Julian Holmes Wilson

Philosophy 368
11/10/10
Cavell in There Will Be Bloodian Terms

The World Viewed is not a critic of film, but rather an anthology of what Cavell stands for in his life, and
his experience of being a philosopher. To many this may be a shock, as it has been presented to us as a book of film.
However, after finishing the entirety of the book and using it to fully analyze There Will Be Blood, I found that the
metaphors being unraveled in the film relate much less to film itself than to Cavell’s relationship to philosophy. I
hope to unravel the mysteries of Cavell by relating him very directly to the cinematic adventure of blood. I find that
Cavell is masking, metaphorically, his view of the world by using film as his image of the traditional. It is that he is
fighting his inner sophist through his relationship to film. It becomes clear to me when he says “when everyman
becomes his own philosopher, he simultaneously becomes his own sophist…The sophist remains philosophy’s most
intimate enemy…” This is a battle over what Cavell calls Serious Writing, something that he is having terrible
difficulties overcoming, especially with trying to publish what he did in the Harvard setting. He is standing “on
darkening straits, casting unsystematic lines, in hopes of attracting to the surface some darting wish for sense.”

While I have already jumped the gun on what I consider The World View to be accomplishing, I find that
There Will Be Blood does a brilliant job of explaining it, thus I start at the beginning. The film most obviously starts
off with two major themes: The acknowledgement of silence and the allegory of the cave. To continue on in
bloodian terms I must put forth certain clarification of the metaphors. It must be made clear of what I believe the
film to be doing for Cavell and how it emphasizes his points. To do this I place some keys formula. It must be clear
that the Oil = Film, that the Land = Philosophy, the Priest = the Unnatural, the Son = the Sophist and finally that
Plainview = Cavell. By accepting these claims we can set forth on exploring and explaining Cavell.

The acknowledgement of silence in the first 15 minutes of the film creates a landmark for what Cavell truly
wants out of film. It creates the framework for what he means by the scenes that are stuck in his head. Somehow
film can penetrate your very being in such a way that you will never truly be the same. We can see this in the naive
way that Plainview is trying to find his bountiful oil, how Cavell has been blinded by the experience of film at a
young age. It is that Cavell grew up on silent film that formulates most of his hypothesis of cinema. However, even
during this silence, the sophist already becomes visible to us. It is Cavell’s quest for naturalness through films, or
Plainview’s quest for oil which is blinding him. The fact that Plainview would be burdened by taking on the orphan
son proves to us the burden that Cavell finds in the sophist. It is through this drilling of the land, this writing of
philosophy, that this strange self destruction occurs, this betrayal of self.

The first 15 minutes, however are not simply about silence but about the quest for knowledge. This is
where the Allegory of the Cave comes into play, and it only seems fitting as Cavell is after all battling the sophist,
something Plato did so often. Originally when considering the Cave element of the first scene I had thought that I
was seeing a reverse allegory of the cave, however it came quite clear to me that it is actually not. It is that Cavell is
trying to find his knowledge of philosophy through film, just as Plainview is trying to find himself through oil. In
either case it is a vision of enlightenment, of leaving the cave.

In this vision of enlightenment there are a lot of issues to understand, many things that cloud the image,
things which are inherently unnatural. For Plainville the Priest is very unnatural, he is the epitome of what Cavell
finds to be the real, or rather “what is real” when it comes to film, knowledge, and language. The priest is always
throwing off the story, throwing off Plainview’s Ego. I believe the strangeness of the priest becomes exceptionally
clear by the fact that Paul, the priests brother, looks exactly like him. Upon seeing the priest for the first time at the
Sunday ranch, there is this unsettling feeling of the unnatural. It is as if they have met before but under different
circumstances. In this sense Cavell is having a hard time pinpointing exactly why film changed so much for him.
There is this feeling of naturalness in the film, naturalness in the meeting of the priest, yet there is such an unnatural
reaction to it. It is the bastard child of film, the second birth which should have been put in a glass jar.

Now throughout this we have this concept of a transfer of land, a transfer of philosophy if you will. In the
movie this transfer is all about money, but I don’t find the money to be much of a metaphor besides that of greed.
However, when we look into the concept of the land as philosophy we start reading between the lines. This is a
battle between the minds. The focus of the movie was obviously on that of Plainview’s quest versus the religious
quest of oil, but this is just for the cinematic sake. It can be seen on a much bigger level, with all the companies and
people staking claims to their land, to their own philosophies. Cavell has to stick by his philosophy to uncover any
sort of Serious Writing. This fighting over the land manifests itself quickly with the priest believing his land is worth
more than Plainview says. With the priest trying to give blessing to the land so that all the drilling will be successful,
but Plainview doesn’t let this happen, he creates a blessing of his own. Cavell understands that everything he says
may not be agreeable, but that is the point, that we must not look into the philosophy too hard, but rather to
understand the inherent meaning of it. It is about this struggle of truth, of knowledge.

I believe that this struggle that Cavell has with film, this strange attachment that almost frightens him can
be greatly exemplified by the burning of the Oil Rig. It is a struggle between him and film, but also that of his
philosophy and his sophist. The sophist element is most greatly born in the deafening of his son, as this is the turning
point when Plainview has to choose oil over his son. This is when the true anger and frustration of the sophist
becomes real. This is also a pinnacle metaphor for what happened to film for Cavell after WWII. It shows the
intensity of the natural, the force that the oil has over Plainview, that Film had over Cavell. It is the opening of what
Cavell states as “God being reabsorbed… an eye and a roar in the wings of the mind.” This is to say that film gives
us this power, the power of God, just as the Oil gave the power of God to Plainview.

It is around this time in the movie that Plainview ships his Son off to be able to focus on his oil. What I take
this sequence to hold is the element of what Cavell states The World View to be accomplishing, a study on what is
film and why we like it. It is at this point that Plainview is able to greatly focus on his oil, his drilling, his pipeline
and so on. This is a developing of his interest, just as Cavell is really trying to develop why film clicks for him.
There is another element though; it is of the philosopher trying to abandon the sophist. There is this distinct element
of how Cavell is really trying to get rid of the sophists who try to tear his work apart, whether it is his inner sophist
or other philosophers it doesn’t matter. However, I argue that this is Cavell and Plainview not seeing the value of the
sophist, trying to discard it even though it is the most intimate “enemy.” Although, what is truly key to this whole
quest of knowledge through film, is targeted by the fake brother, Henry. It is a crucial element that the sophist was
only truly pushed away due to his reactions to the brother, i.e. burning the house with both his father and Henry in it.
What I take from this is Cavell’s trust in film. That Cavell is building much of his philosophical opinion out of film,
thus he must be tested for it. The Henry character is nothing more than a test for Plainview.

What must be examined during the scenes with Henry is just why Plainview needs this test. I believe that
this sequence is most important for only one scene and it is a scene that does much less to penetrate Cavell’s
philosophical views, but to develop why I think Plainview is analogous to Cavell. I feel that I may be going out on a
limb here, or taking a risk, but from what I have read I find Cavell to likely not been a very social person. For there
is one scene where Plainview shows his true side to Henry, the scene where Plainview speaks about people.
Plainview states quite clearly that he hates people, that he can’t help but see the worst in them and that he wants to
be able to get enough money to be able to live alone. I don’t understand Cavell as truly hating people, but rather
hating himself. I find that Cavell is trying to mask his hatred for himself through the use of film. He cannot actually
visualize a world as being good without speaking of film. I find this fact to be proven by his writing of “Pursuit of
Happiness” where he doesn’t discuss what it means to be happy but rather how film can show us what it means to be
happy; these are very different phenomenon. I believe that this is why the sophist, the son, lashes out and tries to
burn down the house with Henry and Plainview. It focuses what the sophist does for the philosopher, a clashing of
minds.

To get back on track with the battle between the sophist and the philosopher, we see an interesting turn of
events when it comes down to the old man’s property, for once again we see Plainview having to revisit the
unnatural. For Cavell it is unnatural for him to agree with the sophist, but he cannot forget this intimate relationship
that they hold. In the scene where the priest baptizes Plainview we have to consider why this is happening. What has
Plainview truly done to need this cleansing of his sins? It is quite simple actually; it is the abandonment of his Son
for oil. It is Cavell’s avoidance of his Sophist for an image of film. I think the truth of the matter is that Cavell is
avoiding many of the nuances he finds in philosophy by trying to go back to tradition. He is stuck in his early films,
never to be able to really look ahead for anything good. Just as looking to god is an unnatural act for Plainview,
looking at anything but early film seems unnatural and anxiety ridden for Cavell. The clash of the sophist is relived
at the end of these scenes when his son comes back, if nothing more, to be able to hit back at Plainview.
 If you have followed me this far than I applaud for it is only in the last scenes of There Will Be Blood that
my analogous truly play themselves out. It is these punctums that brings life into the metaphors. The first scene
brings an end to the sophist element, but not an end by killing but rather an end by acceptance. The scene I speak of
is when his son comes back after many years, after having married the Sunday’s daughter. It is in this scene where
we finally see that Plainview had the upper hand all along; that Cavell has always had control over the sophist and
that his writing truly is Serious. The son is trying to make amends for what has happened and hopes to gain
acceptance by his father, but instead of acceptance we see a brutalization of the soul. It is the ultimate class of the
sophist and the philosopher for the son is trying to bring about competition in the oil industry. The son believes that
he can start his own business without harming Plainview, but Daniel understands this to not be the case, that this is
an impossibility, for the sophist is the bastard child from a basket, it is the orphan child to philosophy. It was only by
using his son, the using of the sophist, that Plainview was able to be successful, but that was the plan all along. In
truth the sophist was forced upon the philosopher and only now is Cavell able to abandon it by looking at film.

Now that Cavell has managed to rid himself of the sophist, there is just one other element that he has to
control, the unnatural. The scene which correlates to the final overpowering of the unnatural is most obviously that
in the bowling alley. It is this time that the priest believes that he has the upper hand, that the unnatural appears to be
overpowering Cavell, but rather it was Cavell that understood the unnatural all along. It is Cavell’s ability to go back
and acknowledge silence as the superior form, the naturalness of the films that were silent, and the naturalness of the
world it created. It is at this time in the film that the priest comes back to question Plainview’s reality, however it
was truly Plainview who was going to make the priests reality more clear. The fact of the matter was that Cavell
went with the natural, just as Plainview went with the oil. He understood how the oil worked and what it meant, he
was able to take the natural out from the unnatural that was the priest’s land. The natural is truly what tears apart
Cavell as it is something he doesn’t believe film will truly get back. It is only when the priest finally breaks down
and states that ‘he is the false profit, that god is a superstition” that we truly realize the unnatural was actually
analogous with Hollywood and that Cavell was actually right about film. Plainview is the third revelation, just as
Cavell is the third revelation of film and philosophy.

In peroration of my metaphors and analogous I want to make some things clear. What There Will Be Blood
does for Cavell is too prove his point that film, while it traverses modernity, will never truly be the same as it was
when it was silent. That there is some element of film which is so natural to us that we are sucked into this new
world. For Plainview this naturalness was in oil, one of the most natural substances we readily use for power, and
for that oil is film. The land that the priest and Plainview battled over was not so different after all and that only by
one overcoming the other does serious writing prevail, and thus the land is philosophy. The priest is the state of
mind that beliefs are all that matter and that is why he is the unnatural. The son is by far the most intimate character
to Plainview, besides that of oil and thus Plainview is Cavell and the son is the sophist. The World Viewed was both
an memory of what film once was for Cavell but also a battle of what philosophy really means to him. It is in this
relationship of film and philosophy that Cavell is able to live and traverse time.