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Cause fails to deliver intended effect
By Christy Lemire |
September 16, 2012, Sunday
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VIEWERS hoping for a juicy expose of the super-secretive Church of Scientology in "The Master" might want to adjust their expectations.
Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has acknowledged that the cult leader of the film's title - played with great bluster and bravado by Philip Seymour Hoffman - was inspired by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. And certain key phrases and ideas that are tenets of the church do show up in the film. There's the notion that everything that shapes us is recorded from our earliest days, even in the womb, and that people can dig deep into their pasts - into past lives, even - to purge negative experiences and emotions and achieve a state of perfection.
"The Master" takes place in 1950 as Hoffman's character, the charismatic Lancaster Dodd, is releasing an important new book outlining his bold philosophy; that's the same year Hubbard published his worldwide best-seller, "Dianetics." And Amy Adams, as Dodd's true-believer wife, Peggy, makes this quietly forceful proclamation toward the end: "This is something you do for a billion years or not at all." It's a number that couldn't possibly be random, given the billion-year contract the most devoted Scientologists sign.
And yet, the church - or rather, "The Cause," as it's known here - emerges relatively unscathed. Dodd, whom his followers refer to as "Master," is commanding and calculating and sometimes even cruel, but the bond he forges with a wayward Joaquin Phoenix reveals his inquisitiveness, his generosity of spirit and a love that can't be defined, teetering as it does between the paternal and the homoerotic. Meanwhile, Phoenix's character, the troubled, volatile and often inebriated Freddie Quell, seems at his happiest once he's safely ensconced within the group. He's still a "scoundrel," as Dodd affectionately labels him upon their first meeting, but at least he's functioning in a society.
But "The Master" isn't interested in anything so clear-cut as joy versus misery. It's about the way people's lives intersect, if only briefly and perhaps without a satisfying sense of closure. Anderson, long a master himself of technique and tone, has created a startling, stunningly gorgeous film shot in lushly vibrant 65mm, with powerful performances all around and impeccable production design. But it's also his most ambitious film yet - quite a feat following the sprawling "Magnolia" and the operatic "There Will Be Blood" - in that it's more impressionistic and less adherent to a tidy three-act structure.
If you like answers, you will feel frustrated. And yet, as fond of ambiguity as I usually am, I still felt a bit emotionally detached. Wowed, but not exactly moved.
Dodd's Cause aims to provide a path for a post-war America seeking direction, a sense of comfort and community. Or at least that's the gruel he's spoon-feeding the mixed-up masses. Anderson, in typically daring fashion, has no interest in assuaging anyone. And so although he's given us a rare jewel of a film from a visual standpoint, the open-endedness it depicts ultimately resembles ordinary, everyday life.
Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has acknowledged that the cult leader of the film's title - played with great bluster and bravado by Philip Seymour Hoffman - was inspired by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. And certain key phrases and ideas that are tenets of the church do show up in the film. There's the notion that everything that shapes us is recorded from our earliest days, even in the womb, and that people can dig deep into their pasts - into past lives, even - to purge negative experiences and emotions and achieve a state of perfection.
"The Master" takes place in 1950 as Hoffman's character, the charismatic Lancaster Dodd, is releasing an important new book outlining his bold philosophy; that's the same year Hubbard published his worldwide best-seller, "Dianetics." And Amy Adams, as Dodd's true-believer wife, Peggy, makes this quietly forceful proclamation toward the end: "This is something you do for a billion years or not at all." It's a number that couldn't possibly be random, given the billion-year contract the most devoted Scientologists sign.
And yet, the church - or rather, "The Cause," as it's known here - emerges relatively unscathed. Dodd, whom his followers refer to as "Master," is commanding and calculating and sometimes even cruel, but the bond he forges with a wayward Joaquin Phoenix reveals his inquisitiveness, his generosity of spirit and a love that can't be defined, teetering as it does between the paternal and the homoerotic. Meanwhile, Phoenix's character, the troubled, volatile and often inebriated Freddie Quell, seems at his happiest once he's safely ensconced within the group. He's still a "scoundrel," as Dodd affectionately labels him upon their first meeting, but at least he's functioning in a society.
But "The Master" isn't interested in anything so clear-cut as joy versus misery. It's about the way people's lives intersect, if only briefly and perhaps without a satisfying sense of closure. Anderson, long a master himself of technique and tone, has created a startling, stunningly gorgeous film shot in lushly vibrant 65mm, with powerful performances all around and impeccable production design. But it's also his most ambitious film yet - quite a feat following the sprawling "Magnolia" and the operatic "There Will Be Blood" - in that it's more impressionistic and less adherent to a tidy three-act structure.
If you like answers, you will feel frustrated. And yet, as fond of ambiguity as I usually am, I still felt a bit emotionally detached. Wowed, but not exactly moved.
Dodd's Cause aims to provide a path for a post-war America seeking direction, a sense of comfort and community. Or at least that's the gruel he's spoon-feeding the mixed-up masses. Anderson, in typically daring fashion, has no interest in assuaging anyone. And so although he's given us a rare jewel of a film from a visual standpoint, the open-endedness it depicts ultimately resembles ordinary, everyday life.
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