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

Freddie abandons The Cause to find his own salvation, tracks down his wartime sweetheart and finds her married, then goes on a binge that makes The Lost Weekend look like a Disney cartoon.

??? did Reed see a different cut of the movie than the one I just got back from? Post-return to Massachusetts, what binge?

Yeah he seems to be conflating things there.

I thought this was all right -- well made and acted, definitely seeds of something interesting in it, but it never really grabbed me. I wadn't bored, for the most part, but not compelled either.

the internet seems to think the bathroom handjob scene was dour or grim or whatever. fuck you internet that scene was totally hot

It's a good scene, Amy Adams' best in the movie.

^ genius on the genius rock

I thought this was all right -- well made and acted, definitely seeds of something interesting in it, but it never really grabbed me. I wadn't bored, for the most part, but not compelled either.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Saturday, September 22, 2012 10:52 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Yeah this is about my reaction. It's like... this movie sure exists. It had my attention the whole time and I enjoyed looking at joaquim's face, but I can't find much else to say about it. i can't really even figure out what the movie was missing.

This kinda reminded me of Raging Bull in a weird way.

― latebloomer, Friday, September 21, 2012 5:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i can see this

also i noticed jackson pynchon credited as an assistant on this... pta's next film is an adaptation of Inherent Vice

This is still rolling around in my head a few days later at least.

I find it interesting that Dodd's son is given such a key line but is really only a peripheral figure in the movie. I suppose that's intended to foreground the father/son relationship between the main characters.

Also heavy symbolism with the opening shot (water roiling in the wake of a boat) and, like, boobs placed in the extreme foreground.

Yeah the water shot is gorgeous but as symbolism pretty over-telegraphed. (He's a sailor, I get it. Adrift! Just like all of us! etc etc)

And I thought there was an interesting implication at the end that Dodd's son had really thrown in his lot with the Cause, for mercenary reasons obviously. He'd be a more interesting character to carry a movie, really.

its not screening in 70mm in my town, but the 4k dcp i saw still looked great.

Trying to skim recent posts for general impressions, but not read too closely--hope to see it tomorrow.

And I thought there was an interesting implication at the end that Dodd's son had really thrown in his lot with the Cause, for mercenary reasons obviously. He'd be a more interesting character to carry a movie, really.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Sunday, September 23, 2012 11:02 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah thats not a bad idea actually. i have trouble with insane protagonists, there's almost always this remoteness where you're observing their craziness instead of feelin their humanity

its really a lot of fun just watching joaquim though. i love the way his face is photographed, all these deep pools of shadow in his crags

yeah always seemed like one, but only one, of his eyes was in shadow

i was bored at this but i didn't dislike it; i will see it again. it was so long and still felt like bits clipped out of a more complete story, but a little imaginative work (like tipsy mothra theorizing re dodd jr above) can make it feel very rich. hope i can see it in 70mm sometime cuz yeah the faces and the sunlight were gorge. PSH was very scary, actually, especially in closeup.

The War is behind the whole story, behind the setting, and behind phoenix's performance, but there's none of it in the movie, not even much talk about it, which is prob a good move (i don't want PTA to spend a morning inventing some ghastly but pleasantly clockwork pacific-theatre horror to befall this guy in the first reel so we know he Has Bad Memories) but which does make the whole thing feel that much more skeletal. still i think there's more in here about the early years of the pax americana, and about why the utopian huckster's "scientific" blend of psych and spirituality (cf. not just scientology but stuff like "moral re-armament") plays so well in a place where people are fighting to banish war-trauma and bomb-fear with optimistic conformity, than there was about the california oil boom (or capitalism, or religion, or filial estrangement) in there will be blood. this is a much better period movie per se.

so according to the stuff you guys have posted this looks as ahistorical as PTA's other films.

I thought this was all right -- well made and acted, definitely seeds of something interesting in it, but it never really grabbed me. I wadn't bored, for the most part, but not compelled either.

ditto

its really a lot of fun just watching joaquim though. i love the way his face is photographed, all these deep pools of shadow in his crags

― Hungry4Ass, Sunday, September 23, 2012 10:26 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this was basically all I paid attention to

also sometimes psh's facial hair

I think my only problem with it is they the central conflict seemed a bit slight and even programmatic to build a whole film around. But I look forward to further viewings which may reveal further complexities and subtleties. There is definitely some understated weirdness to it that I haven't been able to tease out.

so who wants to explain the naked party scene

joaquin is bored & thinks abt sex a lot

idk I think there's more going on

loved this, best new movie i've seen in a long while.

it's "about" lots of different things, but it seemed like a big theme was religion (though the cause isn't really framed as a religion within the movie, more as a philosophy but same diff) as a failed attempt to "civilize" man by getting rid of animal urges. freddy is essentially an animal, all sexual/violent urges and instinct. dodd thinks of himself as civilized but his animal urges seep through ("PIG FUCK!") so it's not like he's going to be able to cure freddy ultimately.

amy adams was fantastic in this, i was very intrigued by her character. odd that laura dern was fourth in the credits given she's in the movie for five minutes and has like six lines.

Her last scene was pretty important, and well acted too I thought.

the scene where amy adams jerks PSH off into the sink - what was going on there? seemed to be an implication she thought he might try to validate polygamy/free love through the cause - i don't remember the exact line but that was the impression i got

part of an imo weird thrust of the movie suggesting she wields the real muscle in the outfit

thrust

muscle

movie didn't deliver
lots of good ideas that dont develop
i'm disappointed

sort of obvious but it's still kinda interesting how this movie seems to frame a very similar relationship to the one in There Will Be Blood--namely a thematic point that seems to revolve around how "civilizing" frameworks are masked and redirected forms of the same animalistic urges to dominance, hedonism, etc. failures of sublimation and that kind of thing.

it's "about" lots of different things, but it seemed like a big theme was religion (though the cause isn't really framed as a religion within the movie, more as a philosophy but same diff) as a failed attempt to "civilize" man by getting rid of animal urges. freddy is essentially an animal, all sexual/violent urges and instinct. dodd thinks of himself as civilized but his animal urges seep through ("PIG FUCK!") so it's not like he's going to be able to cure freddy ultimately.

if a lot of people (including many whose job is to watch films and dissect their themes) leave a film wondering "what was it all ABOUT", I gotta think it wasn't very successful at expressing its themes

I didn't have trouble with what it was ABOUT but I couldn't understand why anyone would want to make this film. it was so strange. the out-of-focus shots got on my nerves really quickly.

the scene where amy adams jerks PSH off into the sink - what was going on there? seemed to be an implication she thought he might try to validate polygamy/free love through the cause - i don't remember the exact line but that was the impression i got

― congratulations (n/a), Sunday, September 23, 2012 6:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

part of an imo weird thrust of the movie suggesting she wields the real muscle in the outfit

― Inconceivable (to the entire world) (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, September 23, 2012 6:15 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

tell me if u can find a life without a master = shes his master

i dont remember any out of focus shots. maybe it was your projector?

does someone actually yell "pig fuck!" in this movie?

is it philip seymour hoffman? if so then that's a much bigger entry in the pro column than any number of people going 'i didn't understand what this movie was about' is in the negative

yes and yes

there were many many shots where the foreground is clear and everything just a bit behind is quite out of focus. obviously a deliberate choice by the director but it was done so much that it just got on my nerves. no one else noticed this? idk - I just don't care for PTA's style, personally - the tracking shots with out-of-focus objects moving through the foreground also kind of bothered me.

I was wondering for a while why they never developed the story of how PSH's character got to be the leader of this weird organization, how it was formed and from where his ideas came, but maybe that's the point - there's just no way his ideas are all that interesting, except to messed up/gradually brainwashed people which is what I thought the film was really about - who gets swept up into creepy, cult like organizations and the process of it

i dont remember any out of focus shots. maybe it was your projector?

― Hungry4Ass, Monday, September 24, 2012 5:18 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

when he's walking on the dock towards the yacht

I guess I didn't wonder what the movie was "about," it's all laid out pretty methodically. The urge for transcendence, flesh vs. spirit, freedom vs. servitude (anyone else think of Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody"?), and all the ways we're bound to the past -- our own past, and collective pasts. And then secondarily the ways those urges and needs can be tapped into and/or exploited in the name of some higher cause (conveniently labeled the Cause in the film).

I don't think the film has any particular revelations on any of those points, but it dramatizes some of them well. Just didn't for me add up to a whole lot.

Comparing it to TWBB, I enjoyed Daniel Day-Lewis's feral/needful shtick more than Joaquin Phoenix's, because it had more dimensions. He was able to tame himself enough to prosper, using the animal edge to his advantage (at least until the end), which made him less predictable and scarier. Joaquin Phoenix's character is much more at the mercy of his instincts and desires, which ultimately gets kind of tedious.

don't think the criticism is literally "i don't get what this is about" but rather "i don't think this is saying anything insightful about its chosen topics, and it's kind of scattershot in focus"

i liked the focus switching + tracking shot when he approaches the boat!

joaquim and psh were great, but i really didn't give 2 fucks about either of their characters

I'm sure the film was intending for you to do so

Was the scene where he gets the phone call in the movie theater supposed to be a dream?

a film that doesn't intend for the viewer to care for or at least be interested in the fates of its central characters is pretty flawed

I loved this movie and was interested in the fates of its characters.

xp re: phone call in theater - that seems to be what people are saying, that it's a dream - I mean, my read on Phoenix's character is that he's pretty gravely mentally ill (and drinking homemade rotgut presumably all through his navy stint & beyond would aggravate that some) so it could also be "he got an idea while he was watching a movie and told himself that the idea came from England via telephone"

I will say that PTA's willingness to go totally ambiguous on stuff like that is for me his best & most interesting quality