The Master is this
year’s sexy film nerd movie. The film enjoys the distinction of having the
illustrious trifecta: 1) an amazing cast boasting Joaquin Phoenix, Phillip
Seymour-Hoffman, and Amy Adams; 2) meaty and contemporary subject matter telling
the tale of the rise of a scientology-like religion; 3) a worthy director
capable of thoughtfully realizing the off-kilter worlds of pornography, early
20th century oil tycoons, and frustrated novelty item salesman. Paul
Thomas Anderson’s movies, though not as frequent as I selfishly hope, are
consistent in terms of craft, introspection, and critical acclaim. A thread
often touched upon is the structure of belief and power. These undefined pillars
of life often intertwine especially in films like Magnolia and There Will be
Blood, which both demonstrate the relationship between the two. In There Will Be Blood, Daniel Plainview’s
contemptuous conflict with religion and faith eschews the tenderness and
benevolence often associated with the church reducing it to a bastion of
influence used to bargain with the townspeople and a method to curry favor for
what he hopes to accomplish financially. In The
Master, we’re given another view of that as the power of influence is portrayed
in a more minute perspective.
As I continue to digest the film, I center upon the film’s
insular perspective of belief and power. The film tells the story of a WWII
veteran named Jeffrey Quell. The effect of the war is apparent as he struggles
to reinsert himself into society; he lives his life to his detriment, drinking
exhaustively, bedding random women, and attacking men at his job as a
photographer. After presumably killing an elderly man with one of his
improvised concoctions of moonshine, he finds himself figuratively at the
doorstep of Lancaster Dodd. In Dodd, we find the perennial false prophet; he is
the spiritual leader of his family and the author and discoverer of “The Cause,”
a faith that claims that humans can absolve their imperfections and rise above
the animals by keying into their past lives. Humans can recapture the
perfection of humanity. Quell’s accidental acquaintance with this man turns
into his seeming salvation as he is welcomed in to the family, travelling with
them from city to city promoting/preaching the vague principles of The Cause to
upper-middle class Anglos. They hope to cure their leukemia and access the
secrets of their past lives as promised by Dodd himself.
Personally, the idea of indoctrination has always fascinated
me. One of my favorite books is The Autobiography of Malcolm X. In the
book, Malcolm X’s account of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad provides a clearing
view of the political figure of Malcolm himself. Elijah Muhammad has the power
to lead millions through the vessel of Malcolm X, exploiting his talent for
oration and affective passion. Muhammad’s desire to spread his ideas was
realized tenfold when he met Malcolm X. He turned him into a voracious ideologue
for his cause that outwardly responded to what millions of African-Americans
felt, a desire for dignity and retribution for the ills they had endured. But
at its core, the movement was filled with hatred and hypocrisy. These types of
men populate history. They provide the wish-fulfillment and deliver the needs
of men and women missing something in their lives in exchange for allegiance to
an idea and, at its most heinous, adoration. That adoration turns into loyalty
for the vessel that delivers that fulfillment of the void.
Jeffery Quell’s
interaction with The Cause and Lancaster Dodd surmises an alternate response to
indoctrination; here, the protagonist struggles with his void-fulfiller.
Phoenix’s Quell embodies the animal that Dodd so decries: he slants his body as
if it is a chore to walk upright; he drapes himself over any woman with terse
sexual advances; he drinks indiscriminately with little to no control, dousing
fluids together leaving the audience unsure if he even knows what they are. So
when Dodd makes the commitment to reform him, one thinks that he may be the one
to bring some cause to his life.
This is a man without self-control, without regard for his
life, and with no sense or desire for forward progression, only wayfaring aggression.
Seemingly, Anderson wants us to hope that Dodd’s idealities of perfection,
discipline, and knowledge can reform him. So when Quell defends Dodd’s rhetoric
with such passion and violence, the notion that base men are easily susceptible
to leaders with direction, wherever that leads. Intrinsically, we’re
conditioned to follow even if the ideas that are perpetuated do not make sense:
we respond to the confidence. However, it becomes increasingly clear as the
film progresses that Quell is aware of the faultiness of Dodd’s belief system.
His own son tells him that “he makes this stuff up as he goes along.” His
shouting match with Dodd in the prison is quickly followed by his
reconciliation in surface, but certainly not spiritually.
The Master works as
a referendum on not only cult, but religion in general. Cults provide answers
to people without them. For men who don’t know what they want, it is impossible
to be all that they want. Quell never fully surrenders himself on all levels. He
withdraws from his teachings and the family, retreating into his old ways of
violence and the shimmering nostalgia of his pre-war life. When he finally
leaves Dodd’s sphere of influence and engages in the same sex-obsessed behavior
we saw at the beginning of the film. However the change he exhibits reveals an
important notion of the film. His subtle change is recognized with his last
sexual encounter at the end of the movies. He asks the woman questions about
her life in a seemingly joking fashion much in the way Dodd interrogated him (a
process called processing where one forces another answer truthfully to rapid
fire questions under duress). As mockingly as it seems to play out, Quell’s
attempt to construe this person as more than a sexual object and investigate
her as a person shows a veritable accomplishment for a man who indiscriminately
poured concoctions of liquor to dampen his perception of life. We see at the
end a man who is at least willing to exercise more discretion with the people
he lets close.
Considering that, the title, obviously pointing to the Dodd
character as the leader of this faulty faith, can be read as Quell who asserts
his reign over his destiny and that of others looking for solace from the
questions of consciousness. Alternately, it can be read through the character
of Quell who reaches a point, after a tremendously arduous experience (the
pains of WWII) filled with death and destruction, where he can assert his own
understanding and interrogation over the people in his life and thereby what it
means as they are two connected notions. To broaden the argument, consciousness
is populated with unanswerable questions like “what should I do with my life?,”
“Should I be with this person?,” “Why is there so much pain in the world?,” and
the one that scares all of us: “Why do I have to die?.” These unanswerable
questions have plenty of people who believe they know the answer. As such,
people flock, hoping for the answer and solace from the cosmic coldness of
ignorance. To quote an Erykah Badu song, “the man that knows something, knows
that he knows nothing at all.” Accepting the irony of believing someone who
says that, I think that the truth of that statement undergirds what The Master says, at least to me. One
should take what they can from these belief structures instead of wholly
surrendering oneself to one as they cannot satisfy all of one’s questions about
life. We are the master’s of our respective consciousnesses and conscripting
ourselves blindly to men who promise answers in exchange for loyalty makes us
slaves to blissful ignorance.
