there will be blood

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THE MASTER, MADNESS AND MARMITE

February 27, 2013

THE MASTER directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (USA, 2012)

I was prematurely dismissive about There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson’s previous movie. I only really appreciated its quality and power on second viewing. I strongly suspect that the same will be true of The Master and certainly feel inclined to reserve final judgement until I’ve had chance to see it again.

The film’s opacity and lack of plot mean that there is a temptation to dismiss the universal critical acclaim it has garnered as hype and it is clear that,beyond the smart press, it has already divided ‘ordinary’ punters. It has been branded as a Marmite movie, something you’ll either love or hate.

If asked the question ‘what is it about?’, the most typical reply would be that it is a veiled study/satire of the birth of scientology but this seems a bit reductive to me. As it raises philosophical issues about the nature of madness, rationalism and existentialism, dismissing it on the grounds that there’s no narrative arc seems to me to be a superficial reading. Continue reading →

Tags: hypnotherapy, Joaquin Phoenix, madness, Marmite, paul thomas anderson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Scientology, Stanley Kubrick, Terrence Malick, there will be blood

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March 28, 2008

The universal critical acclaim that greeted ‘There Will Be Blood‘ led me to expect a classic to match and even surpass ‘Citizen Kane‘. The themes of the two movies are not so dissimilar with the tale of an anti-hero driven by a single minded greed and ambition to madness and isolation.
Daniel Day Lewis is quite rivetting in the lead role of the ‘plain speaking oil man’ but ultimately having to carry the movie for over two hours proves that sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.
What really lets the film down is the abrupt and unnecessarily crude finale which looks very much as if director Paul Thomas Anderson was so intent on ending up with a dramatic closing scene that he is prepared to sacrifice the patient character study that precedes it.
It’s a fine movie but not the masterpiece its made out to be.