There will be profit

WARNING: Spoilers included

If you're even considering watching 'There Will Be Blood' than I implore you to do so (Wikipedia page, Rolling Stone review). The film mirrors Day-Lewis' lead: engaging, mesmorising, and ultimately shocking. I came away feeling that like any great protagonist Plainview was morally ambiguous, and only come to write this post having since suspected that I hold a minority view. Many people, it seems, take a dim view of Plainview.

Consider this review, which seems to approach what friends complain about:

"a mesmerizing meditation on the American spirit in all its maddening ambiguities: mean and noble, angry and secretive, hypocritical and more than a little insane in its aspirations" (cite)

That doesn't sound ambiguous at all, so I wonder, To what extent does his characterisation depend on an aversion to profiteering?

The plot is a rags to riches tale of an oil tycoon, and the ideological undertone is evident when we see the alcoholism, mental disintegration, and ultimate violence associated with the accumulation of vast wealth. Ignore the fact that commercial pioneers used their profits to fund America's cultural heritage, ignore the sobering and maturing effects that portfolio development typically brings about: Plainview's torment is supposed to tell us something about that elusive quest for growth.

But it's all too easy to use fiction as an ideological weapon, and all too easy to sit back smugly and lament how the arts industry monumentally fail to understand the capitalist process. Even if Plainview is an accurate depiction about the role of capitalism, is he really such a villain?

Exhibit A in the anti-capitalists case is Plainview's treatment of HW. This is a child (orphaned following a drilling accident) that Plainview uses as a business partner, to - supposedly with ruthless efficiency - signal a family firm and thus swing delicate business deals in his favour. These original motives are ultimately confirmed when Plainview bellows "bastard in a basket" to a now deaf HW (following another drilling accident), and reveals all. Does anyone buy this? An alternative history is that a mentally fragile, cruel man hurts his now ex-partner by whatever means he can, belying several years of tenderness and care.

Exhibit B might well be these accidents that routinely emerge and are depicted with devastating brutality. But the initial (and most formative) accident occurs in the first 10 minutes of the film, as we see Plainview himself digging for silver. He falls from his hand built ladder shattering his leg, and crawls back to civilisation with a limp that never leaves him. This physical deformity demonstrates the personal risk and sacrifice that he made. But for what? Profit?

In a telling scene Plainview and HW sit atop a hill, and Plainview outlines his vision of a pipeline running to the sea, freeing the company from their existing distribution network. But realise that he's not competing with consumers for that bounty, he's skimming it from rival producers to the benefit of the end user. The silent story throughout the entire picture is the scores of poverty-ridden consumers who benefit immeasurably from the production of cheaper gas. It's all too easy to presume that entrepreneurs capture rents. They do not, they create profit and this create social prosperity.

I personally found that the moral ambiguity of the film is embodied in the delightfully enthralling relationship between Plainview and local churchman Eli Sunday. The reciprocal nature of their contest suggests ambiguity. The victor is a function of physical strength. Both end up as detestable creatures. But good versus evil? Far from it.

Watching the film reminded me of Viktor Schreckengost (Don Boudreaux, Steve Horwitz), an entrepreneur who created an array of household products that we now take for granted. He was a silent hero, rewarded with profit, yet less famous and less well known than even a minor political figure. Perhaps we return to the fundamental conflict between left and right, which is weather arguments about wealth redistribution should prevent wealth creation. Perhaps the inevitability of bloodshed is a function of economic education.

I'm sure that if I'd read the book, or read a large number of film reviews I'd realise that these 'undercurrents' are actually transparent and obvious public debates. I might well have misinterpreted other people's interpretations. But for those who do see Plainview as an unambiguous villain, I worry that you're letting economic ignorance interfere in your enjoyment of a fine, sublime movie. There will be profit. There needn't be blood.