A Reel Opinion: The Misinterpretation of THE MASTER

 

In September of 2012, Director/writer Paul Thomas Anderson’s THE MASTER was released in theatres. The film was not a box office smash, but was praised by critics and earned three Oscar nominations.

Despite the high praise, the film was unfairly dismissed by general audiences as “that Scientology movie”. In the film, one of the main characters is a founder of a “new religion”; thinly veiled (or perhaps mistaken) as a re-take of Scientology. Audiences seemed to grasp on to that one aspect of the film and never got past it. With the film being seeing its home-video release this month, new audiences and old are back to talking about that “Scientology movie”.

This is unfair, as THE MASTER is a lot deeper than that. Much like Anderson did in his previous film THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007), this is a film about a battle for a person’s soul. This is a film about one wanting control over another, and ultimately, this is a film about a master and his dog.

In the film, Freddie (Joaquin Phoenix) is a meaningless drifter, who is taken in by Lancaster Dodd (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), who is the leader of a philosophical movement. Lancaster takes in Freddie, feeds him, nurtures him, trains him, and develops a relationship with him much like a man and his dog. Lancaster takes him in as a stray, trains him by repetition, scolds him in public when he misbehaves, and eventually regrets taking him off the leash. In return, Freddie very much acts the part of the mutt. He initially rejects his training, eventually falls in line, misbehaves, defends his master when he is threatened…and eventually bites the hand that feeds before running away when the leash is removed.

Those are the broad strokes, but the film is loaded from head to tail with this parallel. Many of the inferences are subtle, and many are not; there is even a scene in which the master and his mutt roll around in the yard together. That is what THE MASTER is all about; those two characters in a tug-of-war over Freddie’s soul. Real questions over the relationship between those two characters are enough to develop a thesis; issues over just how much control a master has over his dog and how much freedom is enough have to be recognized and debated.

And what of the analogies with Scientology? There are similarities, but as far as the story and movie is concerned (which is the most important), the “new religion” is nothing more than a plot device. In this particular story, it is the bait with which the master reels in his mutt and keeps him at his side when he has nowhere else to go. The “new religion” angle is no more significant than the set dressing the characters are sitting in.

The knee-jerk reactions to the film have given it a bit of a bad reputation, maybe even enough to keep it from winning any Oscars (three nominations, zero wins). It’s unfortunate because THE MASTER really is a clever film. Perhaps too clever for the average mutt.