, with periodic flourishes and swells of strings and low brass playing dissonant cacophonous runs sometimes and fragmented and disjointed outbursts of notes at other times. The longer string and brass phrases throughout the scene end in briefly sustained clear notes.

The music ends cleanly with the planned explosion and the only sound remaining is the breezing wind as the camera focuses on Daniel with a pipe in his mouth, pensively observing the scene. Up to this point, everything in Daniel’s life had gone according to plan and he had found himself in a comfortable position sitting atop an extremely productive oil well and cheating the townspeople of the community without most of them even realizing it – perhaps the part that satisfied him the most. The tragic outcome of this scene marks the first definitive point in Daniel’s protracted, erosive downfall.

If the visuals are taken alone at the beginning of the scene, it seems like just another day at the oil drill and it also seems that H.W. probably uses his perch atop the roof frequently to observe and learn. The workers are nonchalant in their management of the well, and Daniel is calmly working in his office. But recognition of the sparse and naked sound world in this moment – there is no underscore in the beginning and the only sound is coming from the ponderous churning and grinding noise of the drill – causes a reinterpretation of the scene as eerie and unsettling, with a hint that something is amiss. Instead of careless and almost whimsical, H.W.’s position on the roof now seems precarious and the groaning of the drill now seems menacing. Within moments, this nagging unease is proved valid as the well suddenly begins to rumble. As Plainview begins to carry his son away from the wreckage, Greenwood’s off-beat percussive underscore begins. In this moment, the music functions as a reflection of the mind state of Daniel, H.W., and all his employees – panicked and fearful of the immediate consequences of this accident.

Upon returning to the office, Plainview tries to talk to his son with the camera angle alternating between his son’s face and Plainview’s face. However, from H.W.’s perspective, the viewer hears nothing but the throbbing, insistent music even as Plainview’s mouth moves. When Plainview realizes his son cannot understand him, the music suddenly changes to a deep, bass, piano crescendo, reflecting the failure of Daniel’s voice in this situation, his most powerful tool. Earlier in the film, Plainview had demonstrated his need to be understood by his son, after they first discovered oil on the property. In this scene, Plainview explains to H.W. his plan to build a pipeline and do a deal with Union Oil to cut back on shipping costs in order to make the “real money.” He then asks his son: “Do you see?” Skeptical of H.W.’s simple one word affirmative answer, Plainview repeats himself: “Do you see?” It is imperative for him that his voice be understood and affirmed in its authority. This sudden event has stripped him of this power over his son.

In fact, in the first twenty minutes of the film, there is no dialogue at all. Daniel is merely an average silver miner; he literally and figuratively has no voice in this part of the film. However, he is also the first to speak, and this is correlated with the beginnings of his success. Once he does acquire his “voice”, Daniel demonstrates a declarative and indicative way of speaking to others; he is very firm, deliberate, and commanding.

The landscape cinematography in this scene (as well as throughout the rest of the film) is a reflection of Daniel’s deep loneliness. The derrick stands alone presiding threateningly over the rest of the town and the camera’s upward-looking perspective emphasizes this distance and alienation between this symbol of Daniel’s power and the rest of the community. After discovering Henry’s treachery, Daniel is shown alone on the crest of a violent wave that engulfs the camera. The rest of the settings in the film include lonely trees and wide open spaces of empty and barren landscapes, further representations of Plainview’s alienation.

At 1:06:18, there is a reduction in orchestration to the point that the basic pounding rhythm is foregrounded just as Daniel expresses to Fletcher his excitement about the situation. As Fletcher leaves, the camera zooms in to Daniel’s illuminated, oil-covered face, highlighting the most subtle moment of acting in this scene. He is squinting slightly with a mixed expression of excitement and anxiety on his face, contemplating his financial future and the new opportunities his luck has brought him. Discovering the “ocean of oil” has suppressed all his other emotions; the instruments have gradually come together and are now playing simultaneously, and the straightforward rhythm becomes so insistent and ponderous that it has become extremely unsettling. With the planned final explosion, six minutes of penetrative musical and narrative tension are finally released.

Henry does not enter Daniel’s life until some time after he has begun seeing success. Henry is a drifter who has struggled to find any substance in his life and explains to Daniel how much he would appreciate the opportunity to work for him, showing him their mother’s diary as evidence of his identity. He quickly proves to be a worthy companion and earns Daniel’s confidence. But one day while relaxing at the beach, Daniel makes a casual reference to his hometown of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin which Henry seems not to understand. Daniel becomes silently enraged, beginning to realize that the person sitting next to him has been merely pretending to be his half-brother and that he has been fooled all this time. In this moment, the film score and cinematography work to simultaneously reflect and enhance the mood of treachery, fury, and suspicion that has suddenly seized Daniel, in such a way that the audience is adequately primed for Henry’s imminent demise.

The beach scene begins with the two men diving into the ocean; Daniel first, and Henry shortly after. The two are in high spirits after securing a lucrative deal with Union Oil – Henry is vocally ecstatic while Daniel is more reserved, with a triumphant and satisfied smile on his face as the two men drift lightly on the relatively calm waves. Music begins at 1:39:27 with a solo violin playing long tones with a heavy and insistent vibrato. As Daniel begins swimming away from the camera, the dialogue from the next cut begins. The violin has remained alone up till this point and a few more strings are now added to the mix.

The next cut shows the two men sitting on the sand relaxing as Daniel nostalgically recalls childhood memories and desires for a particular beautiful house in his hometown of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. “I thought, when I was a boy, that was the most beautiful house I’d ever seen and I wanted it.” The music is very subdued and sparse here at the beginning of the conversation and there is a directionless quality to it with an absence of discernible melodies throughout – it is also mostly overwhelmed by the sound of waves crashing on the shore. The camera angles throughout the scene are mostly close-ups of each man’s face as they speak and they are both well-lit throughout. Henry is sitting slightly behind Daniel, so Daniel turns and looks over his shoulder to speak. Henry comments that Daniel has the means to buy whatever he wants now and asks where he will build his dream house. As the conversation continues, the eerie, unresolved, and confined quality of the score is enhanced by the slow and gradual addition of a larger range of strings. There is a pulsating quality to the music – it subtly expands and contracts in volume and depth of instrumentation much like the rhythm of the waves on the shore, which are still overpowering the score in volume. The dialogue between the two men is much louder than both the waves and the music.

After a brief lull in the conversation, Henry suggests they leave for food and prostitutes – there is indication in the following scene that these are frequent urges of his. Still in a reflective and placid mood, Daniel quips that they could “take them to the Peachtree dance”, apparently a casual inside reference to his hometown. Henry, who had previously been reclining on his arms, is now sitting up with his head in his lap and does not initially respond. Daniel, who obviously feels his joke deserved more of a response, repeats the statement. Henry looks up, idles for a moment, and finally responds with a feeble “yeah”, and puts his head back down again. Daniel looks away satisfied, but a moment later (1:41:15), there is a sudden, stark transformation in his expression. He looks back at Henry and then looks away again while an anguished grimace forms over his face as he begins to realize that the person sitting next to him is an impostor. At this point, the music begins a steady crescendo and expansion of instrumentation, never again retreating in volume as it did earlier in the scene. Horns enter subtly, meshing with the established string presence. There is a relatively quiet, but screeching violin playing an ostinato rhythm on one very high note beginning at 1:41:21 – this coincides with the subtle change in Daniel’s facial expression, as his fury and recognition of the situation begin to crystallize.

The camera zooms out to a medium close up that includes both men; Henry with his head down and Daniel, now also looking down, but with his chest heaving in anger. Daniel then stands up and walks toward the water off-screen leaving Henry where he is. The well-established foundation of nebulous strings is now joined by a fully-emerged bass playing a long bowed note as well as a quivering, dissonant French horn note. After a few moments, Henry finally lifts his head and looks out, presumably at Daniel who is now off-camera, then back down again, with his face obscured by shadow. The camera remains still during this cut. The dissonance of the French horn is aided at first by long, bowed violin notes, and then finally a muted trumpet that rapidly becomes the loudest instrument in the mix and the most prominent feature of the musical bridge into the next scene.

In the next cut, there is a medium close-up of Daniel back in the ocean with the camera at water level with a look of intense fury on his face. The waves are much more turbulent and a particularly large one lifts him up and carries him over the view of the camera, engulfing the camera in the process. By the end of the scene, the musical score greatly overwhelms all other sounds in volume.

The interplay of sonic and visual elements of this scene serves as an effective aid to the viewer’s understanding of the extremely subtle acting technique employed by the two characters, which is in stark contrast to the fast-paced action of the first scene. The musical score functions as a sonic reflection of Daniel’s inner thoughts and emotions as the scene progresses, serving as a barometer for Daniel’s emotional intensity. Similarly, the camera point of view and specific angles employed enhance the presentation of each man’s subtle actions and emotions.

The scene begins with the two men floating amongst relatively calm waves; a reflection of their cheerful and light mood. Although possessing a certain unresolved character, the music here is also relatively tranquil and carefree, again a reflection of Daniel’s overall mind state in this moment – elated, but prudently wary as always. On the shore, the beginning of the conversation they have about Daniel’s dream house is more or less trivial – this is supported by the directionless, meandering quality of the music. However, the subtle expansion and contraction of volume in the music midway through the conversation hints at and reminds the viewer of Daniel’s volatility. This works reflexively and cooperatively with the setting itself, with the ocean waves also serving as a reflection of the mercurial quality of Daniel’s emotions – one moment composed, the next irate. Up until the beginning of Daniel’s realization, the music remains secondary in volume to both the dialogue and the waves crashing on the shore, an indication of Daniel’s somewhat loose and carefree attitude at this moment.

There are some quiet indications of the coming events in the moments before Henry gives himself away. Well-lit individual close-ups have been employed throughout the scene as an instruction to the viewer to pay close attention to each man’s body language. At 1:40:55 in particular, there is a close-up of Daniel obscured by Henry’s head. Gradually, the camera pans slightly to allow more of Daniel into the frame. This new perspective juxtaposes the two men and hints at differences between them. Another indication is that Daniel has been looking over his shoulder to speak with Henry throughout the scene. Because of his paranoid personality, he is incapable of fully trusting anyone, including Henry, and he has to “look over his shoulder” during conversation to subconsciously make sure he is not being crossed. Henry’s actions also have a subconscious character to them. In the earlier, superficial portion of the conversation, he is laying back on his arms, “laying low” about his false identity. As Henry leans forward when changing the subject to food and women, he is inadvertently beginning to “come forward” with the truth.

The screeching violin begins very low in the mix just as Daniel begins to grasp the reality of the situation (1:41:21). What was idle conversation has suddenly become gravely significant. This is the same point where the volume of the music relative to the sound of the waves begins to increase and will gradually drown out most other sounds. As Daniel stands up and walks away, Henry is left alone with his head down, obscured by shadow, an indication of his imminent demise. The long, bowed bass note as Daniel walks away gives a fullness to the score that was previously absent, and also portrays Daniel’s “full” realization of the situation. The screeching but quiet violin heard earlier disappears, but it is replaced by the dissonant French horn and bowed violin notes, demonstrating Daniel’s rising, simmering fury. This eventually resolves into the clarity of a prominent muted trumpet note, indicating the full crystallization of Daniel’s wrath. The next cut shows Daniel again amongst the waves which are now quite violent, with one carrying him over the camera and engulfing it in the process, a clear demonstration of Daniel’s radically altered mood. Similarly, by the end of the scene, the volume of the music is overpowering, a reflection of Daniel’s emotions having taken full control.

This scene begins and ends in the ocean, mirroring the fact that it begins and ends with Daniel experiencing intense levels of emotion, although they are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Like other scenes in the film, this one gradually reveals Daniel’s megalomaniacal personality – he is impulsive, aggressive, paranoid, and ruthless enough to promptly murder his reliable companion in cold blood because of an all-consuming fury from being betrayed. The audience is gradually led to this conclusion with the aid of the interaction of sound and vision employed throughout the scene.

Daniel’s interactions with everyone in his life reflect his pursuit of control and influence, a reflection of his delusions of omnipotence. For Daniel, H.W. losing his hearing is irreconcilable and perhaps the worst outcome possible because Daniel can longer exert his power and influence with his voice. Everything about H.W. to this point has been a fabrication. Daniel has concocted a story about his son’s mother dying in childbirth for those who ask. He is not his biological son, and H.W. might not even be his real name. By the end of the scene, it seems that Daniel is more interested in the financial windfall that the well explosion brings than the health of his son, as he presumably spends the entire night staring at the derrick in satisfaction while others are dispatched to care for H.W. In subsequent scenes, Daniel demonstrates drastically reduced patience in dealing with his son and treats him more callously. When he meets Henry, a previously distressing decision to send H.W. off to boarding school for his condition becomes relatively casual.

Throughout their short relationship, the impostor presents himself to Daniel as a soft-spoken, self-effacing, and broken man, crushed by the weight of his own failures. Despite the impostor’s claim of blood ties, it seems strange that Daniel develops such an immense level of trust in his new companion in such a short time, when the narrative has thus far shown that the only other person he considers even tolerable is H.W. A critical approach based on the growing assumption throughout the film about Daniel’s pursuit of deification reveals that he is merely diverting his “creative” energies from his thwarted attempt to mold his son to a new, malleable subject. The lifeless Henry is an acceptable replacement for H.W. only because his humbling failures have eliminated his ambition, and thus he presents no threat or competition to Daniel’s dominance in the future. After murdering the impostor, Daniel weeps in agony, mourning a bitter sense of betrayal over the fact that the impostor was not really “blood”, and coming to a growing realization of the utter loneliness of his pursuit of apotheosis.

By the end of the film, about thirty years have passed, and Daniel has become a disheveled alcoholic living alone in his lonesome mansion. He is in complete disarray and gnaws at his plate of food like a beast. H.W., now a full-grown man, pays a visit and brings his translator with him, who mediates his conversation with his father in sign language. H.W. explains that he wants to start his own oil business because he has heard of lucrative opportunities in Mexico. In his crazed stupor, the prospect of competing with his “son” definitively drives Daniel over the edge and causes him to spitefully reveal the truth of their relationship, telling H.W. that he is nothing more than an orphan, a “bastard in a basket.” As Plainview says earlier in the film, “I see the worst in people. I don’t need to look past seeing them to get all I need.” Daniel has a “plain view” about others that has left him completely and utterly alone. Competition undermines his illusion of godhood and completes, in his eyes, the corruption of the son he had sought to create in his own image. He severs his relationship with H.W., who storms out as his father’s repeated parting words echo through the halls of the cold, secluded mansion. Daniel’s two attempts to artificially “will blood” into existence have failed – his most sincere attempts at close relationships have proved to be nothing more than lifeless, fabricated illusions and his descent into madness is complete.

Works Cited
Mkokeli, Sam. “Megalomiacs abound in politics/medicine/finance.” BusinessDay. 07 Jan 2011: n. page. Web. 10 Dec. 2011. .
Modell, Josh. “Interview: Paul Thomas Anderson.” A.V. Club [Chicago] 2 Jan 2008, n. pag. Web. 11 Nov. 2011. .
Quigley, T.R.. “A Brief Outline of Psychoanalysis.” . N.p., 1998. Web. 10 Dec 2011. .
Sage, Russell. “Industrial and Railroad Consolidations.” North American Review. 172.534 (1901): 641-700. Web. 11 Nov. 2011. .
Sabin, Paul. Crude politics: the California oil market, 1900-1940. . University of California Press, 2004. Web. Schiller, Mike. “Jonny Greenwood: There Will Be Blood.” PopMatters. 28 Jan 2008: n. page. Web. 11 Nov. 2011..

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