Brian Ruiz Extra Credit Film #1
There will be blood follows an oilman trying to find success in the oil field. It starts with him finding silver in a mine but breaking his leg during the process. He was able to climb out and get money for the silver but I think the purpose of this seen was to show how strong and motivated this man was. Then 4 years later he hits oil and sets up an oil drill at that site. One of his men dies at this site and he takes that manâs baby as his adopted son to raise. It then turns into 1911 where Daniel Day Lewis is told by a man that there is a massive amount of oil in a place called Little Boston in California. Daniel investigates and finds oil seeping through the ground as told by the man who approached him. He then tries to buy the farm only to be halted by a the son of the farmer who is a preacher. The preacher ups the price to 10,000 and the two have a deal. Â This oil drill experiences some sets backs which include a manâs death and an explosion that cause Danielâs adopted son to lose his hearing. He later sends his son to a special school for deaf people. He is also approached by a man who say that he is Danielâs half brother which is found out to be not true and when Daniel finds out, he kills the imposter and buries him. There is also a deal with union oil as to how oil will be moved and this plan is how Daniel upsets standard oil company. In the end the money did the character no good because he became a mad drunk. He tells his adopted son that he is an orphan and ends up cutting his ties with the son. He is also approached by the preacher and when the two get into an argument Daniel beats the preacher on the head with a bowling pin.
 This is connected to our class because we talked about Standard Oil Company several times and how they were a giant monopoly. In this movie, it can be seen how they reached how to Daniel in hopes that Daniel would sell his sites. This was talked about in class where standard oil sometimes gave these companies no choice but to sell. We also talked about the dangers of jobs like these. We mightâve not talked specifically about oil but we talked about how horrible mining was and there are some parallels to how dangerous oil drilling can be.
 I feel like this movie is historically accurate although very dramatized is some scenes. Some accuracies that are portrayed are how Standard Oil tried to get Danielâs oil per se but Daniel was able to make a deal with Union Oil. Union Oil was a real company that was able to compete with Standard Oil. Another accuracy would be how dangerous this oil business can be. In the movie a couple people died working under Daniel Day Lewis and in reality, this wouldnât have been abnormal considering how dangerous it was to work in this field of work.
 This movie does a good job at addressing the conflicts between religion (Evangelical Christians) and the oil companies. It also captures how dangerous oil drilling was back in the day and how, even with the right safety measures, people can die. So, in this sense, I would classify it as âGoodâ history. When watching it, you can tell which parts are just absurd and intended to be exaggerated and because of this, you get a good sense of what the oil industry was like. It shows he corruption of a greedy industry and, although it was a little bias against the oil industry, shows how an oilman may be harsh. It paints a good picture of how unforgiving mistakes were in the industry while also showing how some towns really were all centered around one church during the time in which this movie was set.
 This film was released when the US was in a war with Iraq. This war was started by what many believe to be motivated by the greed for oil, while the public justification was a religious conflict. This seems to influence how both oil and religion are portrayed in the movie. This war also led to questions about the Republican Party as a whole, which, like Plainview, ended up as a mixture formed out of capitalism and evangelical Christianity. Since, at the time, the war and the Republican Party were in negative light, it probably caused more people to relate to the portrayal of religion, especially Christianity, being used to justify a cruel use of capitalism. It shows how people justified being cruel and only caring about money by saying they were just capitalists.