The Three Baptisms in P.T. Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood”

Starting at the 4:50 mark of this film essay, Matt Zurcher identifies three kinds of baptism that serve as visual rhymes in P.T. Anderson’s great “There Will Be Blood.”

Anderson will be coming out with ” The Master ” this fall, a film that looks to continue his engagement with religious themes.

Update: Gabriel Rossman provides an interesting look at the ways “There Will Be Blood” departs from Upton Sinclair’s  Oil! (on which it was loosely based) at Code and Culture .

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