Sunday Afternoon Cinema: There Will Be Blood (2007)

This film starring Daniel Day Lewis was a bit in the shot in the dark for me. I hadn't seen it before, and I happened across it in a list of recommend films for me from on my digital television. I looked at the blurb and thought: what the heck. It sounded interesting as a concept for a film, and I wondered if it would give me occasion to write something. I wasn't disappointed.

There Will Be Blood is remarkable in that it is a decidedly non-politically correct film and while it doesn't break too many taboos in formal terms with its tale of the ruthless and friendless oil entrepreneur Daniel Plainview. It breaks a lot more of them informally. Here we find no female leads and no random a-historical 'minorities' inserted into the script. It is just a plain good old-fashioned film based on a novel by Upton Sinclair about the dark underbelly of capitalism and the kind of people and behaviour that it rewards.

You can take that as you will, but it is worth remembering that when Upton Sinclair published his novel. Capitalism was very much on the defensive against more statist views of economics more broadly and Corporative and Marxist views more specifically. The interesting thing about that is that Sinclair wrote about that same underbelly of society that is created by capitalism (which let’s face it always wants something for nothing if it can get it) in terms of a European society not a 'multicultural' society.

He foresaw that capitalism was essentially blind to any kind of discrimination other than profit so that all that matters is if one meets next quarters targets not the long-term health of the company or the impacts of decisions to render more profitability have on broader society. I remember reading in Simpson's 'Which Way Western Man?' the author's autobiographical account of his working with the waste products of this essentially selfish way of understanding the world. He talks of the mixed-race underclass that was created by throwing together different racial groups in dire poverty and the desperation that resulted from it led to the destructive mixing of the races as well as the spread of left-wing, egalitarian ideas.

That those ideas are pushed heavily by jews is perhaps unnecessary to state, but further evidence can be seen in There Will Be Blood since it lacks the usual jewish directors and scripts writers: seemingly being a non-jewish affair. As such it is a fresh of cinematic fresh air and a rather pleasant way to spend two hours or thereabouts.