Only later – after gushing oil and gushing blood – do we wonder whether Plainview’s little smile was at the child’s gesture or his own decision to keep the boy and use him as a shill. He names him H.W. and calls him his partner. Is this generosity and love, or is Plainview the ultimate American pragmatist?
Ambition looks in the mirror, and ruthlessness is reflected, although whether that is viewed as contemptible depends a great deal on the beholder. Since Plainview has no interior monologue, he is pitted against Preacher Eli Sunday. Eli is gifted with the beatific and placid face of a saint, but we don’t know if he’s good religion or bad religion. He asks for money for his Church. Not only does Plainview telegraph his smirking disgust with Sunday’s religious histrionics, we witness his rage when he gives the youth a solid and public ass-kicking, pulling his hair and making him eat mud. It’s not just religion that Plainview despises; it’s anyone seeking power over him. Autonomy and self-direction are very American values.
This is Plainview’s first loss of self-control. But like Llewelyn Moss, Anton Chigurh, and even Sheriff Bell, he is a victim of his predatory obsessions. Unlike them, it is questionable whether he knows right from wrong. In that view, even Anton Chigurh has a moral advantage, asking a prospective victim the most probing question in both the cinematic and real world: “If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?”
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