The Aesthetics of Oil: The Role of Oil in Cities of Salt, Oil!, There Will Be Blood, Giant and Killers of the Flower Moon

Abstract

The main purpose of my thesis is the analysis of the aesthetics of petroleum, namely the ways in which petroleum is represented in different artistic forms. The work is divided into four chapters. The first chapter defines petrofiction as given by Amitav Ghosh and other scholars such as Martin Shockley, Hannes Bergthaller, Christa Grewe-Volpp, Sylvia Mayer, Stacey Balkan, Swaralipi Nandi and Graeme Macdonald. In this chapter I also analyze Cities of Salt (1984) by Abdul Rahman Munif, the novel that Ghosh recognises as the greatest example of petrofiction. The second chapter deals with Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil! (1927) and Paul Anderson’s cinematic adaptation of the book, There Will Be Blood (2007). In particular, following the analysis of Stephanie LeMenager, I trace a link between these masterpieces and the reasons why oil representation is crucial to understand American culture, by highlighting the bond between oil and American automobile culture. The third chapter deals with George Stevens’s movie Giant (1956), focusing on oil symbolism as regards issues linked to environment, society and economy. In particular, I explain the role that oil has in creating economic differences among people, as well as tensions for its possession. Finally, in the fourth chapter, I present Scorsese’s movie Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).