The director talks to Time Out about making his latest film, 'The Master'
Source: Time Out London
‘The Master’ arrives in cinemas loaded with expectation. It’s the first film from 42-year-old American writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of ‘Boogie Nights’ and ‘Punch Drunk Love’, since his stunning 2007 film ‘There Will Be Blood’.
The film has also been the subject of endless chatter since it was mooted. Would it be ‘about’ Scientology? Was Philip Seymour Hoffman playing a version of the controversial religion’s founder, L Ron Hubbard? And what would Tom Cruise (who starred in Anderson’s 1999 film ‘Magnolia’) say and think about the whole thing?
The film itself is a marvel. Set mostly in 1950, it stars Hoffman as Lancaster Dodd, the founder of a religion called The Cause – based on the early incarnation of Dianetics, the belief system of Scientology. But it’s more accurately the story of Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), a troubled sailor who stumbles out of the war and into Dodd’s open arms.
Dave Calhoun spoke to Anderson by phone from Sydney, on the eve of the film’s release in London, where it will first open as a 70mm presentation (it was shot on the rare 65mm format) in the West End before opening across the country two weeks later.
