Anderson, Master, IV,

[rich]

I thought the Master one of PA's better films, actually, though the scene
with all the naked women, clothed one minute all nude the next with the
main leads highly questionable; I found it embarrassing. I'm coming to
highly questionable  gratuitous nudity in films (see Wolf of Wall Street)
Magnolia was annoying, shooting for the profound in so unsubtle ways.
life's magic is made up of what many may think everyday, but it's not
forced; it just is. raining frogs and such, not so much
boogie nights should have stuck with the porn, he tried to make it all
scorcese in the second half and it flopped and wahlberg and that irish dude
just arent keitel and de niro I'm afraid

I think Phoenix can do it though its not like doc sportello is some deep
fictional character

rich

On Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 3:50 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> I was not bowled over by the Master as drama,  but it seems to me to be
> asking important questions about the origins of religion and particularly
> American religious figures. It does so with enough depth and sympathy for
> an unlikeable character to have inspired in many
> serious thought and attention to the story and the theme.  The story has
> cultural weight. A great many truly powerful leaders in almost every human
> arena are projectors of a kind of religious truth, depicting their ideas as
> tools/weapons of liberating warfare against darkness, while profiting
> handily from the true believers. So the theme is worthy of serious effort.
> It seems to me that what The Master failed to do was show the magical
> appeal of the leader or his message.  We know he is a skilled psychological
> manipulator, but where is the group charisma, how did he make this
> enterprise work?
>    Maybe that is some of the point and we are asked to consider that power
> structures are key to an enduring religion more than the leader. Joseph
> Smith was a kind of sci fi writer as much as Hubbard(visiting angels,
> magic glasses and invented tribes of the Americas) and the power structure
> of the Mormons is similar in being layered with serious earthly rewards for
> the inner circle. Thomas Jefferson connected himself to the myth of the
> independent , self reliant, self taught yeoman farmer. Don't think about
> african slaves
>    I think one of the failures of the Master was hanging so much on
> Joaquin Phoenix who I think is over-rated in terms of his range as a
> performer, and who created a character that provided a very limited view of
> the religion being born.  I feel like the only American who is seriously
> underwhelmed by Phoenix. I will be very surprised if he really conveys
> anything of the lively craziness of Doc Sportello in IV. He seems to me
> utterly wrong for the part. On the other hand I think Anderson is a good
> choice to make this movie in many ways. I hope it is enjoyable and takes on
> some of weird paranoia and cultural cross currents proper to the book.
>    I have come to feel that if you think of Lot 49, IV, Vineland, and
> Bleeding Edge as Pynchon's  contemporary fiction there is a profound
> consistency of theme and a powerful tracking of the rise of the new right
> and the ineffectualness despite some real heroism of substantive
> resistance.  The rest is song and dance.
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> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
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