THE MASTER
Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘The Master’ fringes on the remote fragment of post-war scenario, exploring the religious cult group emerging from that time. The film is loosely based on the workings of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. Anderson moulds Hubbard into the title character named Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman), who is uncompromisingly astute in his role. Dodd is introduced as a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist, philosopher, who is in the process of founding a group called The Cause, along with his wife Peggy (Amy Adams) and many other followers. Yet, the film weighs more on the character of Freddy Quell (Joaquin Pheonix), a naval war veteran who has drifted far off from the world, intoxicated in his excessiveness.
The film opens with Freddie Quell on a vessel hearing the news of peace following World War II. We follow him experimenting booze with paint thinner, and serving the drink to a worker in some field. He runs off to hide away in a yacht owned by Lancaster Dodd. Their first meet is fairly unusual. Dodd finds a strange fascination with Freddie Quell over a series of questions hammered to him repeatedly. This process is termed “processing”, which is a pivotal part of The Cause. This processing helps to cleanse people’s minds from diseases and mental illness, through recollecting their previous lives, which might go back to trillions of years. Freddie’s trauma involves a yearning of a teenage girl, who fails to wait for Freddie in the midst of war. Dodd finds a suitable case of treatment in Quell, and takes hold of him in the happening of group. These sequences are the centerpieces of the film, key to the depths of Quell’s tortured self. There’s a mesmerizing relationship between Dodd and Quell, which is enigmatic and queer in its root. You never understand what pulls these two men together so close.
The film is almost like an impressionistic account of the interaction between these characters, drifting around the element of The Cause. Yet, Anderson never treats “The Master” as a historical account of Scientology or The Cause (as in this film), nor does he treat it to be its characters story, who are unforgiving in their role. Dodd’s past is unclear and never surfaces in the story. We see him in his excessive shtick, following in the lines of American visionaries. We see that The Cause has already garnered enough sign-ups and also doubters, like the one character who fires questions at Dodd. Anderson keeps The Master emotionally aloof, viewing it mostly through the eyes of Quell. Its almost like an insight into the murky understandings of most cult groups. Here, we never understand the purpose of The Cause, or its backdrops, which make the film more of an exploration, than binding on any conclusion.
It is difficult to process Freddie Quell’s character, and the parting emotion at which the film ends. The film seems more to take a detour route, with Freddie riding a bike on the plains, leaving The Cause for its own sake. The wayward Freddie needs to be led, against his own impulses of committing his life to The Cause. He is never healed of his trauma. It seems to ridicule the pompous nature of the idea of The Cause, steered by Dodd in his flamboyant guise. Or maybe there’s more to The Cause, which Freddie didn’t partake. There is always a sense of inherent discipline, more like a secretive force lurking in the establishment of the group.
The performances are brilliantly portrayed. Lancaster Dodd, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman maintains his gravitas exceptionally well. Freddie Quell, played by Joaquin Phoenix is accumulated with varied collection of complex physical notes, only to render an outlandish, traumatized naval war veteran, who has lost his sense of direction. It is thrilling to see him perform this role. One never knows what he’ll do next, or how he’ll direct his ferocious inner pain to his performance.
This is the first film to shoot in 65mm, and project at 70mm in theatres. It holds a spectacular visual experience. The film is dabbled with beautiful photography, evoking a sense of Romanticism found in American paintings of William Blake. The score by Jonny Greenwood (band member of the band “Radiohead” and a long-time composer of Paul Anderson), is so richly powerful and deceptively simple, supplementing the menacing tension of paranoid world. The score is contrastingly laid with classical music to the prowess of Greenwood’s association with electrical sounds. The tracks evoke a certain kind of vivid imagery, that goes along the subdued murky shots in the film.The Master is both confusing and downrightly beautiful, clarifying nothing for its sake. PTA explores the film with nervy affair and forthright control. The film has many exploring possibilities along the way, but it deftly steers on the main course, providing a strong palette of of its themes.