There Will Be Blood Essay

499 Words2 Pages
The film There Will Be Blood directed by Paul Thomas Anderson in 2007 depicts the oil industry through a father and his supposed son. It shows the dangers of drilling for oil and the tears it creates in relationships, which can be conveyed directly by H.W. losing his hearing and being sent away to learn sign language. Near the end of the film after being away for a few years, H.W. returns to Daniel Plainview’s estate. The scene reveals the dark, lonely, yet material object filled home as the camera-work follows H.W. to his father’s dark, enclosed study. The tension is immediate after H.W. requests to speak with his father in private, but Plainview insists that his associate hears everything and teases H.W. about his translator insisting he…show more content…
Plainview jumps to the competitive nature of the oil industry stating, “this makes you my competitor” and shows he is constantly a businessman and concerned with being on top even if that means competing against the boy he has raised(Anderson). On the other hand, H.W. is concerned with keeping his professional life separate from his family replying with “I’d rather keep you as my father than as a partner”(Anderson). Plainview is consistently insisting H.W.’s decision makes them competitors exposing his priorities and his concern with being the best that can be seen throughout the film. Although Plainview is concerned with being the best, that is not the case with H.W. and his comment about keeping him as a father reveals that H.W. values family over his work and is also displayed by Mary going with him to Mexico. Plainview doesn’t seem to have the ideals that H.W. possesses, instead he bases everything on being the best and competing. Plainview may hold these characteristics because he has built his business and life from nothing and he values what he has created and is afraid to lose it but there is a sharp contrast between H.W. and Plainview. H.W. holds family and his passion for his work close to heart and is going to build his own business from the ground up, but he holds a knowledge of the oil industry that Plainview didn’t have when he
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