THE MASTER (2012) P.T. Anderson's film on the origions of Scientology (sort of), Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, and Laura Dern

nor it is really that sprawling or exuberant--it's sort of enervating.

I don't think so at all, not if you go back and look at Farber's original formulation of the difference.

"Good work usually arises where the creators (Laurel and Hardy, the team of Howard Hawks and William Faulkner operating on the just half of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep) seem to have no ambitions towards gilt culture but are involved in a kind of squandering-beaverish endeavor that isn’t anywhere or for anything. A peculiar fact about termite- tapeworm-fungus-moss art is that it goes always forward eating its own boundaries, and, likely as not, leaves nothing in its path other than the signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity." -- Boogie Nights

"The three sins of white elephant art (1) frame the action with an all-over pattern, (2) install every event, character, situation in a frieze of continuities, and (3) treat every inch of the screen and film as a potential area for prizeworthy creativity." -- The Master

Sometimes I prefer white elephants. Not in this instance.

well we'll have to respectfully disagree but that's definition of white elephant lines up pretty well with how I regard boogie nights (a movie I like but find very callow). It could be a holdover from my teenaged self venerating it as a masterpiece and revisiting it later and finding it woefully below that bar. Not its fault necessarily.

But I think at minimum BN is definitely a movie with a big cohesive ambition to that doesn't fit the quality of "isn't anywhere or for anything." If anything the movie pretty much draws its continuities with the same overtness as magnolia does, just with arguably a lighter touch and scorceseisms.

I love "Boogie Nights," but it is so beholden to the sum of its influences in an almost distractingly overt way, from its biographical inspiration (Holmes, et al.) to its stylistic affections (Scorsese, I am Cuba, etc.). Lots of fun, everything's great, but still a young guy showing off across the board.

BTW, saw "magnolia" again perhaps for the first time since having a family of my own, and my response was very different from what I felt the first time I saw it. It was pretty devastating. Still had more than its share of show-offy bits and indulgences, but I love its go-for-broke ambitiousness. Again, that's why I think he needed to do "Punch Drunk Love." He had to force himself in a different direction, because the melodrama and filmmaking of "Magnolia" was about as far in that direction as he could go.

I should say that I don't pretend to understand everything Farber says there--he could be pretty cryptic. The central idea, yes, but I'm not holding The Master's frieze of continuities against it, primarily because I haven't a clue what that means.

I've never gone back to Boogie Nights and not loved everything I first loved about it. Certain moments will come back to me in the middle of the day--"Those are great names!"--and I'll smile. I would have been 36 when it came out...I understand what you mean, though; the teenaged me venerated many films that fell woefully short later (e.g., Manhattan).

I've been all over the place with Magnolia: knocked out initially, found it oppressive within two or three more viewings, went back to it last year and, exactly, loved its go-for-broke ambitiousness.

i think the concept of 'termite art,' as least the way farber defines it there, excludes almost anyone who had any self-conscious artistic ambitions for their work. actual '70s porn films would probably qualify before 'boogie nights' would.

but i've gotta admit i've never quite understood what farber was talking about in that essay -- like, the concepts of 'white elephant art' and 'termite art' make perfect sense until you go back and read farber and he hits you with like four impossible concepts per sentence. like what exactly does it mean to 'treat every inch of the screen and film as a potential area for prizeworthy creativity'? do any films actually do that?

it's like the "metaphysics of filmic presence" or something--not really a concept that withstands scrutiny.

i was super into this, a lot of it kind of felt like a horror movie to me in that i was waiting for some crazy sick thing to happen out of these long lingering situations.

i think my only objection is the lingering "lol bitches" misogyny that PTA trucks in (amy adams as the fanatic enforcer, laura dern as the textually alert dupe -- both of whom were flat out great tho). idk i might be overreading that, but it was def one of the things (among many) that me me hate punch drunk love

btw if you get this on disc definitely watch the deleted scenes! a bunch of fairly useful info is in them.

i dug it, although as per usual with PTA theres sort of a weird pacing resulting in a kind of lifeless last 30 minutes imo

I liked their relationship, just two guys who want to have adventures surrounded by a band of joyless pedants.

i really couldn't get this out of my head either, lol

so, dodd through force of his hucksterism had built this entire structure around himself, but it turns out, it's kind of lame and constricting. if you are going to make yourself a leader of a crowd you end up with duties to that crowd, you end up at their mercy still. quell comes to mean something untameable, untreatable and yeah, fun

for quell, what was the implication? he was this screwed-up dude who fell into this cult's orbit for a while but was too dumb and sick and drunk for it to really take (being fake). turns out he just wanted to get laid.

def looked beautiful tho

kind of a minor point but i appreciated PTA's use of the specifics of ethnic america (the filipino farmhands, the scandinavian family) overall the periodicity was terrific (the recording equipment, the cigarettes, the hair, the typefaces)

the repeated shot of the ocean churning behind the ship was gorgeous

jjj did you watch the huston doc that's attached?

that ocean shot made me almost gasp in 70mm. that's the main reason I'm afraid to watch it again--that feeling seemed so basic for the movie.

i was blown away and I watched it on boring old dvd, so I think the cinematography def holds up :)

but I know what you mean

ah crap i forgot about the huston doc and dropped it in the redbox this morning. lame.

this movie in bluray is intense fyi

I think I'm gonna buy it

I've never gone back to Boogie Nights and not loved everything I first loved about it. Certain moments will come back to me in the middle of the day--"Those are great names!"--and I'll smile.

Talking about restaurants often calls to mind "Good? It's not good. It's probably the best place to eat in Los Angeles. It's excellent."

I drop the YP/MP industry jargon bit now and then, and no one ever gets it.

I can imagine a script like Boogie Nights spilling out of him. Then I imagine Magnolia taking more refinement. Then PDL I could imagine being about excising tons of stuff until a movie appears. The last two I imagine took a hell of a lot of discipline.

i still think about the motorcycle escape scene all the time

I drop the YP/MP industry jargon bit now and then, and no one ever gets it.

Okay, now you're talking above my head.

saw this again finally, and again it pretty much leaves me exactly as it found me--i said upthread it was "desultory" and i still think that holds for me, if something can be desultory and sort of stifling in the rigidity of its conception at the same time. the two-shot in the jail scene is poignant but still borders on banality..

i do like how freddie's slow realization that dodd is fully of shit is underplayed. the look on his face when dodd says the key is "laughter." I think this is the point of the motorcycle scene actually. there may be further nuances that are also underplayed that I have missed. it's implied that freddie knows dodd is full of shit from the beginning and correctly sees through the whole enterprise as a con but at the same time yearns for what he offers.

Good interview:

http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/tt/tt130211paul_thomas_anderson

also loved when it's revealed that freddie asked "what's something like that worth?" in regard to dodd's manuscript he basically voices the unspoken heart of the matter.

so on re-viewing i wonder why Amy Adams' "You either do this for a billion years or not at all" is not recognized as a greater punchline than "I drink your milkshake."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ornzkdo9t1w

xp: one is some cocky shit that would play well in a business meeting, the other is not.

finally saw this on the weekend and damn it was frustrating. big takeaway was this, basically:

This guy thinks HE'S the Master...but his wife just ordered him around while yankin his crank, so who's REALLY the Master, bam.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Sunday, March 17, 2013 7:03 PM (5 months ago)

agree on the strength/weird set up the first 30 mins achieves

I liked their relationship, just two guys who want to have adventures surrounded by a band of joyless pedants.

― lag∞n, Monday, October 1, 2012 2:23 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the key to this film

otm

definitely a lot of nods to super mario in this... the plumbing-like environment of the torpedo hold, the way joaquin seemed to "grow" in stature after eating the "mushroom" of PSH's knowledge

― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Monday, October 1, 2012 1:28 PM (11 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just saw this today - loved it. i found it funny almost all the way through. a bit of googling yielded a phoenix interview in which he said he thought it was a comedy when he first read a rough cut of it.

i can't stop watching this scene, it's fucking brilliant and hilarious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L-_aq4_xLc

check the dude with the pipe doing a funky little strut near the end after the incredible "everybody!"

btw i really felt seymour-hoffman had a ron burgundy thing going on in this, not even saying that as a criticism, he just had this pompous straight man thing. also dr evil.

definitely a lot of nods to super mario in this... the plumbing-like environment of the torpedo hold, the way joaquin seemed to "grow" in stature after eating the "mushroom" of PSH's knowledge

― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Monday, October 1, 2012 1:28 PM (11 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― i too went to college (silby), Monday, September 9, 2013 2:27 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark

lmao

i liked this movie but i still kind of feel like PTA's movies are these big arty empty gestures

I'm okay with those. Small empty arty gestures, nah.

name some big arty full gestures of the 21st century

Yeezus

nah amateurist is right: this is the only big non-empty gesture he's made

the one way i guess they are not empty gestures, at least the last 2 films, is in their deliberate lack of commercial potential, despite costing a bunch. and i guess that's to be welcomed, just to keep the american art cinema alive. and b/c of all that it's hard to really resent PTA. but yeah i think he's both talented and really full of hot air.

i guess i've tried to make my case esp. on the TWBB thread...

name some big arty full gestures of the 21st century

― Miss Arlington twirls for the Coal Heavers (Dr Morbius), Sunday, September 15, 2013 9:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't know about arty but i was pretty impressed with the thoughtfulness of rise of the planet of the apes, actually. despite its flaws, which i would scarcely deny, there was meat on its bones.

in terms of artier stuff, i don't know, i didn't think take shelter was blowing smoke.

if you go beyond US there's plenty of stuff...

i enjoyed the master so much more than twbb. again because i found it funny - it was prob kind to lrh, i reckon he's far crazier than lancaster todd having read barefaced messiah, but there still was definitely some of the same comic madness to him that comes across in that book. and the sense of this general madness in the organisation.

but honestly morbz i don't really know how to answer your question b/c i don't really ask my films to be thematically ambitious w/ grand gestures and stuff. but PTA's stuff is inarguably grand in scale, not a little pretentious, and bombastic. so i was really just saying that the films feel a bit hollow for all that, even the newer one which as noted I liked a lot better than TWBB.

i've noted before that PTA's films (at least since the adam sandler one) get a lot of their charge from a kind of rhetoric of refusal... a refusal of the familiar sorts of narrative arcs, characterization, etc. that most filmgoers expect. they seem to be built almost as a series of perverse gestures in reaction to what might be expected of them. at least to a point. and there are worse ways to make films. but there are better ways, too, i suspect.

watched this for the first time since the theatre, cuz psh. he reminded me of welles a lil here. first half, maybe a little more, is riveting, and i love the jarring elisions: the cut from phoenix hopping onto the yacht to him asleep in the bunk, and then hoffman filling him in with "you became aggressive because you drank too much alcohol" -- huge laugh for me this time. excellent use of pop songs, including the paired set of "don't sit under the apple tree" (longing to be home) and "slow boat to china" (longing to be away) but also that great gratuitous circuit the coat girl does of the dept store to ella singing "get thee behind me satan". finally, i loved hoffman striking goldwater poses in the arizona desert. nevertheless i spent most of the second half trying to remember the exact wording of this hilarious post:

This guy thinks HE'S the Master...but his wife just ordered him around while yankin his crank, so who's REALLY the Master, bam.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Sunday, March 17, 2013 7:03 PM (5 months ago)

bam.