Capitalism In There Will Be Blood By Paul Thomas Anderson

From a Marxist perspective, it is clear that Paul Thomas Anderson uses There Will Be Blood which shows the destructive nature of capitalism towards the end of the 19th century. Paul Thomas Anderson's critique of the capitalist ideology is shown throughout the entire film. Paul Thomas uses multiple cinematic techniques to bring out the anger and frustration that Plainview was expressing towards Eli. The lower camera angle as Plainview was beating Eli expresses what the money has done to him, and the destructive path capitalism has created. Rather than being happy, he has turned into something completely different and now becomes angry. At the start of the scene, Plainview is getting right in Eli's face and brings Eli to tears, when he finds

He then starts to throw bowling pins and beats Eli to death with a bowling pin. The scene that Eli had initially walked in on shows that Plainview has now sunk to the bottom rather than rising to the top and thriving above everyone once he became rich. Hegemony is noticeable through the final scene and Plainview no longer cares about anything at all, and even with all the power and money that he has acquired he isn't satisfied. Plainview has got all the power and doesn’t know how to use it anymore; he feels like he is vulnerable and wants to destroy his connections to get the people he doesn’t care about out of his life. As he is living his life in solitude he becomes easily aggravated by Eli’s comments and requests about the oil. This then results in him having a go at Eli and eventually throwing bowling balls in frustration, anger, and hatred. Daniel is incapable of tolerating Eli any longer and just goes wild; he isn’t satisfied with what he is saying and doing until he has killed

Anderson uses the key features of the ultimate downfall and ruthlessness to establish the archetypal villains. This is shown throughout the entire film as Plainview expresses an amount of ruthlessness and he will stop at nothing to get what he wants, going to the extent of abandoning his adopted son because he went deaf. Eli doesn’t quite go to these extents, and uses some different types of techniques, rather than killing his possible opponents he tries ruthlessly to get them into his church, this is shown in the church scene where Eli is “baptising” Plainview, he uses this opportunity to show that he has a level of power, and he can embarrass Plainview without effort. Towards the end of the film, both characters reach their ultimate downfall after numerous years of being rich and having lots of power. But still not quite being satisfied with what they have. In the final few scenes of the film, when H.W. comes to see his 'father' and says he is leaving for a while to mine oil. Daniel considers his adopted son as an enemy and competition, so he has a go at H.W., telling him he's adopted and saying multiple insults. Daniel forces H.W. to say things for himself even though he has been deaf for a significant amount of time and lost most of his ability to talk. In the final scene of the film, Daniel had passed out on the floor of his bowling alley, and Eli Sunday walks into the