In an early script for Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 film There Will Be Blood, there is an extremely revealing line of dialogue spoken by the main character, Daniel Plainview, which is absent in the final film. In an emotional, drunken exchange with a man he falsely believes to be his half-brother named Henry, Daniel admits that his “cock doesn’t even work.” This is a revelatory piece of information, and its disclosure, and the manner in which it is disclosed, offers to the viewer a direct insight into Plainview’s mind that is otherwise closed off and guarded.
Plainview, throughout the film, is domineering to those around him and has an unquenchable thirst for not only his own success but the failure of others. He admits in both scripts that he has a “competition” in him. In the early script he goes so far as to say that “I want to rule and never, ever explain myself,” though this in itself is not an explanation, only a description of his desire. We are left without a proper explanation for this behaviour until the reveal of his infertility.
From the way his admission concerning his genitals is phrased, there is some ambiguity, however slight, as to whether he has any sexual functioning whatsoever or whether he just can’t father a child. But in the context of the rest of the film and his lack of interest in women, it is almost certain that he has no ability to perform sexual acts. In this early script, it is clear that he is insecure about this.
In the conversation in which he admits this to the man pretending to be his half-brother, he asks the man if his own cock works and then comments on his father’s virility due to him siring a bastard. Later on, after the fake Henry has slept with a woman, Daniel comments on it again, bitterly saying that Henry must get his lust from their father—“sticking it in whatever you see.” It happens frequently enough, and in a short enough time span, that these recurring comments become impossible to ignore when considering Plainview’s character.
Daniel is clearly insecure about his ability to perform, and any audience member familiar even remotely with Freudian psychology can draw some very apparent conclusions. His desire to win in financial and social battles is caused by this insecurity. His hyper-competitive external masculinity is caused by a feeling of internally justified inferiority. He can’t succeed at one of the main things that society expects a man to be, and so he must not only win at other things but triumph in a way that causes all other men to fail, in the same way that he fails where they succeed. He explicitly states, “I want no one else to succeed.” With the additional knowledge of his own shortcomings, it’s easy to see why the character feels that way.
These moments in the script come interspersed with scenes of Daniel grappling with his turbulent relationship with his adopted child. In one scene, the son, H.W., starts a fire in the cabin where all three of the Plainviews are staying. Following this, Daniel chooses to send H.W. off to a boarding school, and then reacts explosively to a representative of Standard Oil speaking innocently about his son. The man’s suggestion that Daniel could retire and instead care for his child is met with threats of violence.
These scenes are all present in the final film, but in this earlier script the theme of fatherhood and intergenerational relationships is much more central, with the contrast between Daniel’s insecurity regarding his father and his guilt toward his son highlighting each other—sexuality and parenthood intertwined.
So why did Anderson remove this extremely revealing piece of information? The final Plainview we get is much more of an enigma. Anderson didn’t necessarily remove Plainview’s infertility from the “canon” of the film, but he did remove the confirmation of it and Plainview’s overt insecurity.
It remains completely justifiable to interpret Plainview as insecure about his (lack of) sexuality. Every point made above is still a valid reading of the character. But that is precisely the point—it is a valid interpretation, not the interpretation. In the earlier script, it is nearly impossible to read his motivations as anything other than a reaction to psychosexual inferiority and paternal resentment.
In that version, his need to dominate cannot be read as strongly as a commentary on capitalism, expansionism, or the endless pursuit of profit, but rather as a function of individual psychology. Alternative readings become weaker, more difficult to sustain, and less likely to even occur to the viewer.
There Will Be Blood is undoubtedly influenced by Moby-Dick. A charismatic, domineering, monomaniacal figure pursues a goal at the expense of everything else. One of the film’s musical tracks is even titled after a line from Melville’s novel: “Eat Him By His Own Light.”
The line refers to oil—the ability to consume a whale by the light of its own extracted substance. One of the great strengths of Moby-Dick is its openness to interpretation. Ahab’s struggle can be read as religious, existential, ecological, or psychological. It can represent man’s battle against nature, God, or himself.
The novel resists singular meaning, and this is precisely what allows it to endure. Similarly, There Will Be Blood benefits from this same openness. By removing explicit psychosexual explanation, Anderson allows Plainview to become something larger than an individual.
The decision to exclude Plainview’s explicit infertility ultimately strengthens the film. Its inclusion would narrow interpretation, anchoring the character too firmly in one psychological framework. In its absence, Plainview becomes more fluid—capable of representing capitalism, greed, power, masculinity, or any combination of these.
This ambiguity gives the film a richness that would otherwise be diminished. The Plainview we see is not confined to a single explanation but exists as a figure that can expand and shift depending on the viewer.
This openness—this resistance to a single, definitive meaning—is what makes There Will Be Blood such a compelling and enduring work.