The Master (2012)

[kelber at mindspring.com]

The Against the Day reference provoked a reaction (hey, he's plugging Pynchon) but not any deeper ruminations.

LK


-----Original Message-----
>From: Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Sep 23, 2012 4:04 PM
>To: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
>Cc: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: The Master (2012)
>
>I fully, but respectfully, disagree...I am writing something...
>
>anderson is a clumsy, but real, artist, self-learned (as it were) but more importantly
>Freshly feeling some universal themes.
>
>review it I. Your mind under P's " charisma, that terrible disease" ignore Scientology
>Per se ( as melville's Pequot crew exists beyond The Pequod)
>
>What did you THINK when you heard the "against the day" phrase...not used by the MLK yet? 
>Or the siege of Paris stuff?
>
>
>
>Sent from my iPad
>
>On Sep 23, 2012, at 3:45 PM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>
>> Saw this yesterday.  Fantastic acting and cinematography, but the script was weak on story and lacking in theme.  The film didn't provoke a single thought, other than (as Dave asks) what provoked the director to make the movie?  Anderson's a great director and a lesser screenwriter.  Which makes me hope that he'll seek help with the Inherent Vice screenplay.
>> 
>> Laura
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>>> Sent: Sep 23, 2012 11:24 AM
>>> To: Phillip Greenlief <pgsaxo at pacbell.net>
>>> Cc: Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>, pynchon-l at waste.org
>>> Subject: Re: The Master (2012)
>>> 
>>> On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 at 5:25 PM, Phillip Greenlief <pgsaxo at pacbell.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> you might be disappointed. this film doesn't succeed in capturing the feel
>>>> of los angeles (my birthplace) the way MAGNOLIA and other anderson films
>>>> have done. and locations skip around a bit. it's not set there exclusively.
>>> 
>>> ... there's not a lot of context, or even rationale, throughout.  I'll
>>> eventually see it again, if only to catch what I might have missed
>>> (restroom, distractions, anxiety, brief blackout [which is why I've
>>> been unemployed for 2 1/2 years now, by the way]), but I do have the
>>> screenplay, + it's not necessarily any help, so ... the ultimate
>>> question (or, @ ay rate, the most interesting one, so far as I'm
>>> concerned) is, what provoked any of this in the 1st place?  + to what
>>> effect (on the audience, on cinema, on ...)?  I know someone not
>>> entirely dissimilar to the Joaquin Phoenix character, maybe even
>>> someone like the PSH one, all I could think is, this is how people
>>> fall into these things, this is how they act when they do, + I can't
>>> help but think that, insofar as anything is in the movie (not so sure,
>>> it's not all to difficult to imply significance, @least, as We all
>>> Know) is that (SPOILER ALERT?) "mortal enemies" line towards the end
>>> might provide a key of some sort ...
>>