YARDS OF GRAPEVINE | Movies, TV, Oscars & S'more

The Master: From its Norman Rockwell-like wealth of colors, ones that run the gauntlet of the spectrum without playing favorites, to it’s sense of control and over-branded capitalism, The Master feels every bit like a slice of America. Albeit, this isn’t the America Rockwell was promoting, at least not on the intended surface. This is a far more cynical examination of normal men living within a culture that purports to be democratized by the “Will of God.” Every human is born to follow while also born with the urge to fight back. It’s this opposing force that constitutes much of the internal turmoil suffered by humans throughout their daily lives. From this struggle, Paul Thomas Anderson’s film takes it’s lead. Everything whirls hypnotically, as if forming inside a furious maelstrom, all building around the idea of whether one man can control that which is unwieldy and whether that which is unwieldy is ever truly lacking control. The film begs the question: Are we simply animals blessed with the ability to reason ourselves into an oppressed calm that poses as happiness?

Freddie Quell has just returned from duty at the end of World War I. He seems aloof and searching, with a penchant for violent outbursts. Without knowing his motives, we watch as he takes a job as a portrait photographer then as a farmhand in Salinas. Both occupations end with Freddie being chased away, back into the judgmental world. One night Freddie comes upon a party boat where The Master, Lancaster Dodd, entertains a group of followers for his “cause.” Freddie immediately interests Dodd and becomes something of a protégé, or at least an experiment. Freddie represents the most complex threat to the theory of controlled perfection that Dodd and his people promote. As the film progresses, mostly in moments of suffocating tension between Quell and Dodd, we begin to see that little truth informs Dodd’s method, only that he understands humans mostly need to be lead. He believes himself the kind of charismatic leader able to instill a strong way of life on these followers. Freddie initially resists the indoctrination into the group then falls for it until finally leaving for good. Therein lay the essay-like structure of this most challenging film; a probing study of whether man has been put on Earth to defy their animalistic urges in a rigid order or if true freedom comes from an unrestrained tackling of life.

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