The Master - SPOILERS!

[Neil]

No.

your smugness just says so much.

I too hate it when people think freely about ambiguities within great works of art. It deserves a ripe and intellectually motivated, "no."

Thanks for your contribution toward someone sharing their ideas in an art forum.  We need more of YOU in the art community at large. Well, that and more cute little fox-news-esque diagrams, like the one you shit out earlier in this thread.

Feel free to p.m me the misspellings and grammatical errors found above, unless you enjoy being openly smug about grammar too.

 Because after all there's no way anyone can comprehend, or has ever comprehended any sentence that has a few misspellings or grammatical errors in them.

oh yeah, back on topic, what a great movie. i really like it.

EDIT: I changed an 'pr' to an 'or'

it's obvious derek would rather focus on grammar rather than content, thus integrating himself into the type of douche bag i described before my last sentence.  thanks.

[Ulivija]

Fuck it. I have to say this... The more and more I think about the master being about AN ARTIST AND HIS AUDIENCE (PTA and his audience, to be more exact) The more sense it all makes. I've been thinking about this shit all day. I dont give a fuck if you like what I'm gonna say or not or whether you think it's right or wrong. I just gotta get it outta my chest.

Freddie represents the audience. Every aspect of the audience. From The "Joe popcorn" type to the "Cinematic snob/I'm better than thou" type.  He can't keep a job, he's sexually obsessed, he's aggressive, his life is empty, he would love to fuck something or somebody but it seems like everytime he tries, he fails. He falls asleep, etc. Probably can't even get it up. He is looking for SOMETHING or SOMEONE that will come and make sense of all this. He wants something to make his life worthwile. This could be a perfect description of the life of any basement-dwelling fanboy.

He works as a photographer, trying to make pictures. But uses the photo-chemicals to get drunk and fucks up his life even more.  Then he has that altercation with the fat dude with the mustache, the dude looks just like Hoffman, this is NOT a coincidence. Freddie (the fanboy) is trying to make his own pictures/movies but he fails, he “wants to get the lightning right”, but he fails. This failure fills him up with so much rage, he tries to choke the "hoffman looking" figure. This failure prompts him to starts looking for someone who IS making the things he wants to do… And that’s where THE MASTER comes into the picture.

Freddie asks THE MASTER,  "what do you do?" Well, Master tells him he’s a WRITER (PTA writes his own movies), a DOCTOR (his movies are like medicine to us. I personally can tell you they are MY medicine for sure! Magnolia!), a nuclear physicist (talking about the photochemical process of film?), a philosopher (PTA certainly is that, whether he strives for that or not. His movies make you think and ask yourself questions about your own life), But PTA ends it by telling the fanboy: “But at the end of the day, I’m a man, JUST LIKE YOU!”. Fanboy Freddie laughs, he loves that.

PTA chose this movie to do this because of the obvious parallels between a guy who is a writer and director of movies in Hollywood and a guy who writes his own books and preaches his own religion.  Everytime he puts a movie out he has to defend it and explain it, for what?  “This is where we’re at? To have to explain ourselves? For what? FOR WHAT WE DO, we have to grovel?” .

I think the best and most revealing line in the whole movie is:  “He’s making all this up as he goes along.. YOU DON’T SEE THAT?”. Notice how Val is almost looking into the Camera when he says that.

PTA/THE MASTER says to the audience: “If you leave here, I don’t ever wanna see you again”.. The funniest part about that line is that in one of my viewings, about 3 people walked out almost at that exact line, heh. It’s crazy now thinking back on it.  PTA is telling his audience, “if you walk out of this theater, I don’t want you as a fan”.   (Notice the lyrics that repeat from the “get thee behind me satan” song:  “STAY WHERE YOU ARE, IT’S TOO LATE…”).

The Master says he has unlocked the secret to all this.  What's Master's secret? Secret is LAUGHTER! Well, isn’t the master PTA’s funniest movie? It seems to me it is. It has a more comedic tone than anything else he's ever done, including boogie nights. This movie is a dark comedy through and through. You can tell just from the opening line. PTA is telling you that that’s the key to this movie. But FANBOY FREDDIE still doesn’t get it.

Freddie is a fanboy that attacks anybody who dares detract the master. Anybody said something about PTA?  Shit.. You’ve even seen it right here in xixax, how everyone always gets so defensive about him. It's not only PTA fans though. It's fans in general. This CULT that gets created around things or people. The movie is about a CULT alright.. About pop CULTture. All those fucking zombies.

FREDDIE AND THE MASTER IN THE JAIL CELL:

-   FAN: You lied to me PTA! You showed me stuff in the trailers that isn’t in this movie! You said the movie was about scientology and it’s not about that at all! What the fuck is this? You make all this stupid shit up!
-   PTA: FUCK YOU! I never promised you shit.. You made up your own expectations! I never told you the movie was about that! I never said what was in the trailers was gonna be in the movie!
-   FAN: Fuck you!
-   PTA: No, fuck you! Dude, I’m the only one that likes you. You cant keep a job, you cant fuck anyone. You’re a fucking mess. But I still like you, You’re my audience. Without YOU, I’m nothing.

And what does PTA/THE MASTER say about the detractors/people who don’t like this movie?
He says: “They’re necessary. For without negatives, we would be all positives. Therefore zero charge”. it’s fucking brilliant.

Another thing that suggests that Freddie is the audience:  Notice how Freddie laughs at literally EVERY joke in the movie. Whether the joke’s said by him or someone else. That’s one of the first things I noticed in my first viewing, is that it seemed like everytime I laughed, Freddie was laughing too. You could hear his laugh coming from the speakers, blending in with the laugh of the audience.
Not too mention Freddie is constantly seen as an audience member. Not only when the master is giving his speeches, but there’s a scene where he’s actually  SITTING IN A THEATER, looking at US. We never see the cinema screen he’s watching, he’s looking directly at US. Same with the shots of him looking at the master giving speeches, he's always facing directly at the Camera, almost like he’s a mirror of US as we watch the movie.

The story of the dragon is the key to all this.. "This is where we're at with it. I say "stay" dragon stays. I say "sit", dragon sits. Now I got him on a leash, and HE STAYS ON MY COMMAND. That's where we're at with now! It stays on my command". This story of the dragon, is not only a metaphor for FREDDIE and THE MASTER , but a metaphor for PTA and his audience. That's where his at with it now. We're staying on his command. It's too easy for him, that's why he's trynna take it to the next level by making a movie as complex and enigmatic as this, and having he movie break the 4th wall as brilliantly as this.

Some things From the script:

 MASTER:  (giving his speech about “the secret is laughter”)  “Funny enough, The source of all is… YOU ”

Which relates to when Amy Adams says earlier:  “He(PTA) has been WRITING all night, YOU seem to INSPIRE something in him.”  OF COURSE, because FREDDIE is THE AUDIENCE, and the movie is about PTA and his audience. So of course, WE are the source of his inspiration. Literally.

In one part of the script, a Girl sings:  “The APA and AMA will have to kiss our asses!”… AMA stands for AMERICAN MEDICINAL ASSOCIATION and APA stands for AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION… But this could also be PTA’s clever way of saying the “MPAA will have to kiss our asses!”.. MPAA is the Motion Picture Association of America. Those are the guys that rate movies.


I don’t got anything else, and I don’t really know how to express myself very well, so this comes off as very rough (English is my 3rd language). But you get the point of my theory. The movie is about PTA and the AUDIENCE. THE MASTER is PTA, FREDDIE is THE AUDIENCE. THE MASTER is PTA’S “2001”. The monolith was THE CINEMA SCREEN and Kubrick was commenting on the power it had.. PTA is breaking the 4th wall in that exact way. PTA is brilliantly making a commentary on US, as an audience. By DELIBERATELY writing The Master as an insubstantial, pretentious story for the purpose of COMMENTING ON insubstantial, pretentious stories and the way people respond to them!

But then again, I could be wrong. I don’t know.  I don’t care. I still stand by my theory though.

I love this movie. I love all the layers it has and all the meanings you can give to it. Even if you think I'm dead wrong. Gotta admit it makes for a pretty interesting conversation.

This doesn't have to be THE interpretation, but it all makes sense. PTA is definitely as defensive as Amy Adams' character. I love how you used the lyrics of "Get Thee Behind Me Satan" to support your thesis, and that's eerie that people walked out of the movie theater when Dodd says: "If you leave here, I never want to see you again."

Another thing that supports your interpretation is when Dodd tells Freddie that he'd been working hard at writing the book, that he feels like he went under and that he's anxious to share his work. I can't remember the exact interview, but PTA said something similar about uploading the teaser trailers for THE MASTER and doing the initial sneak previews of THE MASTER (after THE SHINING and TAXI DRIVER), that he felt anxious to share THE MASTER with his audience.

Good job, Freddie!

[Cloudy]

I don't necessarily agree with your opinion Freddie (it's really weird calling you Freddie), but I also think it's another way to look at the film which explains its multi-layered interpretative manner. I actually quoted you from IMDB saying the same thing because I thought it was interesting.

Since I know you scour all of the press stuff that PTA does, there is an interview where PTA talks about how as a writer/director he sees similarities to being a mystic or a spiritual leader, which may support your thesis, but still not the whole of your thesis.

I personally think the film is way too amazing/fucking great to fit your thesis... and you can retort that this means I am the group of people that are a part of your proposition which is cool too hehe

[Derek]

No.

your smugness just says so much.

I too hate it when people think freely about ambiguities within great works of art. It deserves a ripe and intellectually motivated, "no."

Thanks for your contribution toward someone sharing their ideas in an art forum.  We need more of YOU in the art community at large. Well, that and more cute little fox-news-esque diagrams, like the one you shit out earlier in this thread.

Feel free to p.m me the misspellings and grammatical errors found above, unless you enjoy being openly smug about grammar too.

 Because after all there's no way anyone can comprehend, pr has ever comprehended any sentence that has a few misspellings or grammatical errors in them.

oh yeah, back on topic, what a great movie. i really like it.

Except ono was right.

I too hate it when people draw such reaching and strange interpretations of great art.

Your sarcasm sucks. And maybe check your own grammar before calling out others.

[Neil]

No.

your smugness just says so much.

I too hate it when people think freely about ambiguities within great works of art. It deserves a ripe and intellectually motivated, "no."

Thanks for your contribution toward someone sharing their ideas in an art forum.  We need more of YOU in the art community at large. Well, that and more cute little fox-news-esque diagrams, like the one you shit out earlier in this thread.

Feel free to p.m me the misspellings and grammatical errors found above, unless you enjoy being openly smug about grammar too.

 Because after all there's no way anyone can comprehend, pr has ever comprehended any sentence that has a few misspellings or grammatical errors in them.

oh yeah, back on topic, what a great movie. i really like it.

Except ono was right.

I too hate it when people draw such reaching and strange interpretations of great art.

Your sarcasm sucks. And maybe check your own grammar before calling out others.

I guess I'd rather spend my time discussing a "reaching" and or "strange," interpretation of great art than be a dismissive jerk.

also, i wasn't, "calling out" anyone's grammar. I'm simply saying, i'd rather talk about ideas than grammar, and if you can't discuss ideas with poor grammar use, quit being a dismissive jerk and be a god damn gentleman and help someone use the fucking language some of us have agreed on.


any way, i really liked that point  that pubrick brought up about how Freddie starts out loving a woman made of sand. Genius. I can't wait to watch this so many times in Feb.

[polkablues]

1. There is no single, correct interpretation of any work of art.

2. Disagreeing with an interpretation doesn't make it wrong.

3. Artist's intent should be a diminishingly small factor in judging the value of an interpretation.

4. Any interpretation is right that can be supported by the text.

[Derek]

I disagree with you on your four points.

A work of art can't have an incorrect interpretation? It's completely subjective?

Especially don't understand point #4.

Some people are trying to read way too much subtext in the movie.

[polkablues]

I disagree with you on your four points.

As is your right and privilege.

A work of art can't have an incorrect interpretation? It's completely subjective?

Not what I said. If I proposed that The Master was an allegory for corporations destroying the rain forest, that would be an incorrect interpretation. But not because that wasn't PTA's intent, only because it's unsupportable.

Especially don't understand point #4.

I can't make that my problem.

Some people are trying to read way too much subtext in the movie.

This makes it seem like you reject the very concept of art criticism entirely.

[Neil]

The important thing here Derek is that this film is fueling his desire to look deeper into cinema.

Quit. let's talk about something cool.

[Cloudy]

I'm wondering...how was the TWBB thread after people saw it? It feels like all of the excitement and love for The Master didn't really translate through to this thread. Is it just hard to speak about loving a film after seeing it recently in the cinema? Is it easier to speak about how bad a film is?

When thinking about the upcoming Inherent Vice project, as much as PTA talks about wanting to do a "cheech & chong" comedy, I can't really believe that is what it'll be like. I feel like PTA has too much juice in his system to be okay with producing something in the same vein as that. I think Pubrick was pretty right on in his assessment of PTA digging into these types of personalities like Pynchon...I wonder how that can translate through to the film.

*edited bc I grew tired of the non-stop cheesy gewiness

[jenkins]

Quit. let's talk about something cool.

lol. my new goto is calvin candie's "let's keep it funny" and of course you gotta deliver it with the accent

[malkovich]

Found in the comments section of The AV Club for an article discussing the best scenes in film of 2012 (The Master's first processing scene topping it)

http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-best-film-scenes-of-2012,90136/#comment-744655386

(Please forgive the ridiculous length of what follows; but I thought this was the best time and place to finally think-things-through and offload these ideas, which hopefully won’t prove to be too boring.)

I think the above analysis of the “first processing scene” in “The Master” might have missed its true purpose; and that a different reading might unlock more of this film’s rewarding mysteries.  (SPOILERS, perhaps, below):

I believe that Hoffman’s character (who isn’t “The Master” of the title, by the way; that’s a shadowy throne that’s actually inhabited by his wife) is able to intuit Joaquin’s personality so perfectly –because he sees HIMSELF in the younger man; and each provocative question that he asks and hits right on the nose confirms their “link” more and more.

First, he sees the younger man’s “true uniqueness” in an ever-more-homogeneous Post-War America: he recognizes Joaquin’s wild romantic recklessness and will to violence, along with his restless desire for escape (all things which Hoffman has had to deny himself, now that he’s married and locked into his ever-tightening role as leader of a growing secular/psychological “spiritual” movement); and he also realizes their shared driving “need” to be intoxicated (which is the first thing that bonds these two together, their one-of-a-kind “secret drink,” which Joaquin mixed from stolen ingredients, and which Hoffman “found” and finished while Joaquin was passed out on the borrowed yacht…and which evolves, with each new alcoholic invention whipped-up by Joaquin, into a special ritual between them, a relationship that Hoffman tries to keep hidden from his all-seeing wife –like his desires for infidelity and “freedom”).

But where Hoffman has had to maintain a certain very strict public and familial sobriety, Joaquin has been able to indulge in all his crazy animal “honesty” (to destructive excess, it’s clear, and driven by things he doesn’t understand --to the point of letting an unrequited, disappointing “first crush” on a young girl haunt him, becoming a heart-sick neurosis that drives him to sullen alcoholic impotence).

But the “interview/analysis” scene actually builds to the breakthrough moment of Hoffman “uncovering” Joaquin’s deepest secret:  That he’s had sex with a family member –his aunt.  That Joaquin is able to admit this (and all the rest, but that most especially) so unashamedly makes Hoffman gush that he’s the “bravest boy he’s ever seen.”

From his own repressed nature (combined with the fact that he’s sought out a relationship with a woman whose dominant personality easily controls him –both mentally and sexually, with something as simple as an impersonal 20-second in-the-sink handjob) it’s my supposition that Hoffman also had an incestuous relationship with an older (“stronger”) member of his family in his past –a “dirty” relationship that he’s never been able to “transcend” or admit aloud.  (This may have been an older woman –but it might have even been a man, as…) --Furthermore, Hoffman’s own son seems to be a victim of Hoffman’s “control” –if not actually sexually, than certainly psychosexually…as he is also seen to be sullen and  “bitch resentful” and unable to break free of his father’s manipulation; until, at the end of the film, he is eventually seen, in England, to be a “broken and remade” (if utterly repressed) man, dressing exactly like his father, and acting completely differently, like a professional scion and “corporate lieutenant,” resigned to his role in the hierarchy of his parent’s “cult-like business.”

Anyway, this reading helps make it clearer that Hoffman is not an utter fraud –that his perceptiveness and prompting in fact cures Joaquin; so that by the end of the film, Joaquin is not only able to break free of Hoffman (who watches in joyous pride as he escapes on the motorcycle –something his own son would never have been able to do), but is able to finally confront his crippling past, as after so many terrified years he can at last “go home,” hoping to face the girl whose “absent love” so possessed him; and by talking with her family and finding out that she was able to move on with her life, he’s ultimately able to see this sad relationship for what it truly was –and in doing so, completely break its hold over him.

This allows, by the movie’s conclusion, the scene where Joaquin is able to again have a sexual relationship in England –without having to rely any more on the crutch of booze.  (He’s even learned how the “questioning game” he learned in that first “processing scene” --a version of which he plays with the girl on the bed-- is actually a gateway to intimacy and self-reflection.)  Therefore:  in the film’s final image, he lays in peaceful sleep beside the “sand woman of his own creation” –meaning that he’s not controlled any longer by his
mistaken fantasies, and is finally free to love and be loved (while Hoffman is still under the thumb of his cruel Master(s) –his wife, and the role in life that he once authored, but which now has him straightjacketed).

Again, sorry for taking up so much space; and thanks for considering this.

thoughts? never considered that angle before for that scene. the amount of layers this thing has, intentional or not, is increasingly astounding.

[Cloudy]

I've definitely heard/thought of this angle before, but I always get stuck when the final shot of the film of Freddie at peace with the sand-woman chronologically isn't congruent with the experiences he had. And really, that shot doesn't exactly resonate "peace", it feels more like a drunken, comfortable, last-resort safe cuddle. The fact that it's a woman "made of sand" makes it even more layered, because sand is fleeting, and Freddie is incapable of having this kind of cuddling/safe/sustained connection with a fleshed person. His master may not be a person, but his constantly moving, changing, dissolving, and building emotions are, and also what they make him latch on to. And these can be characterized as a sand-woman. It's really hard to intellectualize this, and I don't think the film is meant to completely intellectualize it, which is even more beautiful because this film is just as beautiful to intellectualize as it is to feel.

PTA himself has said that Freddie doesn't change much at all...and as much as we want the characters we see on screen to have some kind of change, we can see this piece as a vision of the two extreme parts of human beings (control of emotions vs. instinct) in flux. In There Will Be Blood there was also a similar portrayal of two extremes battling against each other, neither one winning really.

[Pubrick]

the amount of layers this thing has, intentional or not, is increasingly astounding.

this is the problem.

i don't know if it's a product of the educational system, shallow popular culture, mass literary ignorance, or what.. but the fact the film contains "layers" should be the LEAST surprising aspect of it, it is a basic inherent GIVEN.

the impasse i think most people come to is some kind of crippling angst when they ask themselves "is this what the author meant." and the dissatisfaction with the answer "it doesn't matter what he meant." these statements seem to be so destructive and insurmountable to most people that they simply retreat to "well we'll never know so anything we intuit is fucking bullshit and worthless, even if it feels true, because it was not approved by the creator."

dudes. that's idiocy. the distinction between a movie/book/painting basically any work of ART and a TOASTER is that a toaster was made for a single purpose with well defined parameters by people who just wanted to make a toaster and nothing more. a genuine work of ART made by a great artist has no single purpose, if it does then it's bullshit and should have been an essay or a press release or a mathematical formula. the idea of a work of art is not that it's worthless because it requires interpretation but that it is MUCH MUCH more significant because of this interaction with the observer that is not present when you use a toaster.

the process of creating art is also a mystery to most consumers, who see films especially as just another item intended for a single purpose expressed by way of genre. this is a comedy so i'm going to put this much money into the booth and i'll get this much laughter, that's the contract most people expect out of films and that's why most people hate this movie and anything else worth a damn.

what ACTUALLY happens when you create art is that you do NOT think about the final be-all end-all meaning. this doesn't mean that PTA is just writing blindly making shit up absolutely out of nothing, what that means is he's thinking about it to a certain point and then letting intuition guide him or letting something else take control. the most effective way this takes place in a film is giving freedom to other artists and collaborators. when JP comes up with something like Freddie's gait, PTA was not able to come up with that but left it in there because this inspired choice by another artist FELT RIGHT in the context of the greater work. this means that this is an aspect PTA didn't have to fully work out or justify himself, so it's conceivable and in fact quite common that a true work of art (of which there are in fact many) is not even fully understood by its very creator.

so keep that in mind when you give yourself to the movie. take everything you know about everything you can think of, and let the movie filter it. the themes of a film are patterns that should guide you towards a more refined filtering process. eventually you will get to insights like this guy above has made. the first things you notice may be obvious, gauge their veracity by testing it against the film itself. the first failure of most audiences was this step, they went in thinking "this is about scientology" well lo and behold that might explain about 1 percent of the movie, that filter is worthless, try harder and find another.. the tools you need are right there in front of you.

in fact, the key to something as good as the master is even closer than that, it's something personal.. it is not an acquired intelligence, it is something deeply natural. whatever that is, a quest for salvation, a yearning for connection, a feeling of love and pain, an elegiac response to the traumas of war, a desire for truth, anything.. it's in the film and it's in you. after you've accepted this reflection in art, then you can start to find all kinds of meaning and purpose in things you once thought worthless.

this is nothing special to the master, though it appears here in a heightened state. his other films have given you more substantial clues to hold onto, and a basic reading of one layer was pretty easy to get to, but they were all this good.

[Neil]

And Thus Spoke Pubrickthustra