The Master - Spoiler-Free Thread

[md]

that nipple pinch is titillating...and the fish eye bugged me out the first time around. but damn pta is simply the best!

[Brando]

This guy gives a scene by scene, line by line of both screenings for The Master and Django.  Also, it seems the fuel from torpedoes is actually 180 grain alcohol and why he is drinking it in the trailer.

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-captured/posts/the-weinsteins-unveil-early-peeks-at-django-the-master-and-silver-linings-at-cannes

SPOILERS

"The Master"

If you saw the trailer earlier today, you have some idea of what we saw, but it was a different assembly.  While the soundtrack was the same at the beginning, with that unnerving Jonny Greenwood score and the interview between the Army official and Joaquin Phoenix, the images themselves were different.  We saw Phoenix standing in a hallway, writing on a piece of paper affixed to a corkboard.  As the interview reached its end, the camera pushed forward so we could read the very short and direct note:  "Gone to China," and then his signature.

We saw the same footage of the fight on the beach, the footage of him drinking the alcohol that looks like it's coming from a torpedo, and then the close-up of him sitting across from the guy that's interviewing him.  "What happened?  Sir?"

"Let's just see if we can't help you remember what happened."

Then began new footage.  Joaquin Phoenix running across a field, afraid.  Him on a boat, walking along a deck at night.  And then his first encounter with Philip Seymour Hoffman.  He asks Hoffman, "What do you do?"

"I do many many things.  I am a doctor, a writer, a nuclear physicist, a theoretical philosopher.  But above all, I am a man."

We see Hoffman onstage, addressing a group.  "I'd like to talk to you today about cold feet and narrow minds.  People who have cold feet cannot move forward. People who have narrow minds cannot move side to side. They both take courage.  This is what I'd like to talk about."

Then Amy Adams is introduced, and she's got a crazy intensity, even in these short clips, that practically radiates off the screen.  "This exercise will help you with your concentration.  Look at my eyes.  I want you to place something in the future for yourself that you would like to have.  It's there, waiting for you."

Then it's back to Hoffman and Phoenix, sitting across from each other in some intense encounter, Hoffman challenging him.  "Say your name."

Phoenix sounds hesitant in his response.  "Freddie Crock."

"Say it again."

Louder this time.  "Freddie Crock."

"Might as well say it one more time, just to make sure you know who you are."

"Freddie Crock."

We see a group of people shooting on the beach, Phoenix among them, and then we see Adams confronting Hoffman, almost in tears.  "And this is where we are at," she says.  "At the lowest level.  To have to explain ourselves.  For what?  For what we do, we have to grovel.  The only way to defend ourselves is to attack.  If we don't do that, we will lose every battle we are engaged in.  We will never dominate our environment the way we should unless we attack."

Now we appear to be jumping scene to scene, moment to moment.  It's just impressions.  Adams laughing, out of control.  "It's a grim joke."

Hoffman groans.  "I was thoughtless in my remarks."

As the scenes cut from one to the next, we keep returning to a haunting image of Phoenix, framed in a window, punching himself in the head.  Fast.

Hoffman accuses him.  "You linger in bus stations for pleasure."  Another shot of Phoenix, punching faster now.  Back to Hoffman.  "Is your life a struggle?"  Punching faster and faster.  "Is your behavior erratic? Are you unpredictable?"  Phoenix, sitting across from Hoffman, farts loudly and begins to laugh as Hoffman recoils.  "What a horrible young man you are."

It seems like they're picking at him, breaking him down.  "You're a dirty animal who eats its own feces when it's hungry."

We see them meeting, talking about Phoenix.  Amy Adams in particular doesn't seem to trust him.  "I wonder how he got here and what he's after.  Is it really all so easy that he just came across us?  He's dangerous and he will be our undoing if we continue to have him here."

Hoffman's not convinced, though.  "If we are not helping him, then it is we who have failed him... is it not?"

Adams is the last one to speak as the title comes up.  "The Master."  Simple white letters on a black background.  "Perhaps he's past help.  Or insane."  And the Greenwood score ends on a lone violin, mournful.  It was a dizzying piece of footage, and much of it was just close-ups against stark black backgrounds, these great actors and their faces and nothing else.  It certainly made me eager to see what PTA has been up to, and it also pretty much confirms any report that tied the film to the origins of Scientology.  While they may not be doing a straight biopic of L. Ron Hubbard, if you're familiar with his life, it would be impossible not to see him and his wife and the early followers in what we saw tonight.

[P Heat]

LOL the one area that I read from an old script from the master ends up being on the trailer. at least a few lines. 

That Greenwood track in the back round is awesome. Definitely gives the teaser a CMBB companion piece vide  I don't even like radiohead that much but this guy can make soundtracks. Also thank you to cigs and redvines for posting that link to the RARE teaser made by P.T for CMBB. YES I HAVE NEVER SEEN IT. SHIT WAS HARD TO FIND AT ONE POINT AND I GAVE UP. Both teasers have similar attributes.

JUST TO CONFIRM. Was this teaser made by P.T himself as well?

there seems to be a few noticeable artifacts at times in the teaser btw. The picture itself is VERY film like. DAT 65mm film.

[ono]

Okay, just so we're clear now.  His name is Freddie Sutton Quell Crock.

I love the colors of the melons, juxtaposed with the melons of the sandcastle nipples Freddie tweaks.  There are so many decisions a filmmaker makes, and what astonishes me is how he somehow always manages to make the right ones.

[theyarelegion]

LOL the one area that I read from an old script from the master ends up being on the trailer. at least a few lines. 

That Greenwood track in the back round is awesome. Definitely gives the teaser a CMBB companion piece vide  I don't even like radiohead that much but this guy can make soundtracks. Also thank you to cigs and redvines for posting that link to the RARE teaser made by P.T for CMBB. YES I HAVE NEVER SEEN IT. SHIT WAS HARD TO FIND AT ONE POINT AND I GAVE UP. Both teasers have similar attributes.

JUST TO CONFIRM. Was this teaser made by P.T himself as well?

which part of the script was that? what lines?

here's a video where pta talks about that TWBB teaser and how it found its way online:

the teaser on youtube is posted by user AlRosePromotions, with the description reading: Al Rose Promotions is proud to present our Encore Presentation.....
(the same channel was used to upload the There Will Be Blood Midnight Shows trailer back in 2007)

[P Heat]

^^^
NO clue.  that was basically a year ago. Somewhere 1/4 into it. I remember just reading that and only that bcuz I thought i wouldn't spoil anything and give me the fix I wanted. Its probably not word for word neither now that i think about it. probably some revising happened along the way.

that interview scene like some anon commented in cigs is a "The Shinning" nod right there.

@Jake_Howell: THE MASTER looks actually very good - a 2012 film with a 90s film aesthetic (watch AMERICAN BEAUTY and you will understand) #Cannes

WTF??  I don't even...

[md]

me thinks its ethanol they are drinking or "torpedo juice" as it was called by sailors during WWII.  PTA and his mystery drinks...

Also someone mentioned this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. as a possible influence, which I thought was interesting. 

[Reel]

  "I'd like to talk to you today about cold feet and narrow minds.  People who have cold feet cannot move forward. People who have narrow minds cannot move side to side. They both take courage.  This is what I'd like to talk about."

this must be when he starts dancing.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Personally, after this amazing teaser I have enough information and don't really want to know more. I tried to stay spoiler-free for CMBB but there were still moments during the first viewing where I was like "oh right I saw this in the trailer 7 times!" and it really took me out of the movie.

So yeah, we're pretty good about this generally, but please post SPOILER warnings when necessary, preferably in red. When in doubt, warn. Some of us are neurotic purists.

[BB]

Also someone mentioned this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. as a possible influence, which I thought was interesting.

I think you mean this

The Pynchon novel. Not the letter.

[polkablues]

I had never really respected Joaquin Phoenix as an actor until just now.

[Kellen]

I cannot wait until this is in theaters. 

[Brando]

I had never really respected Joaquin Phoenix as an actor until just now.

Haha. 

I thought he was good in Two Lovers but it was still his kind of melancholy acting. That made me kinda apprehensive when I learned he took this role. I thought he'd play the role that way. But damn he really does come off as crazy. He doesn't look like Joaquin Phoenix to me. In that minute clip, comes off as truly unstable which two hours of I'm still here couldn't do.

My initial understanding of the story was one of a character who was lost and searching for something and gets drawn into a cult of personalty by some eccentric individual.  Now it seems Joaquin is someone who has mental problems and happens onto some sort of cult.

[Jeremy Blackman]

I had never really respected Joaquin Phoenix as an actor until just now.

I feel the same way. I only really remember him from U-Turn, and that was great, but this is just on another level.

[md]

he's good in parenthood...