There will be blood (dir.Paul Thomas Anderson)

Painting Pictures of Hatred , Greed , and Deception

Through Oil and Blood

An Study of Scenography in Paul Anderson 's There Will Be Blood

I . Introduction

The year 2007 saw the production and release of several notable films and one of these is There Will Be Blood , written and directed by Paul Anderson . This movie takes after a novel by Upton Sinclair entitled Oil (1927 , which , as the book 's title suggests , maintains the discovery of oil as a backdrop , and hunger for power as its driving force

Sinclair 's Oil

! narrates the story of James Arnold Russ , Jr . or Bunny whose father is an oil magnate . Using the Teapot Dome Scandal that plagued Southern California in the early 1900s as a source of reason for the novel 's reality and conflict , Sinclair showcased the growing tension and distance between Bunny and his father , since the former expressed sympathy towards his family 's employees and workers . There Will Be Blood uses some of the elements and details in the novel , with the established presence of father-and-son representative characters

However , unlike Oil ! which is primarily the story of a son 's values and views in relation to his father 's , There Will Be Blood centers on the point of view of the father , named Daniel Plainview . As a small-time silver prospector , Daniel made his first attempts at success through his accidental discoveries of hidden oil wells . During one of his exploratory diggings , one of his workers is accidentally killed - which led to Daniel 's eventual adoption of his orphaned son . Being the shrewd businessman he was , Daniel used his new son to win new leases on oil-filled land by positioning the boy as his business partner . At once , the targeted landowners and oil companies were won over by Daniel 's projection as a family man with strong values , and whose business ethics included the transference of know-how and authority to his only son

A young man named Paul Sunday soon approached Daniel with an important tip : that his family 's Little Boston property was filled with oil . This suggestion brought Daniel and his son , H . W , to secretly travel to the identified land and pose as quail hunters . Soon enough , they discover the abundance of oil in the Sunday property . As Daniel almost becomes successful at purchasing the land from Paul 's father Abel , Paul 's twin brother Eli appears and easily recognizes Daniel 's true objectives Being a church preacher , Eli required Daniel to donate a huge amount to the church in for him to finally buy their family 's property True to his shrewdness , Daniel only agrees to half

Daniel immediately gets leases on the ranches surrounding the Sunday 's save for the lone property of old William Bandy . To Bandy 's request that Daniel talk to him in person , Daniel refuses and proceeds with his plans . On the other hand , Eli acts on his own plans of action as the leader of his own church , which he called...