The Master (2012)
The Master is an opaque movie, a vivid and intoxicating portrait of a distinctive moment in American society and the strange, inscrutable men that epitomised it. An aimless primordial sailor named Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) drifts across the South Pacific before drifting across the USA. He falls in and out of relationships and employment, living as a permanent outcast in a post-war society that prizes quiet conformity and normality above all else. Freddie has fought and killed in the Pacific Theatre, but we get the impression that there was something wrong with him before he ever saw active service. He’s a damaged boy struggling to act like a man. Freddie eventually stumbles across a new religious movement called The Cause and becomes the protegee of its charismatic leader: Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman).
Director Paul Thomas Anderson is clearly fascinated by the disparity between the typically glossy representation of post-war America and the traumatised, sex-crazed vets that flooded through the reality of it. To the soft melodies of Billie Holliday and Duke Ellington we follow sweeping long-takes across the pristine floors of department stores and staggeringly beautiful imagery of naval destroyers cutting through a sea of sapphire blue. Freddie is the primordial, snarling, grunting sexual deviant lurching through this Rockwellian imagery, refusing to settle down and fit in. It’s easy to forget that the Truman and Eisenhower years bore the shadows of WW2. There were plenty of restless men like Freddie, searching for meaning and order. The Master will provide it.
Philip Seymour Hoffman is remarkably good as Dodd, a genial, paternalistic cult leader. He entertains intimate crowds of wealthy middle-aged women with a little sing song, some self-deprecating humour and a wry smile. In return he gets to borrow their luxury yachts and set up residence in their homes. The property of his investors (for lack of a better term) becomes a base for the expansion of his psychiatric/religious movement. Dodd is a charming parasite, a smiling showman who knows exactly what his crowds want to hear. He and Freddie are a perfect co-dependent couple. Freddie needs a father figure and a break from his endless drifting. Lancaster needs a subject for his philosophy of rigorous psychological processing and he benefits from Freddie’s function as a loyal bruiser and enforcer for the movement.
Dodd is clearly based on L. Ron Hubbard, the seafaring founder of Scientology, but Anderson’s movie isn’t a simple condemnation of cults or religion. It’s about the context that Dodd’s cause is born into, the society that gives it life and support. Just as the dysfunctional teenagers in Boogie Nights make an improvised family around a porn director, the broken, lonely and war-scarred flock to the smiling, fatherly Dodd. His psychological approach is relatively simple and his religion doesn’t talk of any all-powerful beings or eternal damnation. He listens to his followers and talks them through their problems. In a restrictive, grieving society, such a figure is able to quickly gain power and influence. His intimate, patriarchal rule is happily accepted.
The movie’s strongest scenes see Freddie and Lancaster talking alone. Dodd tests Freddie, asking him to divulge unpleasant secrets and exercise control over his body. There’s an unspoken code between the two men, a silent understanding that isn’t ever fully spelt out. There’s a clear homosexual aspect to it, but it’s a relationship where the role of father and lover are blurred into one. Freddie is a borderline sex addict, hunting around for willing partners like a junkie nosing after a fix. Lancaster is something different. He’s not a disposable sex object: he’s a mentor, a teacher, a father and a master. For perhaps the first time, Freddie has found himself deeply attracted (sexually and personally) to a dominant figure. They tussle together on the lawn and have intimate, teary conversations. This is a close bond, an emotional affair.
The aimless drifter is seduced by Dodd’s power to control him. Peggy Dodd (Amy Adams) isn’t happy. Lancaster’s wife is suspicious of Freddie. She’s a quiet, passionate acolyte of her husband’s religion and she immediately senses the danger that the drifter poses. As Freddie grows closer to Lancaster, Peggy tries to reinforce her husband’s heterosexual, heteronormative behaviour. Freddie becomes Lancaster’s vice, his secret temptation. Anderson suggests the intoxicating power of Freddie’s presence through the sailor’s habit of distilling moonshine. He gets the cult leader hooked on a new, dangerous concoction. Lancaster’s wife disapproves of his drinking.
The only person that Freddie professes serious romantic feelings for is a 16-year old girl, a figure from his past. I think Anderson is telling us that Freddie is in a state of arrested development. He’s a schoolboy that can’t get over his first crush. Lancaster changes that. Quell is re-awoken sexually and psychologically by a man who leaves enough of an impression to shake him out of his stunted psychosexual hang-ups. Dodd is a fraud, but he’s just what Freddie needs. Watch the movie as a courtship, an extended game of sexless flirtation and a paternalistic seduction act. Peggy, a young and beautiful woman, is a blatant obstacle to Freddie’s true desires. When she tests him by speaking in crude, sexual terms, the sailor reacts negatively. He’s not interested. He’s looking for something else.
Anderson has a profound interest in the importance of fathers and the corrupting or benevolent influence that they can wield over their family. This is a theme that recurs time and again throughout his filmography. Magnolia and There Will Be Blood are films about wicked fathers who abuse and exploit their children. Boogie Nights and Hard Eight see surrogate fathers takes a damaged young man into their care. The Master is Anderson’s ultimate comment on the power of paternalism. Dodd serves as a turning point in Freddie’s life, transforming him from a wounded boy into something resembling a man. This isn’t the result that either intended. Dodd is a cult leader and Freddie is a drifting deviant. By chance, they found each other. Listen to their final conversation and you’ll hear two men using poetic, romantic language to elliptically declare their love for each other.
Beyond the fascinating central relationship, Anderson’s film is a technical marvel. Instead of regular collaborator Robert Elswit, Anderson worked with Mihai Mălaimare Jr., a Romanian cinematographer who had worked on Francis Ford Coppola’s obscure 21st century movies. Mălaimare pulls off a miracle. This is Anderson’s most beautiful movie, a staggeringly, jaw-dropping collection of immaculate images that move with a perfect fluidity. To the hypnotic rhythms of composer Jonny Greenwood’s exceptional soundtrack, Anderson’s camera swoops and glides, following Freddie’s ragged life with perfect elegance. After Freddie joins the cause, the camerawork becomes slower, more still and restful. The calming, nurturing effects of Dodd’s psychological processing are felt in the film’s movement.
The Master has the power and mystery of a great novel. It took time for me to appreciate it, and it was only on the second watch that the film’s depths became clear. I’ve now come to respect it as one of the very greatest movies since the millennium, a technically flawless and psychologically detailed study of a dislocated nation. With the courage of an Antonioni or a Godard, Anderson’s boldly makes his film a study of an age. I’m not sure that I fully understand every aspect of The Master, which only makes me respect it even more. Two years after he played Lancaster Dodd, Philip Seymour Hoffman died at the age of 46. His performance in The Master is his very greatest. In a career filled with remarkable work, there is absolutely nothing finer.