(harp music)
- [Narrator] For me Paul Thomas Anderson's film,
'The Master' from 2012,
is profoundly concerned with ways of seeing.
It's concerned with that figuratively,
in that it's very much a movie about
a philosophical world view
about taking control of one's life,
or maybe being subservient to some higher power.
It's definitely got a social vision,
in that it depicts America in a kind of
post-war period after World War two,
a period that's often romanticized and
idealized in terms of nostalgia,
how ever much you want to make of the term,
'make America great again',
is when 'The Master' is set,
but is shows that it's a
profoundly unequal society and
a society that has a lot of people
drifting along at the margins,
including the character Freddie Quell,
played by Joaquin Phoenix,
but it's also a movie about point-of-view
in that we often see what Freddie sees.
Point-of-view shots aren't necessarily
a famous part of Paul Thomas Anderson's arsenal.
He tends to feature more objective points of view.
He likes to have the camera join
multiple characters together in a space
like at the beginning of 'Boogie Nights' or
through 'Punch Drunk Love'.
- Sorry about that.
- [Man With Back To Camera] I didn't know you had sister.
- Yes I do.
(claps)
I wanted to tell you guys about
the new plungers.
Been working on this and
we have a non-breakable handle, finally.
Let me demonstrate for you.
(smashing)
Okay, this is one of the old ones,
so, do we have a new one around Lance?
Sorry 'bout that.
- [Narrator] I think starting with
'Punch Drunk Love' and extending through
'There Will Be Blood' and 'The Master' especially,
he's more interested in psychic space,
physical space has almost become
representations of character's head spaces
and in 'The Master' we peer out from
that head space.
This becomes very apparent early in the film when
Freddie, who's been discharged from the army,
becomes a photographer at a department store.
- You married?
- [Male Photograph Subject] Ah, yes.
(department store music)
- This for your wife?
- [Male Photograph Subject] Pardon?
- This for your wife?
- [Male Photograph Subject] Yes.
- [Narrator] It's evident having met him that
it's not a job he has a lot of facility for,
he's not trained as a photographer.
The incongruity of him taking these photos
sort of suggests that he's just
someone operating the camera.
He doesn't have much skill for
composition or for encouraging the patrons.
(violin music) (wheels moving)
- [Man In Navy Blue Suit] Warm. It's hot.
- [Narrator] What he sees is interesting,
'cause he sees people who are not like him.
He sees that post-war optimism.
He sees that normalcy in a series
of portraits that he takes
of smiling, shiny, happy people,
who are in these very significant configurations.
Young couples, happy children,
successful business people.
It all calls attention I'd say
to what he lacks.
- [Joaquin Phoenix] Ready?
Y'all give a big smile.
♪ Get thee behind me Satan ♪
♪ I want to resist ♪
- Three,
two,
one.
Beautiful.
♪ But the moon is low ♪
- [Narrator] Anderson makes this idea of
point-of-view spectacular in the moment where,
instead of taking photographs,
he becomes distracted and quite mesmerized
by a co-worker at the mall at the department store,
who's this very tall, statuesque woman
who's selling a coat,
so she's like a walking commodity,
she's like walking advertisement for herself.
♪ Resist, but the moon is low ♪
- [Narrator] And the camera becomes hooked to her
and follows her on this sort of,
twirling series of pirouettes
and you can break it down and say that
the camera work here is very much inspired by
Max Ophuls or the camera work is inspired by
Stanley Cooper.
I mean that's Anderson's film geek side.
But it's so aligned with what Freddie sees
and it's not just that he wants her,
or that he's attracted to her.
What she's passing by is just so suggestive.
You see her pass by bridal wear,
then you see her pass by lingerie
and the maternity ward.
Like it's a very funny visual joke,
suggesting what's on Freddie's mind,
'cause this is someone who is this
kind of consummation that he doesn't have,
or hasn't had, sort of,
under normal circumstances.
And so it's this very lyrical, rapturous,
you know, erotic sequence,
and it's so funny too,
because it's sound-tracked by the song,
'Get Thee Behind Me Satan',
which is a song all about
mastering temptation and
the way that it's being sung by
Ella Fitzgerald is the opposite of chaste.
It's a very seductive vocal performance.
The song has become ionized and kind of weaponized
against it's literal meaning.
She's saying 'I don't wanna give in',
but the music is suggesting the exact opposite.
That combination of character psychology,
image, soundtrack and choregraphy in the film
I think is sublime and
it also queues later moments in the movie
that you can think of
whether it's the first time Freddie sees
'The Cause's', boat the 'Elethia'
docked in the harbor,
when he imagines Phillip Seymour Hoffman's, Lancaster Dodd
at the center of this orgy,
where he's undressing all the women around Dodd
with his eyes even as he's watching Dodd
whirl around like the woman in the department store.
The scene with the shop girl
creates this visual motif that
runs through the rest of the movie
just so elegantly.
(intense orchestral music)
The idea in 'The Master' of Freddie
looking at women,
is embedded right from the beginning
when he's on the beach
and it's an abstract representation of a woman
and there's something about this
sandcastle woman that's built,
and it's very obviously metaphorical,
I mean it's not subtle,
but there's something about her size,
in proportion to him,
the way that she's sort of splayed out,
she's this Earth mother figure
and it's really interesting how it renders him
kind of infantile at the same time that
he's desiring her.
So in the pay off to the shop girl sequence
where he actually does kinda
bring her into the dark room and
sort of fool around with her,
the choregraphy also very infantile,
like he's getting,
you know she exposes her breast
and he's kinda grabbing at it and
it's almost more like he's a child
than he's a lover.
(laughs)
- Oh!
- Taste good?
- [Narrator] And that continues to be
at the root of his interactions with women
where he toggles between
completely infantile behavior and
kind of adolescent behavior,
but sort of just a lack of maturity
and even a kind of lack of completion
and what he's able to do with them,
which is why I think the way that she just
completely fixes his attention
is so fascinating.
It's an expression of something you see in
movies very often, to the point of cliche.
It's like she's his dream girl.
She's a dream girl.
She's a dream representation.
She's something that he sees and it's
mediated through the lens of a camera,
which in a way makes it as much a fantasy
as the photos he's taking of ordinary people.
When he actually gets up close and personal with her,
the reality is really disappointing,
and there's a sort of, I think,
funny joke in that too.
(intense keyboard music)