Hollywood Novels

In 1927 Upton Sinclair, polemic writer and political candidate wrote a novel called Oil. It told a story about an oil tycoon and his son (the Ross). There is also a back story about an evangelist loosely related to Amy Semple McPherson. The Jungle is a better novel but some critics have thought that Oil was the best thing that Sinclair wrote while he lived in California. The senior Ross in the story is an independent wildcatter. His son is also a sort of entrepreneur but sides with the socialists. The real story is about the interplay of father and son but also about the influence of oil in California. There are a lot of potentially interesting elements in the story.

Tonight we saw There Will Be Blood, the Hollywood version of the novel. I am not sure what the adapters were trying to accomplish - but it is not clear whether they ever bothered to read the novel. The odd thing about the movie is that there are some interesting performances in the movie - even though the script is uneven. There are many things wrong with the movie. First and foremost is the musical score, which is simply annoying - it attempts to build suspense at odd and curious times. The most disappointing aspect of the film is the complete disregard for the story. The interplay between the wildcatters and the major oil companies in California in the early 20th century is fascinating. Sinclair's theme of the tension between ideologies and generations could also make an interesting movie. What is exchanged here is a lot of gratuitous violence with an overlay of some interesting performances, which could have been meaningful had the adapters bothered to even think about the issues raised by Sinclair.