The Master - Spoiler-Free Thread

[Drenk]

I read stuff with unhappy french journalists because PTA and the actors were, apparently, "avoiding" questions. I guess they'll be really sad, today, with Malick avoiding everyone.

[MacGuffin]

Venice: Paul Thomas Anderson Says 'The Master' Is A Love Story & More From The Press Conference
Source: modage; Playlist

Since it was first announced back in 2009, Paul Thomas Anderson's latest has been one of the most highly anticipated films over the past few years among cinephiles. For two years, production on the project that would come to be known as "The Master" was shrouded in secrecy. In fact, Anderson who hasn't made a film since 2007's "There Will Be Blood," didn't speak a single word about the project publicly until just weeks ago. And cast/crew were also told to keep mum on details. But the veil has finally been lifted this as "The Master" had its official debut in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

The 1950s set story centers on the relationship between a charismatic individual known as The Master (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and a deeply troubled WWII vet Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) who joins the former's upstart religion known as The Cause. Despite confounding expectations (particularly to those who expected some kind of Scientology-skewering treatise), the picture has garnered some extremely positive reviews including one from our own from Oli Lyttlelton who called it, "an undeniable progression in the career of one of our most gifted directors." It was clear from the surprise screenings across the US over the past few weeks that this would be a somewhat difficult film for mainstream audiences to swallow but should be one that film fans would be chewing on for quite some time.

To help shed some light, writer/director Anderson was on hand in Venice along with stars Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman for a press conference where the trio -- well, mostly the duo as Phoenix remained mostly silent -- answered questions about their dense and dazzling film. "Every time I set out to write one of these things, I think they're going to be different than the last one we make," Anderson continued with self-deprecation. "And maybe it's kinda the same." But where his previous films have mined father-son dynamics (even when both are surrogates), his new picture explores a different kind of relationship between Phoenix's and Hoffman's characters.

"I look at these guys not like father and son. They're a little more like, not even master and servant," the filmmaker explained saying he saw the relationship between the leads as more of a romance. "Like, look at the love of your life, you know? It's great territory for a story. Because these kinds of relationships end up being a bottomless pit that you can keep going back to [and] hopefully it provides good stuff."

The filmmaker amassed a wealth of material during the shoot, many scenes which have been included in various trailers are not found in the finished film. This is nothing new for Anderson -- a featurette entitled "Blossoms & Blood" comprised entirely of alternate takes and scenes from "Punch-Drunk Love" was included on that film's DVD -- whose style has grown less rigid and more fluid with each film.

To find the structure of "The Master" he let the characters dictate the form. "I think we were just trying to tell a love story between these guys. And we had a lot of scenes that weren't about that and we just took 'em out and the narrative, for whatever the narrative ended up being, just ended up being driven by these two guys and their love for each other."

Hoffman, who has appeared in every one of Anderson's films sans "There Will Be Blood" spoke about the freedom the filmmaker gives the actors while on set. "Paul gives you a lot of leeway. I think Paul's a fan of what an actor does," he said. "Anyone who's intelligent or talented understands that things are gonna come from a lot of different places so hopefully some of those things come from the actors. I don't think Paul's somebody who boxes you in."

For how elliptical the narrative may appear on the surface, Hoffman described the story in simple terms. "It's the age-old story of a man who needs guidance, finds a mentor, they become co-dependent, the man leaves, and the one who is actually hurt is the mentor." While The Master is a showboat and on the surface, a very charming and respectable figure, Freddie is wild and untamed so the bond formed seems at first unlikely until their roles are explored more deeply. When asked what Hoffman thought the characters saw in each other he shot back, "I don't think they see something in each other, they feel something in each other."

"I think they identify with each other," Hoffman continued. "They're coming from different places but they're more the same, they're both wild beasts I think. One of them has just tamed it somehow and he's trying to teach other people how to do that. But ultimately that's where the doubt comes in, where the whole reluctant prophet thing comes in. Ultimately, he wants to be wild like Freddie is, so there's this real attraction there over those two very things: wanting to be tame [his inner beast] and wanting to be wild. I think that's basically what life is."

While Phoenix stayed mostly quiet during the press conference, Anderson spoke effusively about having wanted to work with the actor for a long time. "When I was writing the film I was thinking about Joaquin being in it," he said. "I've asked him to be in just about every other movie I've made and he's said 'no.' Cause he's a little bit of a pain in the ass. But it's worth it. And he said 'yes' this time. And thank God he did." As for the other two-thirds of his main ensemble, Anderson said of his longtime friend. "Phil I just expect him to be there" and that Adams was someone whose varied roles he's also admired over the years.

"Amy was somebody that since I saw in 'Catch Me If You Can' and 'Enchanted' and 'The Fighter,' I knew I just loved her work and I asked Phil how she was to work with and he loved working with her." Adams natural sweetness is thrown out of balance in a few standout scenes in the film that had journalists questioning whether her character was the one pulling the strings. "Is she the master? I think yeah, sure. She is," the filmmaker said waving off the directness of the question. But fearing misinterpretation, he opted to leave the film open to speculation. "I don't know. It goes back and forth I suppose like any relationship, comes on top, comes on the bottom. That's a dance that goes on in any relationship. Who's the master?"

Other than the Scientology angle (which seems overblown now watching how The Cause is portrayed in the film), the other most oft-discussed topic for "The Master" has without a doubt been the director's decision to shoot in 70mm. The large film format was mostly used for big technicolor epics in the 60s and 70s but has been largely out of fashion in recent decades. Anderson's decision to resurrect the format in the face of the digital revolution seems like a stroke of defiance. But to hear him tell it, he was just following his instincts.

"We'd been messing around, trying to find something, to see maybe what the film would look like. We were just messing around with cameras and Panavision recommended this big huge camera that's as big as this desk. And we tried it on for size and it looked great," he said before adding that "we didn't really think it through because the camera broke all the time and made a lot of noise. You can still hear the camera rolling in the film, we just put fan noises over it so you couldn't tell that it was the camera."

As anyone who has seen "The Master" can tell you, it was absolutely worth the effort. The film looks absolutely stunning, regardless of screen size, the images in the film have a sharpness not matched by anything outside of IMAX. The filmmaker concluded that "It just seemed to feel right."

"The Master" opens on September 14th.

[wiped_out]

http://www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-6b87774c-f59c-4e7f-8e69-447b0837ecbd.html#p=0

full press conference however there is a an italian voiceover but the english is there

[HeywoodRFloyd]

Is it accurate to say your inspirations at script level included unpublished fragments of There Will Be Blood, the lives of John Steinbeck and L. Ron Hubbard and stories from actor Jason Robards?

Yes. Jason Robards told me a story about coming back from the South Pacific after VJ Day on a ship which had run out of booze. The crew broke into the torpedoes to get at the grain alcohol fuel. The soldiers would collect fruit from the islands and mix it with the 180-proof grain fuel to make 'torpedo juice'. That was quite common. Robards woke up on the mast of the ship, teetering on the edge, one day. I always wanted to get that into a film.

And yes, John Steinbeck worked the sugar beet fields in California during the prohibition.

It was a process of collecting stories and hoping they found a home with other things. At a certain point, ideally, it starts to write itself. It's always a chore at first, but then at a point you look back and you can't believe you've written it and it's a great feeling. But it's a pain in the ass, to begin with.


Full interview at Screen daily
http://www.screendaily.com/5046000.article

Also
But although Anderson has been working on bringing the Gravity Rainbow author's most accessible work to the big screen for several years, it's not clear exactly when it will happen: "Hopefully not long. I'd like to have a few years of being more productive. But we'll see."

As for the difficulty in adapting the reclusive writer's novel, Anderson admits it's not going to be easy. "There's so much. But it's fun too, be because they're his words, and... it's like taking your dad's car for a ride, y'know?"

Does this mean Anderson has met the famously publicity-shy author yet? "If I told you I'd have to kill you. Because Thomas Pynchon... You know who he is? Terry Malick."

Full article at Empire:
http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=35060

[Drenk]

A great performance from Joaquin.

[InTylerWeTrust]

Venice 'Master' hyperbole: The lame shall walk, the blind will see


By Glenn Whipp (LA Times)
September 4, 2012, 12:23 p.m.



Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" screened over the weekend at the Venice Film Festival, providing critics with their first chance to see the film -- and go to extreme lengths to fall over themselves praising it.

Look, we've seen "The Master" too, and can (and will) speak to its merits throughout the next few months. But this kind of one-upmanship in hyperbole does no one any good. Critics look silly. And it inevitably inflates audiences' expectations to such a degree that if they don't leave the theater speaking in tongues, they will feel let down.

We offer our top five examples of overstatement to encourage a more measured, reasoned approach as the movie nears its U.S. opening next week.

5. "After one viewing, 'The Master' already feels like a landmark American movie. It makes words like ‘bold’ and ‘extraordinary’ seem utterly inadequate." -- Robbie Collen, The Telegraph

Just wait until that second viewing. Language itself will lose all meaning. You will be able to signal your praise for 'The Master' only by means of ecstatic humming and bird calls.

4. "Fanatically enthused as we all are about 'The Master,' we must now absorb the fact that Harvey Weinstein does in fact own next year's Oscars." -- Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

This is Peter Bradshaw, the film critic, right? Not Pete Hammond, the awards columnist? Leave the Oscar talk to the ... um ... experts, OK? And, while you're at it, keep the fact that Steven Spielberg made a movie with Daniel Day-Lewis playing Abraham Lincoln in your back pocket for future reference.

3. "And so, a masterpiece? We may have to wait and see, but this is an important, intelligent, epic and yet intimate piece of filmmaking from a master at the height of his powers." -- John Bleasdale, Cine-Vue

It's early ... but not too early to call for a moratorium on any and all plays on the word "master" in coverage of Anderson's film. Extra scorn for headline writers employing 'master'ful and 'master'piece.

2. "Review of Paul Thomas Anderson's 'The Master': There Will Be Boredom " -- Time headline, review by Richard Corliss

Hyperbole, of course, produces equally extreme pushback, particularly from critics more interested in revealing plot points than examining nuance.

1. "If there were ever a movie to cause the lame to walk and the blind to see, 'The Master' may just be it." -- Xan Brooks, The Guardian.

We completely agree, though we remain disappointed that the film has yet to cure the common cold, erase wrinkles and remove tough grease stains while on the go.

Maybe upon second viewing?

[InTylerWeTrust]

New yorkers, Tickets for THE MASTER are now ON SALE at Village East... September 14.... 70mm.




http://www.fandango.com/citycinemasvillageeast_aaecf/theaterpage?date=9%2F14%2F2012

[InTylerWeTrust]

Really Great in-Depth article.... PTA talks about the process of writing, etc. It's really long but its probably THE BEST ARTICLE that's been done on the master.

( BEWARE SPOILERS)


http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-09-05/film/paul-thomas-anderson-the-master-s-master/



Favorite Quotes from the article:   

1. "I point out, Kubrick managed to direct eight features in his first 16 years as a director, whereas he has managed only six. To which a visibly unamused Anderson responds: "Oh, fuck off. It's been no fault of my own!"


2. Thankfully, Anderson's angel, Megan Ellison, has already committed to backing his next project: a film version of Thomas Pynchon's 2009 novel Inherent Vice, a kind of stoner Chinatown set in L.A. at the end of the 1960s, and the first time the reclusive Gravity's Rainbow author has allowed his work to be adapted for the screen. "And it's not going to take five years," Anderson says with a sly grin as he disappears into the night. "So you're gonna eat your fucking words."










P.S: I know I've done 3 posts in a row. But all 3 are relevant to this thread and no one else is posting anything, so... Deal with it.

[Pubrick]

c-c-c-combo breaker!

but seriously the 3 posts were justified and this one in particular was full of LOLs..

Venice 'Master' hyperbole: The lame shall walk, the blind will see


By Glenn Whipp (LA Times)
September 4, 2012, 12:23 p.m.
[...]
5. "After one viewing, 'The Master' already feels like a landmark American movie. It makes words like 'bold' and 'extraordinary' seem utterly inadequate." -- Robbie Collen, The Telegraph

Just wait until that second viewing. Language itself will lose all meaning. You will be able to signal your praise for 'The Master' only by means of ecstatic humming and bird calls.
[...]

relevant thread from previous release: hyperbolic comparisons to CMBB: the official compendium

[MacGuffin]

Venice Film Festival Podcast: Deadline's Nancy Tartaglione On 'The Master' And 'To The Wonder'
By THE DEADLINE TEAM

Deadline's International Editor, Nancy Tartaglione, checks in on this podcast with her colleague, David Bloom about two of the biggest films to appear at the 69th Venice Film Festival: Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master, and Terrence Malick's To The Wonder. Hear Nancy's analysis on what the response has been and why.




http://www-deadline-com.vimg.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/DeadlineNancy-at-Venice-2012__120904231051.m4a

[InTylerWeTrust]

This guy right here....

[ono]

Really Great in-Depth article.... PTA talks about the process of writing, etc. It's really long but its probably THE BEST ARTICLE that's been done on the master. (Also, it contains ZERO SPOILERS)

This is untrue.  There are things about the movie I'd rather not have known if I was trying to avoid spoilers.  It does spoil the process, so read with caution.

[malkovich]

Really Great in-Depth article.... PTA talks about the process of writing, etc. It's really long but its probably THE BEST ARTICLE that's been done on the master. (Also, it contains ZERO SPOILERS)

This is untrue.  There are things about the movie I'd rather not have known if I was trying to avoid spoilers.  It does spoil the process, so read with caution.

Oh god, I've read/spoiled so much for myself already, devouring these interviews and write ups and press conferences before anyone can warn me of anything in them that could be considered spoilery  I don't think I mind all THAT much, because ultimately I feel I'll enjoy the movie regardless of whether or not I have a general idea of what happens, but I don't think modage's claim that "no matter what you expect, it's not what you're expecting" holds true for me anymore..

I've been loving this influx of news though.

[InTylerWeTrust]

Really Great in-Depth article.... PTA talks about the process of writing, etc. It's really long but its probably THE BEST ARTICLE that's been done on the master. (Also, it contains ZERO SPOILERS)

This is untrue.  There are things about the movie I'd rather not have known if I was trying to avoid spoilers.  It does spoil the process, so read with caution.

You're right. I fixed it.

Though I read it all and didn't consider any of it to really be a "spoiler". Most of it is just Paul and Joaquin talking about their process. But I guess some people would rather know less about those things. That's understandable.

[modage]

Next to last paragraph alludes to the ending too. I'd stop reading before that.