"There Will be Blood" is a powerful film about the inherent emptiness of centering one's life around accumulating wealth. But it isn't the first film to contemplate the emotional vacuity in the existences of wealthy individuals. The grandaddy of such titles is the 1941 film "Citizen Kane," which revolutionized how we make movies. To this day, the filmmaking techniques pioneered by "Citizen Kane" are still being employed. Its legacy is simply enormous.
Like "There Will be Blood," "Kane" also follows a fellow, in this case Charles Foster Kane, as he pursues glory only to end up with a life as hollow as the empty mansion he dies in. Both films span decades, plumbing the depths of their respective protagonists' tragic plights. The similarities between the two titles even seeped into initial critical reviews of "There Will Be Blood," with Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian observing how a moment involving Plainview and a map in "There Will Be Blood" evoked a musical number from the earlier film about "good old Charlie Kane."
Both movies offer different experiences in terms of tone and filmmaking, with Bradshaw noting that Plainview and Kane have distinct personalities (Plainview is a rough-edged misanthrope; Kane is a loquacious, charming playboy). However, both "There Will be Blood" and "Citizen Kane" offer cautionary tales over how wealth and power simply can't cure everything.
