The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

[Spaceman Spiff]

Yeah, I don't know if I'm entirely sold on this.

There's a lot to admire: the performances, a few brilliantly executed scenes and the general peculiarity of the damn thing. I'm especially in love with the initial question/response scene with Hoffman/Phoenix, the play on that scene in the film's closing and Adams' "handling" of the Master in the bathroom. But I think I agree with that line in the Slant review that says that much of this film is running on only the fumes of drama. There's a feeling that the narrative is consciously pared down, but to what end? The film feels too big to be pure character study, too quaint to be epic. Somehow it seems to want to be both Punch Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood, but in trying to meld the two, it achieves the stratospheric heights of neither.

Initial impressions only. I definitely need to think about it more, and I'm honestly not sure how I'll feel about it in 24 hours. I know I didn't hate it or even dislike it. The question is whether it ranks with the iconic pieces in his catalog, which in my view, encompasses each of his four films immediately following Hard Eight. My gut reaction is that it comes a bit short of that standard, though certainly still one of the more worthwhile things I've seen this year.

This, this, this. Every word. Exactly what was running through my head (just got back home from seeing the film actually).

I like D&MU's interpretation there. I'll admit to not really understanding the final scene with Lancaster-Freddy, and the subsequent breakup. The entire England segment felt strangely detached from the rest of the film, and to be honest, I was kind of wondering how and when this was going to finish. I thought it a shame how cursory and slight Fredd'y backstory was treated (with Gloria) - much of the most interesting scenes with Lancaster (ie: the first interview on the ship) had touched on it, and I never felt like there was any real resolution or insight to his issues/aggression. Still, as a technical exercise it was all pretty darn tip top.

[Mysterious Dude]

Anderson's characters are so prone to fits of rage that it's not even surprising when it happens anymore.

Hoffman reminded me of Orson Welles, somehow.

[ledfloyd]

Anderson's characters are so prone to fits of rage that it's not even surprising when it happens anymore.

Hoffman reminded me of Orson Welles, somehow.

i pointed that out in a review i wrote, and then read an interview with hoffman in which he said he used welles as a model.

[Boner M]

Revisited it last night. Much more satisfying when you know the defiantly languid stretch it ends on in advance. A few observations:

- The jump-cut from Quell getting the call from Dodd in the movie theatre to the former sleeping directly after seems to suggest the call was a dream.

- This film has the saddest and most desperate laughter I can recall.

- The fact that the cops come immediately after Dodd's son tells Quell "he's making it up" almost seems to prevent Quell from lashing out at the son ala the other skeptical members/outsiders, which would surely be the dealbreaker re: the group's decision to keep him. It's stuff like this that reveals how precarious and delicate the Quell-Dodd bond is. I don't think it's a father and son dynamic ala previous PTA joints, just a tender bromance between two dudes equally adrift in the world. I called the film a 'waltz' directly after seeing it, and I think that's what it works best as, in tone and narrative and even its camera moves (and soundtrack choices, obv).

- I think a few reviews have mentioned that the repeated shots of choppy seas behind the boat resemble a Rorschach blotch, and Quell's sand-woman seems as much of a blank canvas. The penultimate scene in bed w/ his pub pickup, and the final shot of the sand woman, implies that Quell's love has been spent on both Doris and Dodd, and he's destined to be living his memories of both loves in whatever relationship he has from thereon (eg, the repetition of Dodd's questioning techniques in bed with the British woman, however frivolous). :sad:

[Ezee E]

- The jump-cut from Quell getting the call from Dodd in the movie theatre to the former sleeping directly after seems to suggest the call was a dream.

I thought Quell even mentioned that it was a dream to Dodd in London?

[Pop Trash]

I thought Quell even mentioned that it was a dream to Dodd in London?

Really? I don't remember that. The dream theory makes sense since the second time I watched it, I was thinking how Dodd would even accomplish that (my theory: he hired a private detective to follow him around, the P.I. called Dodd and let him know he followed him to the movie theater, Dodd calls the movie theater).

The first time I saw it, I was tripping out too much to pay attention to logic, since I'm pretty sure that scene was shot at the Castro Theater in SF where I was watching it. So it was like looking into a mirror and seeing Joaquin Phoenix sleeping.

[Boner M]

Pretty sure I'll need another 10 viewings to a) decipher all of Phoenix's dialogue b) not be fixated on his face to do so.

[EyesWideOpen]

I thought Quell even mentioned that it was a dream to Dodd in London?

Yes he does.

[Stay Puft]

I was quite taken by this at first - agree with Boner that it's a big step forward in PTA's craft, and the 70mm presentation was remarkable - but in the end also struggled to make sense of where it was going, echoing the sentiments of Pop Trash, et al, here in that it seemed to just peter out around the arrival of the second book, and I wasn't sure what to make of the closing scenes. There's explicit, surface level closure (the final separation between Quell and The Cause, the echoing of images from the beginning), but it arrives without force or clarity. Maybe that's the point, maybe I'm looking for the wrong thing, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was also missing. Part of that may be as D7 says, an uneasy mold between the quaint and the epic. I also like how the mubi.com review put it, the feeling that something so large ends up being about so little, that not all of the threads are followed through in the second half, or at least for the me that the major thread being followed is among the less appealing. Ignatiy's comparison to Updike actually crystallized that a bit for me; as a character piece the film is compelling to a point, but ultimately suffers the same problems I have with writers like Updike.

However, still an interesting film, and one I enjoyed more than There Will Be Blood, if only for PTA's inarguable growth as a craftsman. This is really one of the more aesthetically accomplished films I've seen this year, so it's an easy yay even if I'm feeling a bit mixed on the thematics.