A classic tale of greed and corruption, promises the back cover reviewer of Oil, Upton Sinclair's
1927 novel of the development of Southern California's oil fields. Sinclair, well known
for his sympathies for socialist solutions to the paradoxes of capitalism, became rich
and powerful from the profits made on his muckraking book of the Chicago meatpacking
in Industry, 1906's The Jungle, writing dime novels at the early age of 15 to pay for
his college education at CCNY and publishing more novels as a graduate student at Columbia
Sinclair was anything but a socialist in his personal achievement as a self-made man and
entrepreneur. His book caused a sensation and led directly to the passage of the Pure
Food and Drug Act in 1906. By 1934, he set aside his Socialist Party membership and gained
and the gubernatorial nomination of California's Democrat Party, capturing nearly 40 percent
of the popular vote.
But oil is certainly not as strident nor shockingly repulsive in its descriptions as Sinclair's
earlier work of expose of one of America's most carnivorous industries.
Whether one looks at the J. Arnold Ross oil baron of the novel or his transformation into
Daniel Plainview in Paul Thomas Anderson's Academy Award nominated 2007 adapted script,
This is a kinder, gentler capitalism, greed at its most altruistic.
The film version, There Will Be Blood, garnered eight Oscar nominations, including those for
Best Picture, Best Director, Anderson Again, and Best Actor, Daniel Day Lewis, who took
the honor.
A comparison of Sinclair's book and Anderson's film turns up an astonishing alteration that's
unusual in the film adaptation process.
The settings of each are the California oil fields of the early 20th century, but beyond
that precious few similarities remain.
Upton Sinclair shows a researcher's knowledge
of oil drilling processes, geology, real estate
and political industrial details.
And Anderson duplicates this analysis,
but the central characters are completely changed.
The book's emphasis on socialism and its open sympathy
for the Russian Revolution are totally absent
and the focus on the oil man's disdain and cruelty
toward the flamboyant preacher
are heightened to murderous proportions.
With respect to the accusation of greed, Anderson points out that it's not only the Daniel
Plainview character who exhibits greed as he conducts his oil drilling business, but perhaps
even more so the frenzied denizens of Signal Hill who compete with each other to get the
oil man to drill on their land before the underground pools of black gold are sucked
dry by others. You see, drilling on one property naturally drains the oil from underneath the
joining properties, like someone with a long straw who can reach across the room so that,
Daniel Day-Lewis demurs, he's just a fellow trying to make a living, whether his natural son is in the book or his adopted son is in the film.
Although the relationship between father and son is the core of the book, Anderson essentially
makes the boy a minor player in the film. Anderson has not explained much about his
reasons for the changes, other than the usual justification that books are too long and
need to have their essential story distilled from them for the movie house. But here one
wonders why not only the usual shortening of a novel, but also the core character changes,
ideological softening and interpersonal conflict escalation. In fact, there's so little of
The book left that Anderson admits he's unwilling to even call it a proper adaptation.
As for the film title, Anderson just sort of wrote down the words, there will be blood
on a sheet of paper as a lark and liked the way it looked.
And again, since the film had so little to do with the book, he didn't feel that it
would be particularly fair to call the film oil.
That's left yet to be made.
The post-cinematic printing of the book only claims that it was the inspiration for the
motion picture.
In the book, the focus is on Ross's son, Ross Jr., or Bunny, as he is known diminutively,
and his strong relationship with his attentive and forebearing father, even as he is conflicted
by his liberal sympathies for his socialist friends and the plight of the working man.
Although Sinclair puts forth many criticisms of American capitalism and the virtues of
Russian socialism, such are couched in what is shown to be the naive idealism and sophomoric
thoughts of young Bunny.
We follow the lad from about age 9 on through his collegiate days and into his 20s, unlike
the film where he merely accompanies his father to some business meetings as H.W., his name
is, and is sent off to a boarding school and returns at age 11, absent until he is seen
years later at the end of the film, setting off on his own with a new wife.
Sinclair's Bunny, the book's protagonist-narrator, reveals an engaging, winsome use of the youngster
as the storyteller, ameliorating the social-political critique through the lens of a boy on the
Throughout oil, J. Arnold Ross is long suffering and tolerant of his son's humanitarian protestations of injustice toward the oil workers, property owner rubes, and public officials whose palms must be greased to smooth the way of progress.
Even as Ross enterprises includes the young man as the heir apparent and partner in the endeavor.
Ross patiently explains each step of the way of why this and that must be done for the ultimate good of owner management, labor and the public.
Public. Even as Bunny befriends leftist organizers of all types, journalists, communist sympathizers
and strikers, Ross still supports him, even shelling out $15,000 to bail out the father
of one of Bunny's socialist girlfriends. Quote, but what could he do? His dearly beloved son
was ablaze with indignation. Elsewhere, however, the book is less sanguine, veering into outright
condemnation of the humanitarian capitalist argument. Ross's paradigm of limited government
goes like this, quote, yes, politicians were rotten and so you saw the folly of trusting
business matters to government. Take business away from the politicians and turn it over
to businessmen who would run it without graft. Wasn't that clear? Dad was a patriot, putting
an end to vicious public policy. But did Dad really believe that, asks Bunny. If you laid
hold of him and tore all those lies away, he would not be able to stand in the light
of his nakedness. Well, naturally, a motion picture is going to deal less with the articulation
of Principles than will a novel in the process of actually visualizing the life of a working
oil magnet results in a more understanding portrayal of a life of hard work and reward
for one's labor.
The very first scene shows Plainview undergoing personal hardship to get wealth out of the
ground as he sets a charge and falls down a broken ladder into the oily hole.
It's rugged individualism with a capital I. So is he not entitled to it all since he worked
hard for it?
The picture is one of a lone wolf, an animal that may work as part of a pack, but hardly
a brotherhood, one who ultimately does not rely on outside help from government or neighbor.
The film thus paints a lonelier picture of the man than the book did, where Ross is a
bit more of a social creature.
Talking candidly by the campfire, Daniel reveals, quote, I have a competition in me.
I want no one else to succeed.
I hate most people.
I want to earn enough money to get away from everyone.
I see the worst in people.
I build up my hatred over the years little by little."
But even in the film, Plainview holds forth the familial ideal, explaining to potential
investors, I'm an oil man, I'm a family man, this is my son and partner, H.W.
That the father labors not for private greed is made even more clear in the book, where
we learn that his workaholic habits stem from his bitterness over his wife's abandonment.
Sinclair's novel follows the mental life of the son, an ideological dilettante, a young
Man who never had to do a lick of work in his life. Bunny's life is one of playboy-like
ease giving him plenty of time to consider the plight of the poor and downtrodden, like
many soft ones. He is torn between allegiance to his devoted father, his mentally unstable
mother having left the picture, and the affluent roaring 20s lifestyle which his oil wealth
affords. Swaying him always in the opposite direction are the sincere entreaties of his
commoner socialist school friends and all their latest polemics and persuasions. The
The film covers absolutely none of this, leaving the boy off at age 12, with the exception
of the unforeshadowed and therefore unmotivated penultimate departure scene, Coda.
In the film, Daniel is the protagonist, with Eli as his nemesis. Paul Thomas Anderson seems
to reserve special opprobrium for that embodiment of self-serving religiosity, Eli Sunday, maybe
taking the name from the period's famous Billy Sunday. Eli Watkins in the novel is
a megachurch, media-manipulating blowhard as well as in the film version, but not the
is a determined object of Ross's deep hatred and vicious attacks as in the latter.
For instance, in the book, Ross himself invites Eli to come forward and offer a blessing on the new oil well on the Watkins Ranch.
But in the film, he deliberately snubs Eli's request for the sanctifying ceremony, instead choosing the little girl to come up to the front,
a proud daughter of these hills.
Later, after sitting through one of Eli's phony faith-healing performances,
Daniel does the right thing and kindly asks the preacher to conduct a service for a fatally injured worker.
Eli takes the opportunity to criticize Daniel's petroleum operation, whereupon the oil man
interrupts the unappreciative man of God, reminding him that if he shuts down, if it
shuts down, quote, then the well can't produce and blow gold all over the place.
This seesaw rivalry between Daniel and Eli reaches a humiliating climax when Daniel submits
to a rebaptism, he says he's already washed in the blood of Jesus Christ, in order to
get an essential pipeline lease.
Eli publicly degrades Daniel, striking him and forcing him to cry out on his needs, I've
abandoned my child, which is patently false. In fact, the very next scene shows the son's
return from school as the two hug and Daniel affirms, I love you son. The preacher's cruel
debasement sets up the final scene in the motion picture when Daniel returns the parson's
treatment, mockingly explaining the concept of underground drainage to Eli, I drink your
milkshake and makes him proclaim, I am a false prophet and he ultimately clubs him with a
The book's recent jacket luridly proclaims its contents as a gripping tale of avarice,
corruption and class warfare. It seems as if the copywriter of those words was not reading
the same novel as the one where by page 12 the oil baron is already shown to be a simple
and generous man who freely tips a filling station attendant a silver dollar and uses
the occasion as a teaching moment for Bunny. Poor devils, he would say, they don't get
Although the son is not the key player in the film, plain view is equally unselfish
to him from his initial adoption of H.W. as an orphan, including him as an observant partner
in his dealings and extending also himself to others, as seen in his easy gullibility
with a man claiming to be his long-lost brother, his financial support of the local church,
even though he despises its charlatan pastor, his fair treatment of his workers, his care
for the safety of the men, and his concern for the son's health and education.
While he does not tell landowners the whole truth about the value of their oil-rich property,
he does keep his bargain and pay what he promises.
This is not quite the plundering capitalism of the jungle.
Of course, business ethics is in the eye of the beholder. In order to get a road built
expeditiously to his oil wells, Ross offers some emolument to a public official, not as
a bribe, but as a thank you, for good service, long hours, risk taking, and the like. Corruption
or gratuity, you be the judge. And as for Bunny, upon witnessing such things, he commits
himself to the standard of not being a liar, not even in trivial things.
Well the book and the film draw parallel between the material goods of oil capitalism and religious
ones. Eli wants $10,000 for the family property, for my church. Plainview explains to him he
must put in all the capital, equipment and money and do all the risky drilling. He raises
his offer from $3,700 to $5,000 and they agree to the sale. So if Anderson's adaptation
is supposed to show greedy business, it's one where reasons are given and economics
are patiently explained. The real culprits in a father's mind are not the providers
Writers of Employment and Services to America, the entrepreneurs or the captains of industry,
but the bureaucracy of meddling big government. Quoting from Sinclair's book, quote, in your
own business you were boss and you drove ahead and pushed things through, but when you ran
into public authorities you saw graft and waste and inefficiency till it made you sick.
And there were fools always rooting for public ownership, people who called themselves socialists
and wanted to turn everything over to the government to run. And when they had their
way you'd have to fill out a dozen application blanks and await the option of a local board
When the film shows Plainview here, a clear-cut name if there ever was one, making his pitch
to the community, he promises them that they will prosper and flourish under the arrangement.
He will build not only oil wells, but water wells, schools, roads, and provide employment,
donations to the church, and there will be bread for all, he says.
So maybe Anderson's film should have been called There Will Be Bread in honor of capitalist
and its largesse. Thank you.