The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson film in 70mm)*

I think those might actually be the points of the movie.

I don't think it ever intended to be. After reading quite a bit about Anderson's intentions with this film, it certainly doesn't sound like he remotely set out to make a movie about Hubbard or Scientology directly. Sure there are a lot of parallels, but the focus of the movie isn't so much about "the master" as it is about the student, and ultimately I think the point is sort of to show that Phoenix's character is simply beyond hope and redemption.

I think the movie asks you to draw your own conclusions about Dodd/Hubbard and the Cause/Scientology. I for one appreciate that the audience isn't spoon-fed and beaten over the head with the "message." Some of my favorite movies (including the equally ambiguous "Magnolia," and "Tree of Life") are ones that have you leaving the theater asking more questions than you went in with.

I don't know that I could tell you what it's "about," but I do know it's crawled into my brain and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. Plus, Hoffman's and (especially) Phoenix's performances are phenomenal.

 

I don't think the movie pulls any punches with the Scientology aspect at all, so I seriously doubt Cruise and Company were able to exert any influence over its content. If they had, I doubt Anderson would have left in one of the key lines of dialog in the movie (the one shown in the trailor where Dodd's son states that his father is "making it up as he goes along").

 

Not in the film!

I was blown away, too, on the way home from the theater. I really love that line, and it's a perfect thing to confront Lancaster Dodd (the cult leader)'s character.

The one character who does tell Joaquin Phoenix the truth about Lancaster Dodd is the man's son, played by Jesse Plemons ("Todd" from Breaking Bad). To me, that's the only real insight you get into Dodd in the whole film. The rest is a cypher, open to interpretation.

I'd agree that the acting in the film is terrific. Me personally, I prefer for movies to have a little more meat to them, and this one felt pretty empty to me. Maybe that's Anderson's thing, but it doesn't make for a satisfying film experience. I don't mind a filmmaker forcing the audience to fill in some blanks here and there or even drawing their own conclusion; I still consider 2001 to be among my favorites.

Maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I like movies that have a beginning, middle, and end, characters I can understand and even empathize with, and a plot that makes sense. This was too all over the place for me. But technically, the film is extremely good.

 

..does the term "chewing scenery" come into play? Phoenix had to do something to jump start his career. Wonder if it will work?

 

I thought Hoffman was magnificent as Lancaster Dodd. Vidiot, the aspects of his portrayal that you found unsatisfying were intriguing to me. I liked the shifting of how I felt about his character. And Hoffman pulled this off effectively.

I liked Amy Adams in this. She's one of my favorite actresses and she plays against type here as Dodd's supportive and calculating wife.

 

Been driving me crazy for the last 24 hours.
Phoenix's character reminded me of another.
Finally got it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZkHk4WxO4I

 

"Tell me something that's true" is far from the only thing in the trailers that isn't in the movie:

http://cigsandredvines.blogspot.ca/2012/09/the-master-deleted-scenes.html

 

The "Tell me something that's true!" line was actually from a completely different take, if you look closely. In the take they used in the film Freddy rips his shirt off in a rage, but in the trailer take, he has his shirt on. I'm guessing that as good as that line was, the shirtless take ended up being better in every other way, so they used it.

 

I was totally unimpressed with the 70mm print ,I seen 35mm that looked better
this was at the Ziegfeld too,

 

Really? The presentation I saw at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland was incredibly crisp and clear.

 

The Ziegfeld is always top in NY ,Must have been the print they were
given,or they haven't played a real film in so long with everything being Digital

 

Like I said earlier, I agree. I've seen 3 70mm films in the movie theater.

I think one of them was Abyss, The Master and Lawrence of Arabia.

Only Lawrence was worth it

I only notice the difference on blu ray

 

well The Abyss wasn't real 70mm

 

1.85 can still work in 70mm. Looked absolutely fine to me -- really, really beautiful.

I don't think it's an acting problem -- it's a script problem. It's as if Anderson couldn't decide whether Lancaster Dodd was a charlatan, a visionary, an egotistical scoundrel, or some of all three. To me, I would've rather he made it a little less vague. From all accounts, the real Hubbard believed quite a bit of his philosophy in the early days, but things got very murky as the church gained and lost money over time, and I think it eventually became more about making a profit.

I think you can draw some comparisons to Citizen Kane, where you also have a famous historical figure who's a champion, but also terribly flawed, even hated, but had very noble aspirations. I think it's possible to present the story of a complex character like this, but I think the movie had too much of Phoenix's character and not enough of the title character, to me. And I think the end result isn't satisfying.

Daily Variety had this to say:

"The writer-director's typically eccentric sixth feature is a sustained immersion in a series of hypnotic moods and longueurs, an imposing picture that thrillingly and sometimes maddeningly refuses to conform to expectations.""

I'd agree with that.

 

was this just blown up to 70mm??

 

No, it's the real deal, although apparently 20% is in 35mm.

Tom

 

my print looked washed out at times ,the desert scenes did not look good

 

If The Master is matted off to 1.85, I wonder why they shot it in 70MM.

I was going to ask a question thinking the film had a AOR of 2.40 but I'll ask it anyhow (hypothetically). In the past The Master would been shown at an aspect ratio of 2:21.1 which was required because of the stereo mag tracks taking up filmstock space? Or would it be shown at 2:35\2:40 because digital sound hardly takes up any space? If the answer to the hypothetical question is 2:35\2:40; would this have been a first for a 70MM presentation?

 

Funny, I don't here my coworkers talk about movies much, but yesterday two of them - one 22 years old and one 79 where complaining out loud about how they threw there money away on this "pointless" film. Almost scaring me from seeing it, but I feel I have to.

 

I think longeurs pretty much describes the movie!

 

I don't think it really mattered to him. It's a mistake to look at this movie, IMO, as an expose of Scientology. That's what the pre-release publicity seemed to be promising but that's not what it's really about. Scientology just gave Anderson a setting.

I think how you interpret this movie might depend on your views about religion. To me, as a non-religious and pretty cynical person, the movie isn't about Scientology, it's about any religion -- it's about whether any guru or philosophy can really change someone (especially someone as damaged as Phoenix). You could make the same movie with Phoenix's character encountering a "legitimate" religious leader like a Catholic bishop or a Buddhist monk. The same questions would be there (at least for me as a nonbeliever) -- do they really believe what they're saying? Does what they're saying have any validity? Does it really help anyone?

Though the problem with my interpretation is, I'm not entirely sure whether Freddy ever really was seeking any kind of salvation or redemption from the Master, or just wanted somewhere to sleep and free booze. Certainly, it's hard to make the movie add up completely.

I felt the key to the movie was in the scene where the Master says to Freddy (paraphrasing) "If you find a way to live without a master, you'll be the first." Is he right about that? That's the central question.

I think the reason the movie doesn't work for people (and I'd include myself in this) on a surface level is that it doesn't build to any kind of confrontation between them (an equivalent of the "milkshake" scene from There Will Be Blood), or another kind of cathartic moment. It ends on an unsatisfying note of "Oh well, nothing worked out." The intensity of the first half seemed to drain away. But to just dismiss it... no, I can't do that.

 

I've feeling is that the movie is a processing session for the viewer.

Freddie is the wall, Dodd is the window, and we, the viewers, must keep walking back and studying each of them until they become something other than what they are: a window and a wall.

Get it?

 

Could be, but I kind of doubt it. I think most of the scenes just didn't really necessitate a wider aspect ratio. They were mostly interior, talking head dialog shots.