I haven’t had a chance to see this movie yet, but there’s a huge amount of buzz about it, including a high rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a recommendation by my captious nephew that it’s “the best movie of the year”. It’s “The Master,” directed by Paul Anderson and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Laura Dern, and Amy Adams.
The plot is a thinly veiled account of the rise of Scientology (called “The Cause”); Lorraine Devon Wilke, an ex-Scientologist who loved the movie, describes the parallels:
Is this the story of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard? Not in name or detail, no. But in broad strokes, intention, in laying out the nascent, seedling efforts that grew into the billion dollar, billion year mega-theocracy it is today, yes. We in the audience recognized it: the jargon, the theories, the science fiction of it all. We recognized the drills and exercises, the “TRs” and “locationals.” We’d heard the speeches, participated in the highly anticipated and often disappointing book launches, and while most of us never met L. Ron Hubbard in person, we’d watched endless tapes of his smiling, jovial visage pontificating on his theories, philosophies, and dictates. Seymour Hoffman’s got him down, to an eerie similarity that was undeniable to those in the know. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Here’s the official trailer:
If you’ve seen it, weigh in below.
‘Above all, I am a man’, con man that is.
I went to see it the first weekend it was out, in a 70mm showing no less, simply because it’s a new Paul Thomas Anderson film, and that’s always an event.
As always, Anderson has made a visually-splendid, larger-than-life movie. However, I would not say it’s as strong as “There Will be Blood”, or his films prior to that. The plot doesn’t quite carry the film to an emotional payoff or resolution the way his prior films had. “Boogie Nights” and “There Will be Blood” both stand out for having electrifying endings. “The Master” seems to end at a point that’s almost random.
Also, in terms of the Scientology element to the film, that is indeed undeniable, but at the same time, “The Master” is as much “about” Scientology as “Boogie Nights” was about 70s porn and TWBB was about the early 20th Century Southern California oil boom. In other words, more of a backdrop rather than what the film is “about”.
I read a comment on PuffHo to the effect that this may have been the intention of the film–it takes you on a journey of discovery, but in the end it doesn’t give you “the answer”. Pretty good joke by the filmmaker if true.
There is a writing technique in narrative theory known as “perception shift” where what we assume to be true is upset by a story revelation that changes our view of what is real (e.g. an obvious example of this is the “I am your father” revelation in Empire Strikes Back). I think Anderson has matured as a writer where he no longer gets pleasure from exercising this technique in an obvious way. The story has it but it isn’t overt. He buries the shifts. I had revelations to the possible differences between what is shown and what is real only yesterday. He also doesn’t put focus on a character that has the greatest transformation in the story and this further buries the perception shift. Classic story structure suggests that the character that makes the greatest change is the one you’d focus on but that character in “The Master” is the antagonist to the central relationship, rather than one of the two characters who make up that relationship. I want to see the movie again with the consideration that the antagonist is the character with the greatest journey and by following that character’s journey, perception shifts can be experienced.
It is a subtle film about emotional dependence within relationships and doesn’t satisfy a need to de-bunk Scientology.
Behead those who insult Hubbard!
Does not really sound right. Scientology just failed the religion test.
Any movie with Seymour Hoffman in it is usually worth watching.
Actually, that’s exactly the attitude that Scientology takes. Officially, even (though privately).
http://www.xenu.net/fairgame-e.html
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That was truly naive, seeing how Scientology has, and continues to, punish their followers. (Google it.)
I would like to live in your innocent world.
If they’ve actually beheaded someone, they’ve gotten away with it so far. Even the Ex-Scientologists know nothing of it.
On the other hand they have conspired to do this:
To orient yourself, read up on the Wiki article on ‘Fair Game (Scientology)’. There’s lots more where the quote above came from.
They pass the test with flying colours if you aren’t too picky about specifying the exact punishments they mete out to their opponents.
Just as in the Old Testament, they have very detailed instructions on how to treat slaves. They call it the Sea Org and I don’t know how many hundreds of people are currently enslaved.
A video of Hubbard’s great grandson, Jamie DeWolf, talking about L. Ron Hubbard.
Meant to provide the link only, sorry for the embed.
Boy, given the choice between L Ron and a beat poet, I’m kind of at a loss.
I would pay good money to see Steve Young make this same video about Brigham, though! 🙂
The film is pretty great visually but Anderson’s reluctance to identify a classical protagonist makes an emotional payoff elusive. However, there are relationship layers within the story that have kept me thinking about the meaning of certain scenes and motivate me to see the film again. I have a new theory about the reality of the narrative regarding a particular character’s function within the given circumstances that could change the overall reading of the story. I don’t want to say more than that because I don’t want to spoil the movie. I’d say this is a great film however and well worth seeing.
It could just as easily be about Steve Jobs and Apple.
That might be true if Jobs’s wife manipulated Jobs’s insecurities to drive his sense of self and philosophy.
I think that the movie should be interpreted as a story of a man struggling with abandonment issues sacrifices who he is for the sake of companionship, no matter if that companion helps him be himself.
Scientology is the only institution on earth that has all the IP addresses associated with it permanently banned from editing Wikipedia.
Ironically, Anderson directed Tom Cruise in one of his very best roles, Magnolia.
I agree with the basic consensus. The movie leaves you thinking about the characters and their odd relationships with one another, but it doesn’t leave you feeling for them. Too bad.
That is the downside of Anderson’s experimentation with narrative form. He takes the focus off the character who might operate to open the emotional world of the story. I think this is intentional to the story he wants to tell. The emotional payoff is in the film but you have to look for it.
I’m the captious nephew. Even if it doesn’t quite equal “There Will Be Blood” (my #2 film of the last decade), “The Master” trenchantly explores related themes of megalomania and manipulation (via assurances of stability/prosperity in rudderless times). Notions often superficially plumbed – seldom with the audacity and skill of Anderson (especially since the passing of his mentor, Robert Altman). Phoenix and Hoffman set the bar for acting in 2012, and Jack Fisk’s production design evokes mid-century America as well as any film in memory.
I’ve read on a couple of sites that PTA previewed the movie for Tom Cruise and that Cruise didn’t like the line about how the Hubbard character is “making it all up.” From the sound of it, they (scientologists) tried to have that line removed.
There is one particular scene that sounds like it was written by a scientist. Pretty much nails all the talking points in favor of scientific inquiry, anti-cult etc.
And the resolution to that tension seems to be accurate to the actions “believers” take towards the skeptical few who question ideological authority. I agree with you.
I wish they had lost the master key to the theater. Please do not waste your time ( all 137 minutes of it) to go to see Master.
Great acting by Hoffman, Phoenix and Adams, beautiful score and good old 70mm cinematography could not save me from boredom and catching a few winks. The filler time in the movie did not let me figure out the point of the whole movie.
I tried to justify my Sunday afternoon, but redemption may come later than sooner. I am glad that I did not request my spouse to come along as then I would not have blamed her if she would have asked me for an infinite loop of apologies.
The uncanny resemblance of Hoffman to L Ron Hubbard, the Scientology founder, may even put more people off.
So save your time, and see something else.
How well did you know L. Ron?
Not well enough.
I had it worse, I went to the 11pm showing. The cinematography is excellent. The acting is superb. The screenplay is a hot me. What was the point of the opening sequence? From there it is the film equivalent of a braided river. By the time the credit rolls, the frau was apologizing for dragging me there. (I would see a film every two years if it was my choice, we see about 30 a year because she likes them.)
Then again, the King’s Speech won numerous Oscars and I thought is was an afternoon in the dentist chair. Aesthetics are personal and unique. We may share a particular fondness, but there is no universal, no undoubted unquestioned shared sense of aesthetics.
I hear your pain. I see about 25 movies (I like all kinds except gory horror ones) a year in the theater but I only request my spouse to go with me if the movie is in the genre she likes. I go with her to the chick flicks which are barely bearable to me.
Moral of the story: keeping the Frau happy is a good thing.
It sounds like you enjoy obvious entertainment and don’t have time with an established craftsman experimenting with form. The film takes concentration, but as a dramatic-writing student and author, I took too much value from the choices to dismiss it as easily as you do here.
It comes out here in 6 weeks or so, will keep an eye out for that. The director’s last film was close to my favourite film of the last decade.
Coming to Oz on 8th November and we will see it. I think I’ve seen all of Seymour Hoffman’s movies – such gravitas.
My Thetan ghosts saw it and said it was good.
Who said they were useless and you should get rid of them anyway? I’m going to try to teach mine how to mow the lawn next.
Thus far, it has received a rating of 8.0 on IMDB, although this might change as more readers contribute.
Excited to see this movie, especially to hear the soundtrack! Just like There Will Be Blood, The Master’s soundtrack is all done by Johnny Greenwood (the lead guitarist from Radiohead) and he can do no wrong according to me. Should be good!