Not mastering The Master

This is a 'leave early' response (itself a response) to The Master (2012)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

21 November

* Contains spoilers *

This is a 'leave early' response (itself a response) to The Master (2012)

Other than Melancholia (2011), I can only think of anything at the film festival in September that impressed me so negatively that it was 'a walker'.

To-day, to my unexpected surprise, it was The Master (2012), because I had no notion that I would not be there for the full trip. But I can concur with the person (whom I would credit, if I could recall who it was) who recently (courageously?) said that Brando in the trio of films about The Godfather (1972) gave a terrible performance, because who wants to hear someone mumbling.

Much in the same way, I was, by fifteen minutes in, totally antipathetic to hearing Joaquin Phoenix (Freddie Quell) talking out of the corner of his mouth*, and so rendering parts of the script unintelligible, not least with an already difficult accent. Not, in itself, maybe quite enough to ditch a film, but :

The depiction of servicemen with 'shattered nerves' was so one dimensional that this film, unaided, could put back the average audience's appreciation of the issues of mental ill-health by decades: the painful scene with the Rohrschach test, the travesty of the scene in the photography concession of a store, even the very early sexual exploits with the sand-woman on the beach as merry South Pacific (1958) / On the Town (1949) naval ratings career and cavort on the beach in their white caps

For me, far rather watch, again, Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), or even, flawed though it is for its concept of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), As Good as it Gets (1997). No, The Master may not have the job of convincingly depicting, as such, the reality of mental-health conditions, but it does not even come close to a plausible backdrop to its main action with this !

But I do wonder this: what could David Byrne have done with this, not just with Phoenix's role, but with directing the whole thing...


End-notes

* For the record, the left-hand corner.


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