I went to see the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie There Will Be Blood last night with my wife. There are some beautiful speeches from Daniel Day-Lewis’s character, Daniel Plainview, especially his twice-repeated pitch to communities he wishes to drill in.

Plainview’s pitch begins like this:

 Ladies and gentlemen…

I’ve traveled over half our state to be here tonight. I couldn’t get away sooner because my new well was coming in at Coyote Hills and I had to see about it. That well is now flowing at two thousand barrels and it’s paying me an income of five thousand dollars a week. I have two others drilling and I have sixteen producing at Antelope.

So, ladies and gentlemen… if I say I’m an oil man you will agree.

Anderson’s earlier movie Magnolia had a similar scene with Tom Cruise as a man who teaches guys to be pick-up artists. Although Cruise’s performance was impressive, I like Day-Lewis’s story of what is it to be an oilman more.

There’s a scene later in the movie that encapsulates the difference. Plainview is woken by an old man. He had camped in the wilderness, and the old man is pointing at him with his rifle. You can see in Plainview’s face the momentary confusion and the grogginess of sleep, but its soon replaced by his impossibly confident, convicing voice. He doesn’t lose the voice even when it becomes apparent that the old man knows he’s bullshitting.

He hustles, but he is not a hustler.