THIN, steely, competitive, brutal. His eyes narrow with suspicion and cunning. His jaw set as though made for crushing.

“I have a competition in me; I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.”

Daniel Plainview, played convincingly by Daniel Day-Lewis in the film There Will be Blood, knows himself only too well. He has to defeat, strike, or deceive to win.

But the story is not about a sick mind, despite the centrality of Plainview�