The Master

The Master

Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson; 137 minutes; 2012.

Every film is an experiment.  No one knows how a film will turn out until the last edit is finished and time passes.  This is one of the wonderful aspects of filmmaking, but the least understood by critics and the public.  When a studio and distributor gets behind a film, hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.  No one on the marketing side is ever going to say, “Hey this was a good try but not a very good film.”

Not every film has to be the runaway hit of the season, or a sure Oscar contender, or the best film ever made in the history of the world.  Films like “The Master” should be judged within the context of a lifetime of work.  Some films turn out to be better than others.  Each film can be understood and appreciated more deeply if seen on a continuum of films made over a career.

The marketing campaign for “The Master” wants this film to be declared an American classic.  By any honest evaluation it is not a classic nor is it even an excellent film.  

I want to examine the female characters in “The Master” to help understand one aspect of this film.  Peggy, Lancaster’s wife, currently pregnant, is strong and determined.  However, she is not an independent fully realized character.  She functions only in relationship to Lancaster.  She is bearing his child.  She protects him and what he is interested in.  She pleasures and demeans Lancaster at the same time by giving him a hand job to lessen his sexual desire so her won’t wander from the marriage.

Lancaster’s daughter, Elizabeth, serves no function at all in the story.  She makes a play for Freddie that comes out of nowhere and is unbelievable.

There are two more nameless women that fall under Freddie’s spell and end up in bed with him.  These are two more anonymous objects of desire.  Their purpose in the narrative is to show that Freddie is quite a ladies man and can bed anyone when he looks at.  These women are powerless objects.

Then of course there is an object of desire that is the replica of a naked woman with legs spread out and giant breasts made out of sand.  It turns out this is Freddie’s only true love.

Doris is Freddie’s supposed real love.  She is about seven years younger and is a sophomore in high school when Freddie joins the navy and goes off to World War II.  Doris is portrayed as the major reason that makes Freddie so unhappy.  There is no substance or narrative reality to their relationship so it has no emotional impact.  We see Freddie visit Doris in flashbacks throughout the film in meaningless scenes.  Finally Freddie takes a job on a freighter and tells Doris he’s leaving, doesn’t know when he’ll be back, and doesn’t know where he’s going.  Freddie is quite a catch.  He proves that he doesn’t give a damn about Doris.

The Freddie/Doris relationship illustrates one of the main faults of “The Master”.  Just because Paul Thomas Anderson, or one of the characters says something is true, doesn’t mean it is true.  The film suggests that one of the main reason why Freddie is so unhappy is the failed love affair with Doris.  This is a hollow reason and it doesn’t resonate.  The movie actually shows that Freddie does not care at all about Doris. The whole film tries to force a narrative truth on the viewer that just isn’t there.

It was originally Lancaster’s story and it should have stayed Lancaster’s story.  During early rehearsals it was changed to Freddie’s story.  It wasn’t Freddie’s story and to film it that way weakened the narrative truth.

“The Master” is like an incoherent but well orated sermon.  It’s supposed to be important so we listen really hard and try to make sense of it.  Half way through we realize there is no theme, it’s impossible to follow the logic, it clings to abstract references from the past, and the director is just making things up as he goes along.  Not every film is a good film, even if it is dressed up like something meaningful. 

My First Matinee at the New Uptown. September 18, 2012

So I go to the Uptown this afternoon.  Who picked those colors?  I mean I like orange and lime when I mix my slushy's together at the SA, but I don’t like to see those colors in the lobby of my favorite movie theater.

I say to the cashier, one please.  She says do I want to sit in the auditorium or the balcony?  Wow, what a choice.  I say what the heck is the auditorium.  You know, main floor.  $8 for the auditorium bargain matinee and $10 for the balcony.  I select the $8 main floor and she flips over a display monitor screen thing.  It looks like a giant bingo card. She tells me to select a seat on the touch screen.    

Now I’m supposed to touch the seat on the screen I want to sit in?  Gross.  What if someone else had touched the seat that I wanted to touch, someone with dirty fingers.  I point and she touches it.  Seven people behind me in line wonder why this is taking so long. So why is the balcony $10 and the main floor $8 I ask?  She says it’s 18 plus and we want to, you know,  keep the riff raff out.  What a concept.  Does that mean I’m riff raff because I chose the auditorium?  No, not you, she says.  I don’t mind being riff raff.  Riff raff.  It sounds cool.  I’m going to start a Riff Raff club, and sell tee shirts with Riff Raff on it and then all the riff raff will sit in the balcony with our tee shirts on.  Then what?  I don't know.  

Okay so I get inside the auditorium, trailers in progress, kind of dark, and it seems all designed pretty nice, and someone with a small flashlight wants to see my ticket.  Wait what?  I say I went through security already.  I’ll show you to your seat but you have to give me your ticket she says.  Fine.  

She didn’t show me to my seat she just pointed in a general direction, like they do at Home Depot.  I stumble over to an open area and sit down.  Then this so-called usher stood at the back of the theater for the entire film, at her security post, lording over the riff raff that had to sit in the auditorium.  It made me nervous.  I don’t like someone standing behind me, in a uniform, with a small flashlight, acting like a lunchtime monitor while I watch a movie.  I paid $8 for this?  What happened to the Uptown?

Oh yeah, the movie.  I saw “Sleepwalk With Me”.  It was kind of funny if you like to listen to a semi-depressed character talk in a monotone for 82 minutes and be in every single shot.  Couldn't he take one shot off?   It was enjoyable at the time of watching.  I laughed.  The other riff raff laughed as only riff raff can.

The Possession

“The Possession”

Directed by Ole Bornedal, written by Juliet Snowden and Stephen Susco

2012

 What is my mission in life?  This is what I wondered toward the end of “The Possession”.  It made me ask this question.  Persistence and family togetherness pays off in the end, is one of the themes of this scary story about, what turns out to be a Jewish exorcism, sort of.  None of the main characters, except the evil spirit, are Jews. 

 This is the story of a very nice family, post divorce, and an evil spirit that possesses the youngest daughter.  The casting was perfect, the cinematography and production design was above average, and the acting was average.  It was a trip down evil spirit lane,

predictable in every way, full of jumps in narrative logic, and enjoyable ‘at the time of watching’ only.

 There are some films that are enjoyable ‘at the time of watching’.  Some films are a torture to watch and I leave as soon as I realize I’m being film boarded.  I can sit in the theater and I enjoy myself at some level for some films as long as I don’t think too hard and the film isn’t too long.   That’s one level of success for a film.  However, this type of film is forgotten before I get to the car.  I like films that reward the dedicated viewer.  Films that you can talk about for hours are really good films. 

 “The Possession” is not a memorable film in any way, nor was it trying to be.  

 I was hoping to be the only person at the 11 AM screening at AMC Rosedale and have a private frightening.  I entered the theater during the trailers and spotted one woman sitting in the back row middle.  I gave her plenty of space and knew she was peeved at having to share the theater with me.  There would be two of us.  I guess I was peeved too but soon forgot while watching the trailer for “Sinister” which turned out to be better than the feature I was about to watch.

 Does the fact that this woman and I shared similar feelings of fright, hope, sadness, and joy, simultaneously in a dark theater connect us in any way?  Was I supposed to high five her afterwards?  Was I supposed to look at her?  I didn’t.  I never looked back and left after the credits.  She was still there, or at least out of my field of vision, I think.  She did not want to risk eye contact or face a moment of silent recognition that we had just witnessed an exorcism together.  I never turned back to look.  She might have been spewing green slime and her head could have been swiveling.  If you ever come across a small wooden box at a garage sale, don’t touch it.

The Words

Written and directed by Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal; Bradley Cooper (Rory), Jeremy Irons (the Old Man), Dennis Quaid (Clay), Zoe Saldana (Dora), Olivia Wilde (Daniella)

97 minutes; 2012

 Ninety-seven minutes felt like one hundred and ninety-seven minutes.  “The Words” has a slow meaningless buildup.  Absolutely nothing happens of interest or value in the first fifty minutes.  The story catalyst occurs (when Rory’s book is published) around forty-five minutes. 

 It was beautifully photographed and the acting was unobtrusive, so I stuck around to see what would happen.  It was a film within a film, or better yet it was a story within a story.  I generally like this kind of narrative strategy and that is why I went to “The Words”.  The film is filled with mundane and stereotypical situations and events.  Rory is a handsome struggling writer with a beautiful wife and neither actor cast fits the role.  There is no sign of struggle or scraping to get by, and there is no evidence of effort to get ahead in life.  The women characters are treated like props.  Nobody has a tangible goal.  All the characters simply float forward.

 There is no indication that Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal understand that women are multi-dimensional characters.  They simply are used here as placeholders and someone for the guys to talk to.  All three women in the story functioned as a means to develop the male character they were playing across from.  It all seemed like a glossy dream, or poorly written novel.