There Will Be Blood uses three stories to examine hypocrisy and ambition. First, an egg seller accuses his competitors of being “sinners” to raise prices. The second depicts a man who makes money by pretending to be an orphanage. In the third, a priest denounces the troubles in a nearby town as “God’s judgment” but calls them “a test from God.” Each story reveals a new level of deception, showing how faith is exploited and morality is twisted by money.
Despite Eli Sunday’s best efforts to represent faith, the final battle is won by capitalism and commerce, with Daniel Plainview acting as their ruthless champion. The film explores a society marked by cold-blooded tactics, shady dealings, false values, and pure greed set against a grim backdrop of the late 1800s to the mid-1900s. Daniel rises from the depths of poverty—dirty and ruthless—ending up in a grand but empty mansion. He rejects his son, HW, as he crushes any religious façade pretending to be pure or capitalist.
Here, morality is a murky concept. Who is the “good guy”? In the end, Daniel forces Eli, his rival, to admit he is a false prophet. He uses the “milkshake and straw” analogy to show how he drains the land’s oil, a metaphor for blood, through pipelines. Daniel makes Eli admit that God is only a tool. Eli, who was inspired by faith, loses everything when he is unable to maintain his money and power.
As Daniel’s “Third Revelation,” Eli holds fast to his religion and church. It all wraps up in a bowling alley, like a final chess move, with only the king standing. Daniel, the ultimate business titan, is more complex and morally distant than any character we will find.
Finally, There Will Be Blood explores an oil baron’s religious hypocrisy, fanaticism, and evil intentions, influenced by Upton Sinclair’s Oil!. Daniel’s strengths and weaknesses in this tale of unbridled ambition are his love of ever-increasing wealth and his dislike of competition.
We are immediately drawn in from the first ten minutes, which depict a gruesome battle with chaotic and materialistic components. Daniel Plainview uses a young child, HW, as an asset along the route to build trust and establish a relationship with the public. Daniel sacrifices a lot: injuries, losses, and destruction pile up as he climbs to power.
Daniel does not hate religion. Instead, he is proof that morality does not apply to him. He stays laser-focused on his goals and rarely gets sidetracked when negotiating with others. In the memorable dinner scene with Eli’s father, Daniel is not interested in Eli’s religious motives, and Eli repeatedly interrupts him.
When Eli asks Daniel why Daniel came to Eli’s ranch, Daniel barely shows interest or emotion. Daniel is pure self-interest, cynicism, and, of course, capitalism. It is obvious when he chooses between rescuing his son and saving his burning oil well. When HW loses hearing, Daniel’s biggest fear is losing his “asset”—HW.
Daniel has no real bonds: no family, no real empathy. Meanwhile, Eli hides behind his religion, preaching to the public but ultimately serving himself. He uses religious language to manipulate, calling disbelief in him a sin and proclaiming himself a sinner when it suits him. Eli’s after followers is about something other than helping them but feeding his thirst for power.
However, it all falls apart for Eli because he never realizes that, in a twisted way, Daniel is the “Third Revelation” he has been chasing—his real God all along.
Meanwhile, Daniel presents himself as a fatherly figure by making up stories about his wife’s death, his moving from one place to another, and his raising his “holy child,” HW. He makes grand promises to the public about roads, industry, jobs, and schools, but we have yet to see them come to fruition. A system founded on privilege, corruption, and dishonesty was exposed by its oil drilling.
Daniel feels that this assurance would greatly aid his legacy. Nietzsche’s famous quote, “God is Dead,” can be interpreted in many ways. Daniel explains that his only interests are money and power and that he has no greater purpose or conviction.
God represents the human conscience, but when morality becomes too self-serving, that conscience itself pushes God aside. Like Daniel Plainview’s character, Nietzsche’s ideas are about power and how it gets abused—just like Eli Sunday’s. There Will Be Blood exposes the twisted sides of capitalism and religion embodied by these two characters.
Daniel and Eli each master their domain—Daniel with oil and Eli with religion—their safe zones. Their power struggles raise a question: Who truly controls whom, and who holds the power to define what is “moral”?
The film leaves the audience haunted, especially by its ending, which has many interpretations. Is it Daniel’s final downfall, collapsing into madness as he kills Eli? Or is Eli somehow an alter-ego, a twisted reflection of Daniel himself? It is all a bigger question about how capitalism and religion trample each other and how people can act monstrously under the guise of morality.
Ultimately, it is a test of moral systems. Are we witnessing self-destruction, or are capitalists and liberals just feeding illusions we cannot escape? People may think they are free, but social constraints on behavior, race, beliefs, and class are still strong.
The point is that power is a fabrication. Even the most “independent” people are controlled, often without realizing it. Are we, the audience, too, being exploited and deceived? In this postmodern era, power is still hidden in history, identity, and class.
Ultimately, America worships money, like most of the world. However, what happens when materialism takes on new forms? Do we live in a world where people are inherently cruel? If not, it runs through the clash of Daniel and Eli, which seems preordained. In the end, blood will always be shed in the name of religion and business.
A tale as old as time itself, that “blood” is about conflicting philosophies, beliefs, or sometimes just plain ignorance. It may be hypocritical to judge others while selling “pure” eggs in the name of God. However, in the end, no one is declared innocent.
References
- Anderson, P. (2008). There Will Be Blood: An Analysis of Ambition, Power, and Deception. In J. Smith (Ed.), Cinematic Reflections on Capitalism and Morality (pp. 45-62). New York, NY: Film Studies Press.
- Baker, T. (2009). Blood and Oil: The Spiritual Conflict in There Will Be Blood. Journal of Film and Religion, 3(2), 29-45.
- Bould, M. (2013). The Oil Industry and Its Discontents: Exploring There Will Be Blood. The Journal of American Culture, 36(1), 18-25.
- Brenner, C. (2007). There Will Be Blood: The Morality of Ambition. Cineaste, 32(3), 12-20.
- Heath, D. (2010). Power and Corruption in There Will Be Blood: A Postmodern Analysis. American Literature and Culture, 22(4), 55-70.
- O’Connor, M. (2015). The Influence of Upton Sinclair on There Will Be Blood: A Study of Ambition and Greed. Journal of American Literature, 87(1), 75-88.
- Sinclair, U. (1927). Oil!. New York, NY: Doubleday.
- Smith, J. (2012). *Faith and Hypocrisy in American Cinema: A Study of *There Will Be Blood*. In R. Thomas (Ed.), *Religious Themes in Film* (pp. 112-129). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
- Walsh, K. (2018). The Twisted Relationship Between Capitalism and Religion in There Will Be Blood. The Journal of American Film Criticism, 5(2), 45-59.