In Blood, however, the schism between capitalism and religion is given a much more central focus. Plainview's greed may be a sign of his corruption, but he hardly hides it. He despises the hypocrisy he gleans from Eli Sunday's sermons, and is disgusted by Sunday's attempt to use faith to disguise his own ambitions. A disastrous explosion of an oil derrick comes at a crucial turning point in the story. The effect of the pillar of oil-fueled fire, and Anderson's attempt to confine the film's lighting to the natural light of the blaze, recalls Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven. In that film's key turning point, when sharecroppers try to smoke out locusts that biblically descend on a farm, it also catches fire. Malick chose to use the eerie light of the flames to emphasize the supernatural quality of this moment. Anderson's burning oil derrick spotlights Plainview's naked greed as the flames shoot into the night.

As Plainview grows old and achieves his goal of retreat from the human race, he becomes a Howard Hughes-type figure. Hermit-like, he never leaves his mansion, and becomes estranged even from H.W. But curiously, as he descends into this madness, the shots become more formal, and symmetrical. The wide-angle shots in his mansion remind me of Kubrick's depiction of The Shining's Overlook Hotel — vast, isolated, yet allowing us to detachedly observe Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) from a safe distance.

Anderson successfully stirs the pot with this soup he concocted to come up with one of the most unique and satisfying movies in the last ten years. Run, don't walk, to get the DVD, out on April 8 on single and two-disc standard DVD.