proximoception | (no subject)

People were easy. Nobody knew anything about them. If it sounded good they took your word for it. They took Joyce’s word for it.

From "On Writing," an outtake from one of the "Big Two-Hearted River" drafts.

Came into my head while trying to figure out enthusiasm for Anderson's trademark cringe-inducingly longheld false notes in The Master. These pretty much are his style, so I find esteem for him even harder to understand than Homeland love (apparently everyone's upset because season 2 was "terrible" (!)).

I think it boils down to this false syllogism: People are awkward and random, The Master is awkward and random, The Master is people. So an update on Hemingway: if it sounds sufficiently awful they take your word for it.

How you even make a boring movie about Scientology is beyond me though. It's also always instructive how little it matters that a movie is beautifully, ingeniously shot. Or acted: Phoenix, who has never impressed me before, salvages a lot of the first hour.

Holy Motors is at many points extremely awkward too but a) seems to know it, and b) takes pains to amount to something. And maybe most importantly c) is awkward within normal earthly bounds of awkwardness. Maybe that explains appreciation of Anderson, that he's so audaciously off-the-charts awkward that you (not you, not me) become afraid this might be some new sort of genius. But that I've written about before, that kind of arrogant artistic terrorism: Bergman is sure of himself and says things I don't understand, Anderson is sure of himself etc., Anderson is Bergman.

Threaded | Flat

I'm mixed about There Will Be Blood, after the third viewing. There are a few really great scenes in that film -- the scene with the derrick explosion deafening the son is wonderful. I want to think more about the obscurities in the film (usually confusing rather than compelling) and the awkwardness. But Anderson's obscurities are not mine--and perhaps no one's. The film becomes less comprehensible each time I watch it.

Several things I feel sure about: Paul Dano was poorly casted, Daniel Day-Lewis would make a great Squeers or Mr. Jingle, and the Brahms at the end works as a kind of shell game to shift attention from the drunken silence after the murder. Before the blood's even dusted over, you have that brassy fanfare in the violin: it makes no musical or cinematic sense to me.

Edited 2013-03-17 18:48 (UTC)

not sure how much The Master is "about" Scientology. does a decent job of mocking up the Hubbard personality as represented in Messiah or Madman? (co.authored by his son). but during the, eh, time period treated, banality was the point. there had been Hubbard's more "exotic" period with the O.T.O. and ripping off Korzybski, but when he returned to earth, he knew he had to present something as harmless - and lucrative - as a Dale Carnegie course. on this level, the film succeeds.

The connection between the joachim phoenix and philip seymour hoffman characters was interesting. Interesting in that I don't think anyone ever understood what the connection between paul dano and daniel day-lewis was. So The Master knew slightly more what it was about in that regard. Just... not altogether great. Maybe he's learning. No, he probably isn't.