The film There Will Be Blood centers on the early days of the American oil industry, and its technological world is built around drilling, extraction, and transportation. Much of the film’s drama hinges on the move from small‑scale prospecting to more organized, industrialized drilling operations. Wooden derricks, hand‑dug wells, and basic cable‑tool drilling rigs show how early oil men relied on brute force, human labor, and rudimentary machinery to reach the oil locked beneath the ground.

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As Daniel Plainview’s ambitions grow, the film highlights increasingly complex systems that knit technology and capital together. Pump jacks, pipelines, and storage facilities signal a shift from simple discovery to long‑term exploitation and control. The building of a private pipeline to the coast, for example, represents both an engineering achievement and a way to bypass the railroad’s power, showing how infrastructure itself becomes a weapon in economic competition. 

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The dangers of these innovations are just as important as their efficiency. The famous oil‑derrick explosion sequence shows drilling as volatile and unpredictable; fire, smoke, and uncontrolled gushing oil turn the rig into a symbol of both progress and ruin. This catastrophe underscores how early oil technology pushed the limits of safety and knowledge, with workers’ lives and local communities bearing the risk. In this way, the film uses its period machinery to explore how technological advances in extraction can fuel economic growth while also deepening exploitation, environmental damage, and moral decay.