I’m a pretty big Paul Thomas Anderson fan so when I got a chance to see The Master in 70mm last night I quickly jumped on it. As I was warned, it is a pretty challenging movie to watch. It is very disjointed - it really felt like a series of vignettes as opposed to a standard film. Part of this feeling may come from the fact that the audio wasn’t great, and Joaquin Phoenix slurs his lines a lot making him difficult to understand.
The acting is excellent, but Phoenix steals every scene he is in. It is impossible to take your eyes off him. He is a best actor nomination lock and i’d say a front-runner. I can’t think of many actors who could pull off the role as well as he did. Hoffman did well, although I can’t shake the feeling that there was a necessary Rasputin-esque magnetism for the role that never really materialized.
Overall I would say it is a good but not great film. Worth watching if you are into this style of movie, but it definitely is not for everyone. Slow paced and purposefully opaque.
One final note - I couldn’t tell any difference with the 70mm versus standard film. Maybe because the theater doesn’t have a particularly wide screen so the aspect ratio was normal, but I didn’t quite get it. If I didn’t know, I would never have guessed anything was different. I am wondering if this is a similar thing to the digital media bitrate thing where people claim higher bitrates sound better. I have always been dubious of those claims and was glad to see an experiment back me up.
I’ve attended Roger Ebert’s film festival in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois every year of its existence. He used to always open the festival with a 70mm print:. 2001, The Right Stuff, Lawrence of Arabia, Play Time, etc. The differences were incredible. I’m sure a lot of it has to do with projector/projectionist, when it comes to film. But I’m a big fan of 70mm.
This is my most anticipated movie of the year, so I’m glad to hear that it’s worth seeing. That doesn’t surprise me about Joaquin Phoenix being hard to understand, though. I’ve always thought he was a bit on the mumbly side.
I really want to see it in 70mm, because I’ve never seen a 70mm movie, and I’ve heard from lots of people (and not all audiovisual geeks) that the difference is significant. The AFI Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, said on their Twitter feed that they were going to have a big announcement at the end of the week about the movie. I know they’re equipped for 70mm, so fingers crossed.
Yes, but that angle isn’t really what you should go into it expecting. If you are looking for biting satire or Scientology expose, you will be disappointed. It is hard to pin down what, exactly, the movie is about, mainly because I am not the type to break down movies film-school style. I mainly liked it for the acting and mood. There were some very well done scenes. The more I have thought about it today, the more it has grown on me. It is the kind of movie that can get under your skin.
Boogie Nights is still far and away my favorite. After that I would say its quality is comparable to his other work - except Hard Eight which I still haven’t seen.
Yeah, Boogie Nights is also my fave with Magnolia a close 2nd. I loved There Will Be Blood, but it didn’t touch me the same way. Punch Drunk Love and Hard Eight (Sydney) were both great movies, but not quite up to the same level (which is still better than 90% of the other dreck out there.)
Eleven whole posts!?! I just saw it (in 70mm) and I need some damn answers! Come on Dope, you are seriously letting me down here. I depend on this place to tell me what to think about movies I just saw.
What you just saw was about the finest acting I have ever witnessed.
I am referring, of course, to Joaquin Phoenix as Freddy Quell. It is a measure of Phoenix’s great performance that, at many times, he makes Philip Seymour Hoffman, a hugely talented actor, seem almost inconsequential, or at least ordinary.
JP becomes his character in a way that I, for one, have seldom seen - I’d place his performance right up there beside De Niro in Taxi Driver, Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy, Brando in The Godfather, or any other ‘legendary’ role. Regardless of what one thinks of the movie itself, I can’t believe that anyone would fail to be blown away by Phoenix.
I agree that JP acted the hell out of that role. The question I have is just what the hell was he acting about? What I saw was was a random character study of two deeply flawed characters that never really went anywhere.
KarlGauss, I agree with you about Phoenix’s acting. I’d add Daniel Day-Lewis in PTA’s There Will Be Blood (still my favorite of his, but I love them all) to your list. According to Wikipedia, Jeremy Renner was originally cast as Quell, but dropped out. I like Renner a lot but the right person got the right role at the right time.
One reason Quell was hard to understand was because (it would seem) he’d had an injury to his mouth (the character, not Joaquin Phoenix, to my knowledge). Phoenix acted the whole movie not moving one side of his mouth. It’s as if the teeth on the left side of his face (left side looking at him) are permanently clenched shut and he talks out of the other side of his mouth. It’s very odd and adds to the unsettling nature of the character. I haven’t yet found any article that talks about it.
Btw, Phoenix spent his early years in a cult. His parents were part of the “Children of God” cult, but they smartened up and got out.
And? What’s wrong with a random character study of two deeply flawed characters? Where did you want to see it go?
My one question that is minor but I think significant. Was they guy that Joaquin Phoenix had a fight with in the department store supposed to be a younger “Master” and is that how they knew each other? The Master character later says they would be enemies in their “next life” which was interesting as well.
I can’t forgive Phoenix for that publicity stunt he pulled the other year, pretending to be a rap artist, etc. etc. I already know enough about Scientology to despise it also.
I know I’m just an unwashed plebian with very little money to spend on movies - but nothing I’ve read about this movie so far makes it sound the least bit interesting. and I hate movies where it’s hard to pin down what they’re about.
To be honest, I didn’t like the movie, but do like Phillip Seymour Hoffman as an actor so I wanted to see this. I was disappointed with the disjointed style used in the movie and like a more straightforward approach than what the writer and director used in this movie.
No, that was a completely different guy. Remember, the Master at the end said he knew Freddie from the Pigeon Post when Paris was blockaded by Prussian troops. 65 unguided communication balloons were sent and only two went missing. Two! I think we were supposed to tell that Freddie was unimpressed with this tidbit from the Master.
