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UNITED STATES · 2007
There Will Be Blood
Synopsis
Ruthless silver miner, turned oil prospector, Daniel Plainview, moves to oil-rich California. Using his son to project a trustworthy, family-man image, Plainview cons local landowners into selling him their valuable properties for a pittance. However, local preacher Eli Sunday suspects Plainview's motives and intentions, starting a slow-burning feud that threatens both their lives.
Cinematic DNA
Paul Thomas Anderson has described Werner Herzog as a defining influence — specifically Aguirre, the Wrath of God, which is also about a monomaniacal man consumed by an impossible vision in an unforgiving landscape. Daniel Plainview is Klaus Kinski's Aguirre transplanted to California oil fields. Herzog showed Anderson that you could build an entire film around the terrifying spectacle of a man losing his humanity to obsession. Aguirre is on Criterion Channel and is one of the great performances in cinema history.
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Films with Similar Themes
ambition and greed · religious hypocrisy · father-son relationships · capitalism and exploitation · rivalry and obsession
