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Films

There Will Be Blood

Terri Murray tells us about a Hollywood hero beyond good and evil.

If Hollywood genre movies can be depended upon to deliver one thing, it is a good hero pitted against an evil foe. Simplistic though it is, Hollywood cinema seduces us all with these Manichean conflicts that persuade us to side with the good guys. Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 Oscar-winning There Will Be Blood marked a rare exception to this rule, giving audiences an unconventional protagonist – one seemingly beyond good and evil.

There Will Be Oil

The narrative, a cinematic adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil, centres on the epic rise, and ultimate decline, of oil magnate Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis). But this is no typical tale of poor boy made good, for Plainview is far from good in any moral sense, despite his admirable characteristics.

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