Paul Thomas Anderson’s characters often present as what The Master’s charlatan leader Lancaster Dodd would describe as “aberrated.” The flawed, hedonistic chosen family at the heart of Boogie Nights (1997); the deeply repressed pudding-collector Barry Egan and his outbursts of anger in Punch-Drunk Love (2002); ruthless oil tycoon Daniel Plainview and his greed-fueled, milkshake-drinking quest for recognition and power in There Will Be Blood (2007): these are people that have deviated from conventional thought and action. This concept of aberration arises from the teachings of Scientology, whose founder, L. Ron Hubbard, is clearly the inspiration for Dodd. The behavior exhibited by him and other characters throughout Anderson’s oeuvre is often compelled by primal urges, at the cost of and occasionally in service to achieving some level of transcendence. But what if the animalistic nature of each human is more fixed and cannot be altered or “cured” through any amount of nurture? What if, on some level, this is a part of us that is immutable, for good or ill?
Enter the ironically named Freddie Quell. Played by Joaquin Phoenix, Quell seems incapable of tamping down any urges and erratically acts purely on impulse. A World War II navy vet, he is certainly an aberration within American post-war society. Amid the cultural repression and sexual conservatism at the dawn of the 1950s, Quell is an outlier brimming with untethered testosterone, humping a woman-shaped sand sculpture in front of an audience, openly jerking off on the beach and seeing some combination of penis and vagina in every Rorschach test. He’s fired from a department store photography gig after picking a fight with a customer for no reason other than his own antisocial amusement, and he has to run for his life when he’s accused of poisoning a fellow farmworker with the highly potent alcoholic concoction that he makes from at least a little paint thinner.
By chance, or perhaps through fate—such an integral theme in 1999’s Magnolia—Quell stows away on a yacht, which causes him to cross paths with Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a religious leader of a movement called “The Cause” and a man who not so humbly considers himself “a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher.” Dodd identifies Quell as aberrated, prone to desires of the flesh of which he professes that the human spirit intrinsically stands above, but he also finds a certain instant kinship with this wayward drunk who happened upon the ship, even claiming to recall meeting Quell somewhere before, perhaps in a past life. And it also doesn’t hurt that Dodd instantly develops a taste for Quell’s high-octane moonshine.
In lesser hands, The Master might proceed as a satire of Scientology, the predatory charlatanism inherent to cults or organized religion and spiritual movements writ large. But as he’s done since his turn-of-the-millennium shift from sprawling, Altmanesque ensemble projects, Anderson keeps the film rooted in more incisive, character-driven storytelling. Despite an implicit power dynamic in Quell agreeing to undergo psychologically arduous processing sessions, he and Dodd form an emotional bond that’s perplexing to the more suspicious members of the Cause, most notably Dodd’s pregnant and humorless wife Peggy (Amy Adams), who even begins to pick up on the homoerotic overtones rippling between the two. While the film can’t entirely be divorced from sociocultural subtext, Anderson is far more interested in the unique, symbiotic bond between these two men, in how Dodd both preys on and is dependent upon Quell’s blind loyalty, and how he almost envies the liberating audacity to act upon impulse that so often compels Quell.
There are moments where Dodd struggles to keep the same seething energy at bay, verbally lashing out at a vocal skeptic (Christopher Evan Welch) who accuses the Cause of being a cult and dressing down a devoted follower (Laura Dern) who points out a doctrinal discrepancy. At times, it’s clear Dodd appreciates, on some level, Quell’s tendency toward violent rage, especially when it’s targeted toward Dodd’s adversaries—Quell roughs up the skeptic who challenged Dodd and also assaults a critical editor of Dodd’s newest book. When Dodd is arrested for practicing medicine without a license, Quell ends up in a cell right alongside him as a result of coming to blows with the arresting officers. After destroying the cell’s toilet in a rage reminiscent of Adam Sandler’s Barry pummeling bathroom fixtures in Punch-Drunk Love, Quell questions Dodd’s philosophical and spiritual bona fides for perhaps the only time, parroting claims by Dodd’s son (Jesse Plemons) that the spiritual leader makes everything up as he goes along.
Even when the two men inevitably part ways, Dodd can’t quit Quell. Dodd summons him to visit the Cause in England after Quell futilely attempts to reconnect with former sweetheart Doris (Madisen Beaty), whom he long ago promised to return to one day, but never did. Perhaps out of the barely platonic intimacy the two men share, Dodd is able to dredge up from within Quell’s mind these deep-seated memories of what may very well be the only other instance of love for another person separated from the lust that otherwise drives him. The aberrant affection in this film isn’t unique in Anderson’s work, as Punch-Drunk Love previously demonstrated and Phantom Thread would go on to do five years later, but it’s rarely been as enigmatic or beautifully rendered.
Anderson filmed on 65mm stock, making The Master the first new feature film allowing for 70mm screenings in the 21st century, and Mihai Mălaimare Jr.’s cinematography offers a certain otherworldliness in its vivid imagery, vibrant colors and heavy use of natural light. Images of the roiling sea in a ship’s wake at the outset and shots in a third act scene of Dodd and then Quell tearing across salt flats on a motorcycle are visually striking, impeccably contrasting with the primal, ugly but all-too-human compulsions at the heart of the film. What we’re left with as Quell moves on from Dodd and the Cause—a scene in which a forlorn Dodd proclaims that Quell will be his sworn enemy in a future life before tearfully serenading him to “On a Slow Boat to China”—is the reality that for all Quell has gone through, all the emotional processing and quasi-breakthroughs and pseudo-epiphanies, he’s the same “silly animal” he’s always been. Perhaps when it comes right down to it, we all are.
The post Oeuvre: Paul Thomas Anderson: The Master appeared first on Spectrum Culture.