Crest of a Wave: Paul Thomas Anderson on The Master
Feature by Jamie Dunn.
Published 30 October 2012
Source: The Skinny
According to David Thomson,
cinema’s great dissident critic, the putrid stench of death hangs in
the air at your local multiplex, commingling with the more familiar funk
of nacho cheeze and acne-faced adolescents. “Film is not dead,” Thomson
writes in a recent issue of The New Republic, “it is just dying. This morbidity is familiar to us all.” Paul Thomas Anderson, director of The Master, this festival season’s most thrilling spectacle, clearly hasn’t received the memo.
“There’s always going to be a way, right? There’s got to be,” the
42-year-old filmmaker tells me from his office in Los Angeles when I ask
about Thomson and other critics’ recent premature obituaries for the
medium. “But, as Neil Young says, maybe that’s a hippie dream.”
Anderson’s sixth feature looked like it too was going to be a dream
after Universal Pictures balked at its script and budget. The project
was eventually nurtured and independently bankrolled to the sum of $35m
by Megan Ellison, the 26-year-old daughter of Silicon Valley giant Larry
Ellison, who’s recently been ploughing her future inheritance into
smart and daring projects from some of the world's finest auteurs,
including the upcoming films of Wong Kar-wai and Kathryn Bigelow.
Perhaps one reason Universal was reluctant to get behind Anderson’s
film is its subject matter. It concerns Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix),
an alcoholic, sex-obsessed marine who, after he's spat out of the Navy
at the close of WWII, stumbles through a series of peripatetic
misadventures. A stint as a department store photographer is cut short
when he inexplicably beats up one of his customers and a job as a
farmhand harvesting cabbages ends with Freddie being chased across a
furrowed field by pitchfork-wielding migrant workers after his potent
homemade booze poisons a co-worker. It’s while on the lam for this crime
that Freddie stumbles into the life of avuncular charmer Lancaster Dodd
(Philip Seymour Hoffman), aka the Master, Svengali of a self-help
religion that looks remarkably like an early incarnation of Scientology.
It’s easy to understand Universal’s unease. Attacking the
celebrity-endorsed religion from inside the Hollywood citadel would be a
bit like reading The God Delusion in the Vatican’s lobby. During the feverish online build-up to The Master’s premiere at Venice Film Festival, Anderson’s film was widely rumoured to be the cinematic equivalent of ex-Scientologist Paul Haggis’s exposé in The New Yorker. Those expecting a vicious takedown of L. Ron Hubbard’s enterprise are likely to be disappointed.
“Nowadays, if people get a whiff of what you are doing they kind of
have impressions about what it should or shouldn’t be,” explains
Anderson when we get on to the furore that was the lead up to The Master’s
release. “When it comes to Scientology, I think the expectation is that
you should somehow attack it. That was never what we were doing, it was
never what we were talking about doing or thinking about doing, we just
had other things on our mind.”
What Anderson did have in mind was a love story. “I was always
thinking of it as just two people that meet, seemingly in the middle of
their lives, they look at each other and they have this intense
attraction, as friends, as drinking partners, as master and servant. And
having that work both ways, not just that the Master is the master and
Freddie the servant, but Freddie is kind of the dog that’s leading on
the leash.” It’s this bromance that lends The Master its
beautiful melancholic streak: these crazy kids just can’t work it out.
“The Master can’t be exclusive to Freddie because he’s got to take care
of so many different people," Anderson explains "and it’s not as if it’s
in Freddie’s nature to commit to anyone because his history says if I
commit to you you’re just going to leave or someone’s going to get
hurt.” So, basically, it’s kind of a homoerotic remake of When Harry Met Sally.
We’ve been here with Anderson before. Fiery relationships between
older and younger men drive the narratives of almost all his films.
There’s the bitter creative differences between a porn director and his
well hung leading man in Boogie Nights; There Will Be Blood sees a cold-hearted oil tycoon waging war against a slimy evangelical preacher with dollar signs in his eyes; while Magnolia,
Anderson's epic collage of overlapping soap operas, is scattershot with
a seemingly endless supply of father-son conflicts. Does PT have daddy
issues?
“I just keep coming back to it, really not intentionally at all, it’s
just gravity – an accidentally on purpose type of thing,” the director
confesses. “Whatever it is in my life or in me or in the way I came out –
my relationship to my old man was very strong and very important to me –
it just seems to come back when I write these things; I can’t get away
from it. Sometimes you’ve got to just accept the things you can’t do
anything about. That sounds like a postcard but it’s just that you start
writing and these things start to come out of you and you have to
listen to them.”
What’s interesting is that as Anderson has got older his alliances with his protagonists has shifted. While Boogie Nights was told primarily from the younger man’s point-of-view, The Master
is more even handed. Does he see himself identifying with his older
characters more as time marches on? “I’m a father myself,” he laughs.
“I’ve got three kids, so I’m getting pretty far past my prodigal son
phase.”
Another explanation for Anderson’s sympathetic rendering of the
Master character might be that a megalomaniac with hordes of people
hanging on his/her every word isn’t too far removed from his own
profession. “Oh sure, trying to convince somebody to follow you and
dress up and march around the room?” he deadpans in his soft San
Fernando Valley drawl. “There are a lot of similarities to being a movie
director. You’re working with all these people and some days you’re
just making it up as you go along hoping no-one will notice.”
Characters like the Master, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis’s oil-man in There Will Be Blood), Barry Egan (Adam Sandler’s combustible salesman from Punch-Drunk Love), and Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds’ porn director in Boogie Nights
who refuses to switch to video tape when the bottom falls out of his
industry) are all driven to be the best they can be in their chosen
fields. It’s easy to guess why Anderson is drawn to these fiercely
independent self-made men: they are kindred spirits.
“My girlfriend [former SNL regular and Bridesmaids
star Maya Rudolph] would agree. She would definitely call me a strong
individual,” he says with a knowing laugh. “I’m proud of the path that
we’ve taken, for sure (and when I say we I mean all the people I’ve
worked with since the beginning, we’ve all worked together.)”
And this path has become increasingly idiosyncratic. The criticism of
Anderson's early films was that they were too indebted to other
filmmakers. Hard Eight’s script riffed on David Mamet; Boogie Nights' dizzying Steadicam shots were lifted from Goodfellas; and Magnolia’s sprawling narrative was laced with the DNA of Robert Altman. Post Punch-Drunk Love
this criticism stopped; with that surreal, violent, and often hilarious
romantic comedy he’d found a visual grammar and a filmmaking voice all
his own. “I hope we’re not doing the same thing as when we started out,
we’re kind of getting more confidence and swagger and strength to do
the things we want to do. You can be independent but everything is
always a compromise as well, just by the nature of making a film. But
hopefully you can just add up the compromises and you can live with
them, and you get enough of what you were after that you can feel good.”
If there’s a major flaw to Paul Thomas Anderson’s oeuvre, it's a gender imbalance. While rewatching Magnolia and Boogie Nights recently
all the damaged, substance-abusing wives, mothers and daughters seemed
to blend into one pathetic whole. Female actors would be better off
looking for juicy parts in a Michael Mann movie than in one of
Anderson’s. The brilliance of Amy Adams’ sly turn as Peggy Dodd, the
Master’s heavily pregnant wife and the steely linchpin of his operation,
just might absolve these previous sins. “She’s dynamite,” says Anderson
when I mention Adams’ mesmerizing performance. “I love her work and
wanted to work with her for a long time, she can do it all. And I mean
do it all: singing and dancing. She's more like an old time
actress when they could do everything, they could sing and dance and do
both dramatic or comedic parts. They don’t make them like that so much
any more.”
2012 is looking to be a particularly good year for the subtle,
subversive group of filmmakers that burst on to the scene during the
mid-90s alongside Anderson. David O. Russell, who released his first
film, Spanking the Monkey, in 1994, two years before Anderson’s debut, Hard Eight, is likely to be fighting it out with Anderson for Best Director at the upcoming awards pantomime with romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook (released 21 Nov). Anderson’s more fastidious namesake, Wes, whose debut feature, Bottle Rocket, was released within weeks of Hard Eight, also had a great year, with critics and audiences falling for the undeniable charms of Moonrise Kingdom, the director's
paean to first love and outdoorsmanship. Spike Jonze and Charlie
Kaufman’s next project, meanwhile, is being financed by the same angel
who put up the cash for The Master. “I don’t know those guys
personally,” says Anderson. “I’m not friends with them, but I know of
them and I’ve met them and I definitely feel a part of them in a
generational sense that we’re all working and creating on a similar
wavelength. And we grew up watching the same movies so there’s
definitely something to that. There’s so much good stuff going on, it’s
crazy. Anybody who’s going to complain about movies not being good is
not watching enough movies right now.”
If there’s a major flaw to Paul Thomas Anderson’s oeuvre, it's a gender imbalance. While rewatching Magnolia and Boogie Nights recently all the damaged, buy pakistani lawn suits online india , lawn sale online shopping , substance-abusing wives, mothers and daughters seemed to blend into one pathetic whole. Female actors would be better off looking for juicy parts in a Michael Mann movie than in one of Anderson’s. The brilliance of Amy Adams’ sly turn as Peggy Dodd,
ReplyDeleteHello my name is Bethuel Tjinae i am from south Africa i have awonderful testimony to share to you all, how a great herbal doctor who help me and my friend to cure our HIV.back them we
ReplyDeletewhere into prostitution but we change. we did not no we
where have HIV when i was about to get married to me and my
husband visited a doctor for blood group the doctor discover
that i was HIV positive i was so diverstated we try to look for
a solution .One day i went out for a shopping i meet an old
friend of my he introduced me to a very powerful herbal doctor i
did not believed him but he told me every thing we be fine i
believed him .he told me to go within 7days every thing we be
fine he told me to pay a little amount money to buy things
that we be used .and immediacy 7 days i was HIV negative i
am happy married and have a child. thanks to DR OGHEDE if you need is help email him peacehelpmedicalcentre@hotmail.com
I am here again to say a big thanks to DR OGHEDE for making
my aunt a complete woman again, she was infected with herpes for 6
years she have been seriously praying to God and searching for
cure. she also came here last month to search for solution to my
problem and she saw comment of people talking about
different doctors and God directed me to choose DR OGHEDE
and she contacted Him, he sent she a medicine and directed
me on how i will take the medicine for 7 days, i did so and
went for a test and my result came out as Negative. i am so
happy, i shared tears of happiness and i have taken it upon
my self to always testify about how God used DR OGHEDE to
solve my problem. I am a clean man now, without any virus
if you are infected with any disease like HIV, AIDS, HPV,
HERPES or any other disease you can also be happy like me
by contacting DR OGHEDE through his Email: droghedeherbalcentre@gmail.com
Phone/Whatsapp no: +2347054690368 immediately you life wenever remain the same, and he is very powerful thanks to he.
We’ve been here with Anderson before. Fiery relationships between older and younger men drive the narratives of almost all his films. There’s the bitter creative differences between a porn director and his well hung leading man in Boogie Nights silicone wedding rings australia , silicone wedding rings chile ,
ReplyDelete