"They start the same and they end the same", said brilliant director Paul Thomas Anderson about the characters of THE MASTER in a recent brief interview with Charlie Rose. "We're all children of Stanley Kubrick, aren't we? Is there anything you can do that he hasn't done?" – that's another quote from PT Anderson.
THE MASTER did remind me of Kubrick a lot; it basically follows the same path of a film like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971), with a protagonist, a war veteran with an obsession for alcohol and sex, going through a series of attempts by different people to help him, "cure" him and put him back into society, only to end pretty much where he started. THE MASTER also shares things with Anderson's previous effort THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007) – both are character studies of long duration, meant to be seen by patient viewers and to be thought long after the closing credits appeared.
It's basically the most fascinating disappointment of 2012 – a weird case, with the best performance of the year (Joaquin Phoenix as the mentioned war veteran Freddie Quell – one thing's for sure: you will never forget the Freddie Quell name), one of the most brilliant sequences with the use of the flashback, and a terrific score (and vintage songs like "Get Thee Behind Me Satan" by Ella Fitzgerald), but still not as mind blowing as I hoped. Needless to say, for my money it's nowhere near the best work of PT Anderson.
As the so-called "Scientology film", it's quite interesting – it sure offers a great view at the power of a preacher, Philip Seymour Hoffman (as Lancaster Dodd) will intrigue you, echoing the f***** up thinking of L. Ron Hubbard (for more you have to check out the brilliant SOUTH PARK episode "Trapped in the Closet"). THE MASTER is a strange one but at the same time not at all. In fact, I would have preferred that my disappointment had more to do with the word "strangeness"; THERE WILL BE BLOOD, for instance, left me intrigued and thinking a whole lot while this one didn't. In other words, I don't think I didn't "get" something about it.
The strangest thing is definitely how Freddie cross paths with "the master" Lancaster Dodd and "the Cause" (this is how the Scientology-like cult of Dodd is called) – during a lonely and cold night, Freddie decides to break into a yacht (Dodd's one) and he's allowed to stay there because he can prepare unique alcoholic beverages. Sounds sort-of weird, right? But trust me, this whole thing is the best stuff of the film. This guy Freddie ain't your typical alcoholic – this is a guy who drinks fuel, photographic chemicals, thinner, etc. He has a gift to mix deadly stuff like these liquids and create irresistible drinks.
My favorite sequence of the film begins with Freddie and Lancaster drinking a glass, well less than half of the glass for obvious reasons, of a yellow beverage that Freddie created with whiskey, thinner and stuff. The sequence lasts for 20 or so minutes and ends with both characters drinking their second glass of the (practically) poisonous beverage. What's great is that during those 20 or so minutes we get to know Freddie's past, something that up until that point wasn't yet very clear, as well as the core of the proceedings that the Cause uses.
Scientology, or well "the Cause" is interested and believes in so-called "past lives". We're interested in Freddie's past – we know that he came home from war and then went under some proceedings and met with doctors who tried to unravel his past and thoughts without many success. Master Lancaster, on the other hand, achieves what the doctors couldn't and in consequence we get to hear more about Freddie's family and see flashbacks with the thing that truly bothers him. Like I said, it's a fine, brilliant sequence and sets for an engaging issue with a war veteran finally finding some peace through a group like the Cause.
Unfortunately, after that the film never has again a really powerful part, and coincidentally we never see Freddie playing with his beverages again. It felt a bit fragmented and couldn't achieve a huge overall impact. There's another long sequence with Freddie going under the proceedings of the Cause but nowhere as engaging, hell it's even boring (but still I have to say it works as an exposure of the craziness behind the cult). Good news is that PT Anderson won't take another 6 years to release a film and INHERENT VICE is coming in 2014 according to some reports. I couldn't be happier with the fact that Joaquin Phoenix is starring it, as I truly wanted to love THE MASTER as a whole as I loved his performance – in other words, I like to believe this ain't the definitive collaboration between these brilliant masters.
*Watched it on 21 & 23 February, 2013
THE MASTER did remind me of Kubrick a lot; it basically follows the same path of a film like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971), with a protagonist, a war veteran with an obsession for alcohol and sex, going through a series of attempts by different people to help him, "cure" him and put him back into society, only to end pretty much where he started. THE MASTER also shares things with Anderson's previous effort THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007) – both are character studies of long duration, meant to be seen by patient viewers and to be thought long after the closing credits appeared.
It's basically the most fascinating disappointment of 2012 – a weird case, with the best performance of the year (Joaquin Phoenix as the mentioned war veteran Freddie Quell – one thing's for sure: you will never forget the Freddie Quell name), one of the most brilliant sequences with the use of the flashback, and a terrific score (and vintage songs like "Get Thee Behind Me Satan" by Ella Fitzgerald), but still not as mind blowing as I hoped. Needless to say, for my money it's nowhere near the best work of PT Anderson.
As the so-called "Scientology film", it's quite interesting – it sure offers a great view at the power of a preacher, Philip Seymour Hoffman (as Lancaster Dodd) will intrigue you, echoing the f***** up thinking of L. Ron Hubbard (for more you have to check out the brilliant SOUTH PARK episode "Trapped in the Closet"). THE MASTER is a strange one but at the same time not at all. In fact, I would have preferred that my disappointment had more to do with the word "strangeness"; THERE WILL BE BLOOD, for instance, left me intrigued and thinking a whole lot while this one didn't. In other words, I don't think I didn't "get" something about it.
The strangest thing is definitely how Freddie cross paths with "the master" Lancaster Dodd and "the Cause" (this is how the Scientology-like cult of Dodd is called) – during a lonely and cold night, Freddie decides to break into a yacht (Dodd's one) and he's allowed to stay there because he can prepare unique alcoholic beverages. Sounds sort-of weird, right? But trust me, this whole thing is the best stuff of the film. This guy Freddie ain't your typical alcoholic – this is a guy who drinks fuel, photographic chemicals, thinner, etc. He has a gift to mix deadly stuff like these liquids and create irresistible drinks.
My favorite sequence of the film begins with Freddie and Lancaster drinking a glass, well less than half of the glass for obvious reasons, of a yellow beverage that Freddie created with whiskey, thinner and stuff. The sequence lasts for 20 or so minutes and ends with both characters drinking their second glass of the (practically) poisonous beverage. What's great is that during those 20 or so minutes we get to know Freddie's past, something that up until that point wasn't yet very clear, as well as the core of the proceedings that the Cause uses.
Scientology, or well "the Cause" is interested and believes in so-called "past lives". We're interested in Freddie's past – we know that he came home from war and then went under some proceedings and met with doctors who tried to unravel his past and thoughts without many success. Master Lancaster, on the other hand, achieves what the doctors couldn't and in consequence we get to hear more about Freddie's family and see flashbacks with the thing that truly bothers him. Like I said, it's a fine, brilliant sequence and sets for an engaging issue with a war veteran finally finding some peace through a group like the Cause.
Unfortunately, after that the film never has again a really powerful part, and coincidentally we never see Freddie playing with his beverages again. It felt a bit fragmented and couldn't achieve a huge overall impact. There's another long sequence with Freddie going under the proceedings of the Cause but nowhere as engaging, hell it's even boring (but still I have to say it works as an exposure of the craziness behind the cult). Good news is that PT Anderson won't take another 6 years to release a film and INHERENT VICE is coming in 2014 according to some reports. I couldn't be happier with the fact that Joaquin Phoenix is starring it, as I truly wanted to love THE MASTER as a whole as I loved his performance – in other words, I like to believe this ain't the definitive collaboration between these brilliant masters.
*Watched it on 21 & 23 February, 2013