By Zack Gill
Copy Editor
The only thing that matters about a film is whether or not it is engaging.
The first hour of American auteur Paul Thomas Anderson’s newest film, “The Master,” is definitely engaging, as well as moody, claustrophobic, uncomfortable and hilarious. But then the film goes on for another hour and fifteen minutes, sans all of the aforementioned qualities, except the claustrophobia.
“The Master” opens with Freddie Quell’s (Joaquin Phoenix) departure from the Navy after World War II. Quell has a nervous disorder and spends much of his time chasing women and concocting various alcoholic beverages with special ingredients like paint thinner and fluid from missles.
Eventually, he awakens as a stow-away on a ship, with little memory of how he arrived there (blame it on the paint thinner). Of course, this is no ordinary ship. It’s captained by Lancaster Dobbs, (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and it is replete with Dobbs’ family and followers of “The Cause,” Dobbs’ Scientology-esque “religion.”
Dobbs becomes a huge fan of Quell’s mind-numbing beverages, and after Dobbs demands that Quell concoct more to make up for Quell’s stowing-away on his ship, the two begin a tenuous surrogate father-son relationship, as Quell joins the inner echelon of “The Cause.” The rest of the film consists of Phoenix’s blind devotion to Dobbs, the film’s titular “Master,” his drinking and his beating up of any nay-sayers to “The Cause.”
Make no mistake: Phoenix doesn’t simply play a character in this film; rather, he transforms into another person. He has given the best performance of the year, bar none, and does not just deserve an Oscar — he deserves all of the Oscars. He talks like another person. He walks like another person. The audience forgets that he’s an actor at all. Philip Seymour Hoffman is also quite good, as he is in everything he’s in. His performance is flashier in a more Shakespearian way, as he yells a lot and lies to a lot of people with a straight face.
The film is also visually breathtaking, shot on 65 millimeter film stock (people should make sure they see the film in theatres with 70 millimeter projectors for a significantly brighter and sharper picture) and complete with beautiful, muted colors. Anderson uses Francis Ford Coppola’s latest cinematographer, Milhai Malaimare Jr. (“Tetro,” “Youth Without Youth”), to great effect, particularly in the use of long, uninterrupted takes (which are technically challenging to film).
“The Master,” on paper, is Anderson’s most focused work, with a much smaller cast and a more straightforward plot. In reality, though, “The Master” is Anderson at his most rambling and cryptic. Anderson uses jarring cuts through place and time, perhaps to highlight the possible probable insanity of Quell, or perhaps simply because he can because he is an artist.
After the film’s mesmerizing opening sequences with Quell’s return from World War II and Quell’s time with Dobbs at sea, the film becomes unbearable. A 15-minute-or-so montage of Quell partaking in various exercises of “The Cause” (with practices similar to Scientology) feels like 45 minutes, and is one of the only times something actually happens in the latter half of the film.
Anderson builds a crescendo of tension and then stagnates, filling his film with extended, uncomfortable pauses and over-indulgent hallucination sequences. “The Master” is designed more for cryptologists than average American filmgoers.
That’s not to say that films should all be accessible. Artists should say what they want to say. But filmmakers should also think about their medium — whether we are held to the screen, transfixed for the duration of the film, or held as hostages.
“The Master” holds us at gunpoint, but never actually pulls the trigger. Paul Thomas Anderson shows us his greatest understanding of film as a visual medium, but also a fundamental misunderstanding of storytelling, absent and ammended from his previous films. “The Master” is rated R and is playing in theaters nationwide.
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