There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood is indeed a feral symphony of Nietzschean themes—self-overcoming, greed, and transcendence. But beneath its operatic scale and primal intensity, the film unearths a darker truth: the power of institutions and their inevitable unraveling when their wielders are undone by the very bonds they try to transcend—family. Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday, avatars of ambition, do not merely engage in personal quests for power; they channel their wills through the vast, impersonal forces of oil and religion. Yet, their ultimate undoing reveals the limits of their self-created worlds and the Nietzschean promise of the Übermensch.

Institutions as Extensions of Will

Daniel Plainview embodies the unrelenting will to power. His relationship with oil is not transactional; it is existential. The derricks he erects are altars to his own force of will, and through them, he reshapes the world in his image. Oil is both a means and an end—a fluid manifestation of his essence. Through its extraction, he carves out a space beyond the mediocrity of the masses, embodying Nietzsche’s vision of the individual who creates values.

Similarly, Eli Sunday’s church is more than a house of worship; it is a factory of moral and social control. Eli is a high priest of shame and salvation, his sermons a choreography of influence designed to extract submission and wealth. Religion, for Eli, is an institution of power, a spiritual oil well he exploits with the same ruthlessness Daniel applies to the land. The church and the oil fields, then, are not just tools—they are vessels of transformation, amplifying the ambitions of their respective wielders.

The Dialectic of Power: Master vs. Slave Moralities

The conflict between Daniel and Eli is a Nietzschean dialectic. Daniel’s will is raw, creative, and assertive—Nietzsche’s master morality made flesh. He values strength, independence, and self-reliance, scorning the weakness of those who depend on others. His disdain for humanity is not misanthropy; it is the rejection of mediocrity.

Eli, in contrast, is the apotheosis of the priestly caste, embodying Nietzsche’s critique of slave morality. His power is indirect, rooted in manipulation and the exploitation of guilt. Eli’s sermons are not about salvation but domination, his calls for repentance thinly veiled demands for submission. His morality is reactive, a counterforce to Daniel’s raw assertion of will.

Their rivalry is not simply man versus man; it is a struggle between two modes of power. Eli seeks to humble Daniel, to drag him into the quagmire of guilt and dependence. Daniel, in turn, seeks to crush Eli’s pretensions, exposing his piety as a facade for greed.

Family as the Undoing

Despite their larger-than-life personas, both men are undone by the most human of bonds: family. Daniel’s estrangement from his adopted son, H.W., marks the unraveling of his humanity. In his pursuit of dominance, he sacrifices connection, isolating himself in a gilded tomb of wealth and bitterness. His rejection of H.W. is not just a personal failure; it is the collapse of the relational ties that could have tempered his ambition.

Eli, too, is undermined by his family. His brother’s betrayal and his own desperation for validation reveal the cracks in his facade. His climactic humiliation at Daniel’s hands is not just the defeat of the church by industry; it is the exposure of his own weakness, the collapse of the moral authority he claimed to wield.

Daniel as a Failed Übermensch

Though Daniel embodies many qualities of Nietzsche’s Übermensch, he ultimately falls short. The Übermensch is not merely a figure of dominance; he is a creator of new values, transcending the old and forging meaning in the abyss. Daniel’s will to power, untempered by love or connection, becomes self-destructive. His final triumph over Eli is hollow, leaving him alone and embittered, a king in a castle of despair.

The Übermensch, in Nietzsche’s vision, overcomes not just the world but also himself, achieving a higher synthesis of power and creativity. Daniel’s failure to reconcile his ambition with his humanity ensures that he remains trapped, not transcendent. His victory is not the triumph of the Übermensch but the apotheosis of isolation.

A Dark Meditation on Power

In the end, There Will Be Blood is a Nietzschean tragedy, a dark meditation on the power of institutions, the perils of unchecked ambition, and the fragility of human connection. Daniel and Eli, avatars of oil and religion, embody the will to power in its purest forms, yet their ultimate undoing reveals the cost of their obsessions. Family, the bond they both seek to transcend, becomes their undoing, exposing the human limitations of their self-created worlds.

Daniel’s final words—“I’m finished”—resonate as a grim acknowledgment of this truth. He has reshaped the world in his image, yet he remains trapped within it, his triumph a monument to his own emptiness. Far from the Übermensch, he is a cautionary tale, a reminder that the will to power, unmoored from connection and love, consumes itself in the end.