6/29/2023 0 Comments There will be blood oil![]() ![]() These two readings, one sympathetic and the other unsympathetic, border on being reductive. But does Daniel’s pain truly nullify his wickedness? Despite his grief, Daniel’s murders and blatant disregard for other people do not lose their shocking resonance, especially considering how much of Daniel’s pain is self-inflicted. Wooley’s reading assumes that we can sympathize and understand Daniel for the murders and abandonments he commits in the film because of the pain he experiences. In the case of Daniel, “The ‘universal psychology of pain, and the spectator’s understanding of this psychology, initiates an empathetic understanding of the character, which facilitates and even inspires an empathetic response” (Wooley 7). In “The Battle for Moral Superiority in There Will Be Blood and Unforgiven,” Wooley outlines a general proposition in which “spectators are positioned in alignment with a character’s subjectivity, and thus sympathy is formed” (3). Conversely, critics like Elena Wooley have argued that Daniel’s emotions-specifically, his grief-deem him sympathetic in his evil deeds. Sperb is correct to point out Daniel’s ruthless manipulation and selfishness, but he largely ignores how Daniel grieves over the loss of people he supposedly does not care for, which complicates his application of the term “misanthrope” to Daniel. Citing the abandonment of his son as an example of his selfish inhumanity, Sperb argues that Daniel is “an often amusing and frequently horrifying misanthrope who possesses an uncanny knack for manipulation when it serves his purpose but otherwise has no use for people who don’t fulfill a particular function” (194-195). Sperb contends that Daniel is a capitalistic symbol who “has no positive personal characteristics that could be read allegorically as virtues of capitalism itself” (215). Jason Sperb supports this reading in his book, Blossoms and Blood: Postmodern Media Culture and the Films of Paul Thomas Anderson. Knowing that the townsfolk he encounters would prefer dealing with- as he puts it- a “family man” over an “oil man,” Daniel boasts about his family centered ideology and cites his son, H.W Plainview (Dillon Freasier), as a trusted business partner. Daniel is commonly understood as a critical figure of capitalism who shamelessly exploits the family image in order to gain a competitive advantage in the oil business. Before properly beginning the analysis, some context regarding Daniel Plainview’s academic reception should be outlined. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |