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In this Discussion
- kdawg September 2012
- Leland September 2012
- Loose_Thread September 2012
- MirandaJuly September 2012
- swamp_knobbler_mahan September 2012
- YoursTruly September 2012
The Master
Ugghhhhhhh IT WAS SO GOOD
SO SAD
SO PRETTY
Jonny Greenwood! Killing me!
Joaquin Phoenix KILLLLLLINNGGG ME
Ape Man
Sad Face
Single Tear
Father Figure
Somebody to Love
"How did you find me?"
Authentic Belief Systems vs. Not
SO SAD
SO PRETTY
Jonny Greenwood! Killing me!
Joaquin Phoenix KILLLLLLINNGGG ME
Ape Man
Sad Face
Single Tear
Father Figure
Somebody to Love
"How did you find me?"
Authentic Belief Systems vs. Not
Comments
I am still thinking about it to this day
so beautiful
I just felt like, unlike his last few films, it didn't really resolve. there were these conflicts and they didn't go away.
I thought there was so much resolution!
At the end, he realizes, pities Phillip Seymour Hoffmann, leaves the cult, and then goes and has the very first normal, light, easy, nice-seeming interaction with a human that we have seen him have in the whole movie!
I felt it as deeply resolving
!!
Oh yeah and also we saw him go back and find Doris's mom and get closure with that whole thing too. So much resolution! I loved that scene. "I'm not gonna write her a letter, wouldn't do any good! Gimme a break"
Also when he rides all the way away on a motorcycle! I thought that was kind of powerful, though quiet.....didn't you? And then has that dream and goes to england, as we eventually learn, specifically for some resolution.
I think it would have been kind of weird if there had been a huge ending, with him, like, punching PSH and being like "IT'S A LIIIIIE OH GOD." Because that wasn't that character's style, you know? He was a very inarticulate, essentially quiet-natured ape-man. More powerful to me that he just kind of walks away and gets on with his weird life...
Another thing I found interesting was to ponder whether the Cause actually did Freddy any good. Though a bullshit cult, some of those scenes of him crying and answering questions did feel weirdly relieving/therapeutic...??
Short but delightful turn from Laura Dern
Amy Adams being terrifying
"what a picture show!"
I thought the acting and photography were spellbinding. It was unclear to me why PSH kept JP around so long, except to create the occasion for all those scenes of big acting and photography. Maybe it was my fault that I didn't pick up the cues to help myself follow and resolve the story.
I didn't get pity from JP in the final scene with PSH, I just saw more emotional confusion and derangement coming from both characters. The scene with the lady in the end just seemed like more of JP just 'doing his thing'. Was it really that different than when he got with the model in the department store early in the film? The difference was his playfulness with the 'process-style' dialogue. Here again, Mr. Film-maker seemed to steer for ambiguous or multiple readings. Was JP's playfulness a sign that he didn't respect the Process, or was the fact that he recited the Process evidence that he had internalized it as part of a new capacity for self-reflection and choice? The scene is so brief and the clues so subtle ( to me ), my sense is that the film-maker wants me to thrive in that uncertainty, keeping a few different possibilities at play.
One criticism: isn't it a little too 'lucky' for the story that JP happens to fall asleep on the boat of the guy he beat up. I guess anything can happen in a movie....
I did not see a Tom Cruise, a lot of high society swells though.
I like what you say about ambiguity. I experienced a lot of resolution in the end of the film but I definitely think in another sense there is lots of ambiguity. I thought when he was crying while PSH was singing to him it was like, in that moment him really understanding how weird and empty and false it all was. This crazy man singing to him--WTF?
But it's true that his interaction with the girl at the end was not entirely different from his interactions with girls throughout....except in the sense that somehow I really felt he was TALKING to her, whereas with the girl in the darkroom it seemed more just brute physical playfulness? So now he's kind of using the process (but not in a sacred/respectful way) as a means of actually talking to someone? But again, you're right that it's ambiguous.
I could watch Joaquin Phoenix's face all day long. I thought he was fucking tremendous
"HI GARY!"
But yes. My theory is that PSH is the guy he beats up in the department store. Ergo, the reason why PSH keeps saying, "I'm trying to remember where we met before." For me, the final scene is about OUR finding out just how much PSH believes his own bullshit. Instead of living with the doubt and uncertainty of not being able to remember their first encounter, PSH invents a fantastic memory of meeting JP in a past life.
I guess I'll have to see the film again to prove it, but yes, when the guy sits down in JP's photo area, and is bothered by the hot lights, I was looking at him going, "That's PSH." Then, a few minutes later when JP is staggering around dead drunk, there is PSH again, dancing on his boat.
I believe there's even some dialogue about 3/4ths way through, when JP has started taking pictures again, where PSH sits for a portrait and goes, something like, "Gosh, I'm really trying to remember where we met before." Just the sort of old-skool dramatic tension that the movie mostly seems to avoid.
PSH's 'problem' is that he has invented a method of eliminating unconscious mystery. The Process is about resolving the mysteries of dreams by giving them a 'historical' reality through the device of insisting they come from past or future lives.
It's a battle. And while it may be uncertain whether JP wins, it's clear that PSH loses. PSH has so little tolerance for doubt, he will double-down on his delusions to remain certain of all his experience. And it doesn't work for him! That's why he loves JP's brain-killing peach soda so much! More dreams please! More make-believe certainty about the siege of Paris instead of leaving half-remembered encounters in their juicy pools of wonder!
The picture is a robustly self-conscious ritual and ornate celebration of ambiguity, doubt and uncertainty!
I'm into it now. Thank you!
Time tunnel?
not sure I feel your call about PSH being the department store guy...but this shit about consciousness vs. beasty id I think is right on.
I love "do you want to fuck" with the smiley face drawn after
just an amiable animal
his sexual obsession was presented so unusually, for a film. Not like a dark perversion but sincerely like the way a dog wants to hump. Pleasant and fun, why wouldn't you just want to fuck everyone you meet, why not?
ID MAN
Id Man's encounter with Conscious Man. Both of them appearing impoverished and pathetic, but at least one is natural/animal while the other feels super false and made-up