Theology and Film as a case-study in the Christ and Culture debate: There Will Be Blood

By Daniel Kennedy

The God that humans hate is the God who reminds us that we are not what we ought to be, that we are morally incomplete creatures. And it is this God we have sought to murder in the modern period, finally exhausted by the constant glare of transcendent scrutiny.1 God has stopped paying us our ordered existence; or rather, there is another god who pays us, who responds more immediately, directly and tangibly to our prayers: Mammon.2

In the Christ and Culture debate, film functions as a medium through which one might encounter key subject matter. As popular culture, film is able to express that conflict without intellectual prejudice, and can affectively present themes that may carry sizeable theological import, such as morality. A films topic(s) of discussion can often be

portrayed with recourse to these opposing sources, allowing for a deep and rich understanding of the relevant issues. Indeed, any perspective that relies exclusively on either Christ (or, more generally, faith) or Culture (which might then be called reason) for its efficacy reduces its claims to absurdity. Death of God theology deals with the concept of the meaningless of life, and such nihilism can be displayed to great effect in film. In nihilistic cinema, the God that reason has served to destroy is conspicuous in absence: because the consequence of Gods death is to make one wholly responsible for all our values, which is a terrible burden, 3 restoration of this metaphysical crutch 4 feels imperative. The death of God does not attenuate one half of Christ versus Culture, however; rather, it mercilessly undercuts them both. This can be seen vividly in There Will Be Blood, where the ideals of Western civilisation collapse under the weight of Gods remains.

Paul Thomas Andersons There Will Be Blood is an intensely pessimistic commentary on power acquisition in Western society. The motif is unquestionably nihilistic, exposing the faith and values upon which the culture is predicated as expressions of the will to power, a will to dominate over others. Religious conviction is no exception, for God is dead. In a Godless age, money is touted as the paradigm of value, and capitalism is the selfabsorbed religion of monetary wealth. Still, belief in Mammon does not escape the acidic accusation of the nihilism that pre-exists all history. If all values are lost, then, one would expect life to be violent, an incessant contest between forces and will, and this is precisely the case in There Will Be Blood, in which life is extinguished without the kind of significance one would hope for in death. Moreover, one feels the motivations underlying such violence are of an expressly menacing character, and one need only look to the title itself to infer a sense of portent. Violence denotes a nihilistic world, and it has no greater expression than death. Death occurs throughout the film, but is treated with little reverence. If death is negligible, so too is life, and it is the life of others that the central character, Daniel Plainview, holds in contempt. His excessively egotistic temperament is a creation of the drive for wealth that dominates his life. His quest for capital has permeated his existence to such an extent that it has taken control of all his relationships, fashioning him into an hermetically-pious capitalist. This condition is a brutal one, and necessarily induces violence Im going to slit your throat for the individualist must identify over against the other. Violence is expressed in many ways, though, and it is not just Plainview who possesses the capacity to hurt others. Other protagonists, such as the preacher, Eli Sunday, the exacting labour of oil production, and even Nature itself inflict suffering on their human consorts. The apparent ubiquity of the inclination towards destruction and suffering is representative of the nihilistic circumstance in which we are said to find ourselves: the forces of nature and fate are indifferent and mysterious, and humans are particularly resentful creatures I hate most people there are times I look at people and see nothing worth liking.

It could be said, however, that violence has a more generative quality, and that it is not necessarily meaningless. The experiences of suffering and death may be sacrificial in that they are in some way essential for the well-being of society (one notes the workers who die in their attempts to bring oil to the community), but the argument rings hollow, for the forfeit is not recognised as such. Rather, one is offered the briefest glimpses of impersonal deaths, after which ritual is not afforded (on screen), suggesting its superfluity. There will be blood may aptly embody the sentiment that personal sacrifice is vital to the continued survival of a society, but behind this contention lies the greater threat that society itself lacks worth. What this film shows is that violence is totally and inexorably irreconcilable to the harmony one generally desires. The film may thus be described as an Anti-Western, seeing as films belonging to the Western genre, in which life in the American Old West is depicted, typically consummate violence as a means to achieve communal harmony, which is not here the case.5 Whereas the Western might also draw neat distinctions between what is good and what is bad, which might indicate to the audience that we [emphasis added] live in more complex times,6 this film provides no such clarity, forcing one to question ones moral assumptions to the point of destruction. Take, for instance, the murder of Henry, Plainviews pseudo-brother. If the world with which one is presented somehow admonished Plainview for such action, one might, therefore, find reason to believe in justice or some equally-expressive notion of atonement. In a very convoluted series of events, however, Plainview is actually rewarded for this deed with the right to lease the land through which he wishes to build a pipeline, which eventually leads to abundant material wealth. Though being forced to cry I have abandoned my child! in front of so many people whom he despises is somewhat of a slight against his self-esteem, his principles are nonetheless flexible in the face of the promise of wealth this is his covenant and the accession is characteristic of the antihero who is so duplicitous in his conduct. Moreover, one can point to that which drives Plainview and Eli, and show that it is the same for both of them it is power. This will to power undermines their corresponding moralities, and subordinates ones own to an illusory realm. One is

confronted with the indictment of holding delusional values, which must be overcome if one desires real autonomy. Nietzsche claimed Christian morality is dominated by the conflation of good and bad with good and evil: What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man. What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. [] What is more harmful than any vice? Active sympathy for the ill-constituted and weak Christianity7 Eli is thus weak for his sublimation of ressentiment into pastoral work, but one cannot subsequently call Plainview righteous just because his hatred and ambitions are not concealed. Neither protagonist can rightly claim altruism, for both channel rancour into means of effecting private aspirations, especially Eli, who is seen to contradict the archetype of the existential hero for trying to hide from the burden of taking responsibility for life through philosophical suicide or bad faith. 8 This affirms Nietzsches claim that that which looks to God for sanction is false and denigrating, but it also questions the desirability of the alternative unconditioned power. Nihilism, it seems, affords little prestige. Plainview plays on the values of common people (family, personal interaction etc.) in order to achieve his own selfish aims, but one is unable to find these values truthful in nihilisms historical actuality, for they result from social pressures, and are thus ideals suitable for everyone in general and no one in particular. 9 Thus common values are weak. It is little wonder, then, that the Christian community, particularly Eli, latches so fervently to Plainviews misanthropic pledge of security and development a derivative of his stronger ideal over the humility to which they had hitherto subscribed. Indeed, one is never shown the school, cornfields and other benefits said to accompany the capture of the oil from underneath them. Just as Christianity errs in founding morality in God, Capital is nihilistic,10 that is, it works against itself. As stated, Plainview is a ruthless capitalist, and the perfect virtue of the tradition is the accumulation of capital, paradoxically making its means of valuation intrinsically

valuable. The ideology of this religion is shown throughout the film to be pernicious for its tendency to harm; but the sword cuts both ways Christianity, specifically Protestant Evangelism, attaches itself to the new religion of money so it might flourish in similar fashion. Of course, Eli welcomes the oil wells for their capacity to generate income for his church, but this Christ of culture approach essentially appropriate[s] the norms of the society and define[s] them as Christian. 11 Even Paul and Eli betray their family under the command of Mammon, offering the familys land in monetary exchange. Here, then, one finds explicit criticism of the unscrupulous relationship between Capitalism and Protestant Christianity. In fact, capitalism, due to its self-absorbed nature, actively destroys the values Protestantism purportedly advocates. The imagery of the film is manifestly religious. Blood, oil and water: this is Plainviews, and thus Capitalisms, Sacred Trinity of Production, where oil, as the embodiment of wealth, lords over the more perfunctory constituents. The indifference to blood (human sacrifice) is particularly disturbing, and one cannot, therefore, assume the purpose of death in the film is to illustrate how violent acts may ritually expiate ones own guilt.12 Sacrifice should not be understood as an alternative to repentance, as if it excused one from taking responsibility for ones sins in its projection of sins onto another, but rather as the external act that gives physical expression to the internal act of repentance.13 Again, one is led to believe that sacrifice is actually nothing of the sort, for if sacrifice is to have any efficacy, one expects the offender to show sincere repentance, which Plainview does not. Still, blood and oil are intimately linked, and one sees the infant H.W. fatefully baptised in oil by his real father at Plainviews first oil project. As one of Plainviews labourers, H.W.s father represents capitalisms power over those who must submit to its nihilistic prioritisation of wealth, and this is articulated in his violent death. Moreover, the proximity of Plainview to that death, which might have easily chosen him, is an indication of the strength and indifference of Nature, which is all the more foreboding for its lack of personal identification.

Perhaps the most affective image of the film is that showing the destruction of the well. In the fading light of the desert dusk, one sees the object of Plainviews assiduous labour, the symbol of his capitalist piety, ablaze with fierce intensity, disintegrating, in front of which stands an impotent, silhouetted Plainview. The image is affective for the power it conveys.14 The inflammatory power of oil as the incarnation of the capitalist ideal is irrepressible, and any attempt to manage this power is futile, inevitably resulting in destruction. The well that burns from a jet of fire bursting from the earth is simultaneously sacred for the power it holds, and iconoclastic for its desecration. The sacredness of this image, which seems almost ritualistic, is supplemented by the percussive musical accompaniment, which instils the dread one might experience in some primordial religious act. Plainview is transfixed on this holy event to such an extent that he fails to give proper consideration to H.W., who has been permanently harmed by the gas explosion, remaining stationary, in awe, until the following morning. It is the prospect of what this violent incident suggests that holds Plainviews attention, but to conclude the narrative and his specific existence, one is thrown forward in time to observe that it has brought nothing but bitterness and isolation. There Will Be Blood introduces the terrifying thought that there is no God, and that morality and values, which are dependent on God for their veracity, are consequently false. If morality can be taken as having its origins in non-moral phenomena of nature and history, then it loses all claim to authority, leaving only life, nature and history as the sources that construct values for their own ends. 15 The consequence of this situation makes life sterile and pitiless. This austerity is mirrored in the harsh conditions of the American dry-lands, where nothing will grow. One is also often unnerved by the use of dissonant musical accompaniment, and through a lack of dialogue in the crucial early scenes, one finds it difficult to extract meaning. Does the film provide any cause for hope? One could point to the scene in which the well starts drilling, and infer a human ability to transcend nihilism through the capacity for creation. Here, the music is ordered and uplifting, suggesting a kind of merit in work or imagination. The well is eventually destroyed, yes, but why should it be the

case that real meaning can only be found in that which is permanent? This would disregard the natural order of all things. Perhaps one can also point to human relationships, such as that of Plainview and H.W., as making life less chaotic and meaningless. Such intimation is muted, however, by the eventual disassociation of Plainview from his son and everyone else. This alienation results from his capitalistic enterprise, which directs him towards antagonism This makes you my competitor. One cannot even look to H.W.s supposed innocence as indicative of a triumph over nihilism, for he is complicit in the manipulation of others for the sake of the new God, money. In terms of the Christ and culture debate, therefore, one can say this film, whilst appealing to religious imagery and sensibilities, makes no such appeal to God, for God is a superstition. In other words, an appeal is made to Gods nonexistence. While God is a superstition, Mammon, or more specifically, the effect of money, is real and lasting and damaging.

Cobb, Kelton, The Blackwell Guide to Theology and Popular Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), p. 174 2 Goodchild, Philip, Capitalism and Religion: The Price of Piety (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 27 3 Falzon, Christopher, Philosophy Goes to the Movies: A Introduction to Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 110 4 Spence, James H., What Nietzsche Could Teach You: Eternal Return in Groundhog Day in Kimberley A. Blessing and Paul J. Tudico (eds.), Movies and the Meaning of Life: Philosophers Take On Hollywood (Chicago: Open Court, 2005), p. 285 5 Lyden, John C., Film as Religion: Myths, Morals, and Rituals (New York: New York University Press, 2003), p. 142 6 Ibid. 7 Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Anti-Christ (1888), 2 in Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols / The Anti-Christ (London: Penguin, 2003), pp. 127-128 8 Falzon, op. cit., p. 111 9 Spence, op. cit., p. 281 10 Goodchild, op. cit., p. 129 11 Lyden, op. cit., p. 13 12 Ibid., p. 85 13 Ibid., pp. 85-86 14 Bogue, Ronald, Deleuze on Cinema (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 78 15 Goodchild, op. cit., p. 18