Culture, Sports, Writing…or whatever
I cried. It finally happened, I mean. Been trying to cry close to four months now. Both times caused by movies. This time Room; previously Inside Out. The connection’s transparent: The saddest moment in life is when you’re no longer allowed to be a child.
I’ve been thinking about Her again. An obvious literary trick at mystery. Use pronouns to elicit symbolic distance. Also an attempt to call attention to myself; hope all the She’s read this and think that sentence was about Her. Really I’m referring to Scarlett Johannson. I am Joaquin Phoenix. Surprise.
I wish she called me.
Attended a writing conference. Many people instructed me lessons already learned. I’m an autodidact meaning I’m smart meaning I’m alone. This is all heading somewhere. If I had to predict a direction—down. In a shape of a spiral.
Some people were nice, some were assholes, I was somewhere in between. It was all nothing new. A repetitive cycle of questioning, belittling those deemed intellectually inferior, wondering why it wasn’t my turn, crystallizing into a millennial trope. I’m bored with how pathetic I sound.
I yearn for Purpose. Now I am Justin Bieber. What do you mean? I’ll show you. Where are U Now? Sorry. Get used to it. Love yourself. No pressure. No sense.
I return to my storage unit. It’s funny: I no longer am attached to this Stuff. It once held great meaning, now it’s a metaphor. Something about leaving Stuff behind, but refusing to let go. That’s as close as I can get.
I retrieve what I came for. A plot detail not necessary to explain. Travis Scott’s “Antidote” blares from my phone. I play his music only when no one’s around. I dance and rage. I bashed him once online and wish to maintain my brand. Can’t shatter the illusion. It’s all I have.
My plot detail and I leave. We speed away. The building blows up behind us. Stuff rains from the sky. Insert generic flourish of pluming fire, a couple embarrassing items like panties. One more weird thing. A chicken clucking in cocktail attire. A lesson: The only way to end eras is violently.
The sun sets as I drive. Kanye West’s “Power” provides background soundtrack. The fantasy ends at the bar “I’m jumping out the window, I’m letting everything go.” Too much identification.
In the editing bay, they revert the color palette back to its muted, drab aesthetic. Jump cut to the opening scene of me crying at the movies. Camera follows me from behind out the theater. Stunned shuffling. Drained appearance. Open the door to the dark outside.
Cut to a close-up of my face. Puffy eyes, salt streaks down my face, hot breath steaming in the cold night air. A push-in closer as a thought flickers but doesn’t complete itself in my expression. Pause an almost unbearable time at this position.
Right before it’s totally uncomfortable, a twitch of a smile. Then everything fades to black.
The Master is not an easy film: It eschews common movie narrative logic, plays with audience by flipping between reality and imagination without hint or explanation, and initially develops subplots only to never address them again throughout the film.
Yet it remains my favorite movie released in the past five years at least, if not spanning back further. I saw it twice in theaters, once at Florida State’s campus theater, and now that it’s on Netflix as of yesterday, I will proceed to watch it 20 more times.* Now, I’ll likely write a more in-depth review/analysis/praise of this movie later, but I want to give everyone a chance to watch it first. Plus, I’ll probably go long with it, so I’ll need some time. For now, I merely want to convince you to watch The Master. And since we live on the Internet where the most effective form of swaying people to think or do anything is through a list-icle, here are 10 reasons why you should be watching The Master.
*(To the people, myself included, that complain that Netflix doesn’t have prestige films in its rotation enough–I beg you to watch this, The Immigrant, and Boyz N the Hood. Otherwise they’re gone. And I don’t want to live in a Netflix world without RICKY!!!!!!!)
1) A quick summary: It’s a story loosely based on the inception of Scientology by L. Ron Hubbard, but like the other movies made by director Paul Thomas Anderson post-Magnolia, mostly it’s about secret sects or histories of American society and dis-fractured families in post-war America and the cavernous gap that leaves in the world and within ourselves. It’s about men seeking absolution through dubious means and how inevitably that insidious journey will crash over them, unless they find a more honorable purpose.
2) Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Laura Dern, Christopher Evan Welch, Jillian Bell, and Jesse Plemons, a.k.a. the dude who inexplicably earned the most acting cred in Hollywood from Friday Night Lights, all perform phenomenally in this movie. The degree of commitment and flair is insane. (Phoenix reportedly hurt his back filming this because of the hunchback stance he appropriated for Freddie Quell, a character tic he found necessary to tell Quell’s story following the war.)
3) Philip Seymour Hoffman gets his own bullet point. R.I.P., big guy. Everyone else performs with flair and showmanship; Hoffman acts with uncharacteristic reserve. His calculated coolness as Lancaster Dodd haunts and convinces that you too would join his movement. It’s a performance out of early Hollywood with its stillness.
4) Lots of sex, and nakedness, and bootlegged-boozy deviancy in this movie. That is if you’re into that sort of thing. (And since you’re likely a 20-something American if you’re reading this blog, that means you are.) Some of it’s fun and some of it’s grotesque. Speaking of which…
5) TIMID SPOILER ALERT: Did you catch that ALL-CAPS spoiler alert. Good: Amy Adam’s character gives Hoffman’s character the roughest, sandpaper-y sexual act I’ve seen on screen. (To be fair, I haven’t watched Teeth.) It was an act of power over Lancaster Dodd by his wife Peggy, and Lancaster coalesces to the submission all too familiarly. It’s awesome.
6)
Why, yes! That is Joaquin Phoenix fingering the nipple of a sand-woman with what appears to be a post-coital cigarette in hand. Glad you asked! More happens between Phoenix and mysterious sand-woman, but I fear I’ve already revealed too much.
7) There’s this shot:
8) Like that one, there will be images that will not escape your head for some weeks: Freddie Quell running across farm fields being chased by migrant workers, Lancaster Dodd and Quell trapped in opposite jail cells, Dodd and Quell escaping everything–their pasts, each other, themselves–on motorcycles, and namely the blue ocean director P. T. Anderson keeps returning to.
9) Because you’re a rebel, one who wants to fight institutions and injustices, like The Master somehow not being nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, or Best Cinematography by the Academy, and how the collective of Phoenix, Hoffman, and Adams won no Oscar’s for their performances. (Although Phoenix losing to Daniel Day-Lewis for his performance in Lincoln is permissible. Any year Day-Lewis acts in a leading role, he more than likely deserves to win.)
10) If you like any of Paul Thomas Anderson movies, you should watch this. (Except maybe if you only liked Boogie Nights. Everyone loves Boogie Nights and while a lot of sex appears, Dirk Diggler will not.) This may be, the most Paul Thomas Anderson movie Paul Thomas Anderson has ever filmed. There Will Be Blood remains more iconic, Punch-Drunk Love more digestible and playful, and Boogie Nights more fun, but The Master goes right for the mark–the human heart.
[a] millennial reservations 