Click Here to Read: There Will Be Megalomania ‘The Master,’ From Paul Thomas Anderson, Reviewed by O.A. Scott in The New York Times on September 13, 2012.
A dystopian film. “ THE MASTER”
For some time I was occupied by a search for a title for this review of ‘The Master’; Paul Thomas Anderson’s 70 mm film homage to post war alienation and deceit. Anderson is a student of film history while his being an auteur is essential to understanding his intent. He stands on the shoulders of earlier filmmakers, influenced by them and seeking to relate his version of the “American Dream”. Some of the facts concerning the film are important; it is the first fictional film to be shot in 70 mm since Kenneth Branagh‘s Hamlet in 1996, Mihai Malaimare Jr.is the painterly cinematographer crafting strikingly beautifully nuanced 1950’s scenes. This is also Anderson’s first film without cinematographer Robert Elswit. Anderson, it is reported, mulled over the idea for this film for 12 years after reading a quote that mentioned that periods after wars were times for spiritual movements to emerge: a neglected aspect of war’s effect on cultural change and perhaps a by-product of cultural mourning and searching for meaning that follows war.
A.O. Scott, the NY Times review guru, called “ The Master“ the great polarizing puzzle film of 2012. Often, like other modern directors and some documentary makers, the film offers little to “ explain “ or give motivations to its characters creating problematic transitions. More in the tradition of Stanly Kubrick, this film is best separated into visual and narrative stimulating events to solve its conjoined meaning. This narrative openness forges numerous open and ambiguous narratives and at times puzzling narrative trajectory that annoys and unnerves some viewers. Lived lives are not linear still directors and screenwriters rely on the audience to fill in the gaps in a narrative with imaginary identifactoy links between scenes that allows the creation of an explanative back-story or narrative bridge between scenes. A film “works” on the psyche of an audience in this manner, and in “The Master” this projective capacity is put to a frequent test. While multilevel audience involvements are essential in viewing a film they are frequently unelaborated by reviewers. In this film the invited audiences empathic identifications are problematic as the strivings of the major characters are difficult to empathize with leaving the audience at an emotional distance. Is Anderson selective in whom he wishes to recruit into identifying with the two main characters Freddie and Lancaster, or has he a more subversive intent in documenting this period of time?
Some critics will say this intense projective “ filling” is required of a poor script I am defending, perhaps so. There are significant narrative disjuncture’s to worry about and a variety of potential explanations for the repeated unexplored meeting of the two central characters and their joining and separating from each other’s lives. Take for instance Freddie receiving Lancaster’s call in what appears to be a movie balcony. Freddie utters, “ How did you find me? “ as if asking for the audience. Against the cartoon voices in the background the scene offers a counter-point chorus to the audience also being puzzled. Is it real? A dream? For present purposes let us assume these disjuncture’s’ are “ intended” and not the films’ faults. Although it is reported many scenes were cut out of the film adding to its somewhat choppy flow.
As a psychoanalyst I am a willing audience and a different kind of critic and what I took from the start was the use of visions of a ships wake that opens the film. Often a films opening scene yields clues to the visual story line as I discovered in an early Cronenberg film “ On Violence” that started with a child’s violent dream. The camera focuses attention at the very start in a rather long “ take “ on a ships wake. What is his visual purpose and meaning? As a fisherman I have often stared fixedly into the roiling wake of the boat and so this familiar scene initially raised no questions aside from its unusual length; approx 8 seconds. I noticed that twice more the wake appeared as a break in the narrative. Similarly, in a short documentary about Robert Lifton there were frequent “ cuts” to the Atlantic outside his Wellfleet home that with some struggle I understood as more than pauses in the emotional actions of the film about Nazi Doctors but rather a symbol “ of silent voices of the murdered in the wars. Could this be the same? After all “ wake “ has a triple meaning!
Then, adding to its multi layers, I uncovered Whitman’s “After the Sea-ship”: and its line “Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface,” Another guess is that Anderson’s intent was to reflect on the passing of the war (for democracy) in a manner similar to Whitman’s poem is interpreted as commenting on the disturbing paths to Democracy. Another question may be whether the films trajectory will be in straight line is also a possibility as the focus in “ wake scene “ visually implies a passing unseen ship from the “ point of view” of the viewer. And I will say more about this later. The roiling of the sea wake may also be understood as photographic visual shorthand that alerts to an absence of any possibility of a stable mooring and the narrative will be concerned with effects of something or some one passing. Freddie Quill? With no safe observation point for the audience obtained from the cameras point of view, the viewer will have little to put events and persons in a more reassuring perspective. Another possibility is that we are to take the characters and narrative, as tumultuous surface events interacting and churning like the churned water. There will be no guides, no usual cinematic guides; there is no back-story, no hidden childhood trauma to hang our Freudian insights upon. No “Rosebud”, although some might find other similarities between Lancaster Dodd and Charles Foster Kane.
What is immediately recognizable is yet another problem of the psychoanalytic critic and that is first about psychoanalysis and art. And then we have the additional problem of psychoanalysis and movies. Art and psychoanalysis are uncomfortable partners although both are concerned with the multiplicity of meaning; it appears that nonverbal representational art requires a different psychoanalytic approach. Freud opened the door for analyzing visual arts with his imaginative psychobiography of Leonardo Di Vinci. Abraham followed with an analysis of the psyche of Segantini that while illuminating of “processes” did little to enhance appreciation of the artwork. Freud also attempted to analyze the Moses of Michelangelo (1914) and articulated his understanding of the statue based on his own profound identification with Moses. Rightfully he understood the artistic creation in terms of his own responsiveness to the statue. In doing so he raised the important and frequently ignored observation that we do not all sees the same representation. As Kubric put it mysteriously “ the film becomes anything the viewer sees in it.“ Beyond Kubric’s existential ploy the film is an unusual narrative text that has meaning that may stand apart from its creators intent as a story, fable or myth otherwise there could not be the idea of genre. The other interpretive problem is that this is also a conversational film, there are numerous important conversations scenes taking place but none directly to the analyst as viewer. We are yet again put in an observer’s position as if an eavesdropper on other events. Movies, such as My Dinner with Andre (1981) hold such a psychological appeal and the distance between the audience and the characters in “ The Master” oscillate between conversational distance and cinematic portrait frames.
Anderson seems preoccupied with both the period after the war and with male characters that don’t “fit in.“ The disconnectedness of the characters seems as if a particular contrast to the war boomers’ parents who fled to the suburbs. When considered with the “open “narrative structure the narrative does not invite easy meanings as his characters weave their way through America in the 1950’s. Perhaps Freddie and Lancaster reflect the disharmony beneath the surface of the “ bland” post war world as depicted in the almost satirically constructed scenes of an upscale department store. A store whose surface facade awkwardly falls apart much like the characters adaptive façade for seemingly unknown reasons.
Back to Psychoanalysis. Any work of movie art must be considered an external object of temporary psychic investment offered to be gazed at and apprehended on the basis of the effects it evokes in the manner of Freud’s Moses. Each work of art, regardless of the medium, is assessed by the senses it stimulates and its intention or that of its creators is to arouse both unconscious desire, recognition and aesthetic and emotional judgment tolerable to its audience. At the same time, while aware of watching a movie performance whose appearance reminds the audience of another time and place the audience are distracted from the outside reality. For the audience a willingness to “ go along with the illusion” of any art that requires, in psychoanalytic terms, a plasticity of the ego to allow “joining“ the films illusions of time, place and person while encouraging empathic recognitions of the illusory characters.
The movie, or more accurately the motion pictures must appear, in the audiences’ experience, to represent a temporary alternative reality out side the viewing of it; an external space that all to literally was seen by some analysts as an empty “ blank “ screen. Through visual and verbal cues that two-dimensional flat screen is transformed into a perceived place or space with action, sound and depth of field in which we bring obligations as a viewer. We are obliged to go along with the illusion. Where is this space located?
B. Lewin (1946) metaphorically conceived the location of viewing occurrence as a dream screen; the inner psychic place upon which dreams are internally projected. But his analogy of a movie to a dream too often facilely embraced by psychoanalysts does not add to our knowledge of the meaning of the movie or its creation (Gombach.ref in Cocks 2003, Gabbard and Gabbard) The movie creators, on their part aim to “recreate an imaginary reality “; a place and era for the unfolding of their imaginary visual narrative where the relative size of objects on the screen confuse perspective yet are willing accepted by the audience. This willing acceptance speaks to what Gombach after E. Kris explained else that regression with the movie might still be frightening. Rather than fright the enchantment of a movie (Bettelheim) is partial by our knowing it is not real while we believe we recognize the characters and go along with their imposture.
Imposture is important and operates on more than one level in this film. In particular some movie critics have allowed themselves to be duped into falling back into believing that this is a narrative movie about L Ron Hubbard and Scientology, but this film lacks the linear narrative structure of a usual cinematic biography; they have been duped into making the imaginary real. Simply. If it is about Hubbard, why do we have Freddie Quill and what is his role.
The artistic means of deception in a film are not random. In Arlow’s (1969) words, the film, “ contain(s) elements which correspond to features already present in the preformed unconscious fantasies” of the audience. The more manifest the typical fantasy structure in the artwork, the more surely it mobilizes the selective perceptual interest of the beholder. In addition, it also surely evokes the beholder’s own idiosyncratic elaboration of that fantasy. Most familiar artistic objects of perception do not possess a films’ specialized power of an artwork to attract and stimulate or to temporarily blur the normal distinctions of reality
What then is this film about? I believe it is about the complexity of male-male bonding and love. It is about what compels men, different men of different class back grounds and faults; one the huckster making exaggerated claims that easily seduce the wealthy upper class with the slick guile of a potion seller misunderstanding Freudian theory. And the other important male character is a sexually starved alcoholic.
The huckster is blessed with a pious believer wife, fostering her claim on both his theories and his life. The other, a runner, perhaps a drunken Gulliver searching for a bed to sleep in or a woman to replace the booze that keeps him warm and in danger.
The movie is of compelling interest because it illuminates that both men are inexplicably drawn to each other in what seem an unimaginable way. Class differences separate them, although Freddie’s drinking heats a bond between them when they sample with delight one of Freddie’s dangerous potions. Later, in turn, Freddie falls under Lancaster’s power in his obedient following nonsensical instructions in front of an audience.
The movie is also a visual exercise about the careful depiction of the style, color and texture of the 50’s time in beautifully composed scenes. On the porch where the summons was to be served in “ Philadelphia”, and the house and porch of his adolescent girl friends’ New England home suggest homage to the time and it’s flat homey beauty. Juxtaposed against the Wyeth like structure is the graceless tension of failure, lies and snake oil salesman promises. This results in an undercurrent, felt through out the film, of something jarring and eruptive. That eruption only openly happens twice, in Freddie’s unexplained outburst on the porch and in the cell when Freddie “looses control.” In these scenes his pure emotion breaks through the structure of the scene and contrasts with the silky glibness of Lancaster. Truth, beauty and raw emotion are separated on the flat surface of the scenic structure. Almost as if he were in a museum, gazing at split picture, Anderson frames his studies at a distance that makes a colorists portrait of them but with an important difference, movement. In the amazingly shot side by side jail scene we are kept at a portraits distance by the camera, safe observers of the two men, one violently self destructive and the other an observer and commentator on Freddie’s action. Both beautifully and importantly framed in their individual barred cells, apart and yet together.
Biography has played an important role in all forms of written art; much in the manner that portraiture stood for the person biography serves as a guide. Psychological biography replaced the recounting of the facts of a life adding conflict and often personal or social failures to the individuals’ historical mix. In this substantive way Freudian theory changed the nature of biography emphasizing the influence of childhood’s struggles on the adult and the overcoming of failure to be applauded
But that leaves Freddie as unexplained or only as a vehicle to counter point Dodd. I believe this is a serious error. I believe this film stands alongside Vershage’s “The Tennis Partner’ as a tale of love failed between two men. It also stands in contrast to Anderson’s creation of Plainview in “There Will Be Blood” as a revenge driven “ oil man,” a capitalist run amok.
I want to frame this by returning for a moment to the roiling wake. Freddie’s energy is conveyed in the many scenes of his running; his anger, his running away from his adolescent love, running across a field chased by farm workers, taking off on a motorcycle in the desert and leaving Lancaster in England at the end to finally bed a woman and repeat Lancaster’s instructions to his bed partner. Freddie’s impellent journey through the film is to attach and then leave Lancaster and repair himself with a real woman. It is Freddie’s story yet he needed Lancaster to reach a real woman’s bed.
Arlow, J.A ( 1969) Fantasy memory and reality testing Psychoanal, Q
Balter, L. (1999). On the Aesthetic Illusion. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 47:1293-
1333
Bettleheim B (1976) The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales A Knopf.
Cocks, G. (2003). Stanley Kubrick’s Dream Machine. Annual Psychoanal., 31:35-45
Freud, Sigmund. (1914b). The Moses of Michelangelo. SE, 13: 209-238.
Gabbard G and Gabbard K Psychiatry and the Cinema
Kris, Ernst. (1952). Psychoanalytic explorations in art. New York: International Universities Press.
Kris, E. (1950). On Preconscious Mental Processes. Psychoanal Q. 19:540-56
Lewin B (1946) ‘Sleep, the Mouth and Dream Screen.’:
Psychoanalytic Quarterly,Vol. XV, No. 4, p. 419.
After the Sea-Ship by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)