Some of our most-admired directors and film artists are often some of the harshest critics of our present reality. Surely this is one of the high aims of the artist – the truth-telling about our universal, puzzling existence.
The films of P.T. Anderson pursue this truth-telling, and not quite by accident so does the Gospel. The Christ came, held a lens to us, and revealed us in truth. He ‘outed’ us in a sense, that we might be free from the lies we pile high in our cupboards, so that our lives might be the real thing – soaked in the real love of God for the real us, warts and all. His words were tough as nails and still challenge us, but it’s in his words that we find the inspiration to embrace the one thing most difficult for us to grasp as human beings – change.
It’s somewhat ironic then that Christianity has had a gleaming, fake pageant-smile on its mug for the last half-century. Gone are the deep-south fire and brimstone shudderings, or the scary Roman-Catholic confessions. We are a religion of makeup’d self-helpers, who have forgotten that to walk with Christ is to walk with brokenness of every kind, stripe, and flavor, both ours and others’. Our sins are washed, to be sure, but our message of hope was supposed to go outward, to touch, to heal, and to save, not teach the middle class how best to operate at peak performance.
Yet, there is a simple question at the heart of Christian ministry, and a question raised by The Master – what happens when people can’t or simply won’t be changed?
In The Master, this question is put to Lancaster Dodd, played by, ahem, master Philip Seymour Hoffman, as he encounters Freddie Quell, portrayed by another living master, Joaquin Phoenix. Dodd is the magnanimous leader of a small religious troupe (read: cult), and he takes Freddie in, freely admitting to him that “You’ll be my guinea pig.” Freddie will become the true test-case of the success of Dodd’s ‘theology.’
Dodd is a minister, after all, and he is doing what ministers do best—trying to get his people to change, to focus on the real things of life rather than the debris that surrounds them. Freddie is not only focused on that debris. He is a literal part of it. A raging paint-thinner alcoholic, brawler, and half-insane veteran of WWII, Freddie grasps onto his life tenuously, and Phoenix plays him as he plays his best roles – a dervish among gentle men, at the continuous cusp of losing control.
The two characters’ first meeting is a riveting account. At this moment, Dodd is the Christ figure and Freddie is the least of these, and this is his last chance. He has stowed-away on Dodd’s boat, and Dodd shares a drink with him, speaks to him with dignity, gives him room and board and a job. Dodd looks him in the eye and is honest with him, and Freddie is on his on his way – a legitimate part of his new family.
But, if you’ve seen a P.T. Anderson film, or at least his last three, you know he is not in the business of the traditional character arc. Storytellers learn that by the end of their narratives the characters should have changed, and something is learned or something is revealed. The only thing revealed at the end of The Master is that any change in either man has been minuscule if it’s there at all. A decrepit and thin Freddie ends up in the bed of a strange woman, presumably kicked out of The Master’s care once and for all, drifting again upon the sea of his own undoing, while Dodd himself has fled the U.S. to presumably practice and prescribe his religious lunacy and megalomania to an overseas audience.
Anderson has never shied from the misguided character going diligently about his misguidance – the juvenile Dirk Diggler who just can’t grow up in Boogie Nights, the greed-hardened Daniel Plainview, whose gamesmanship and oil-lust clouds his vision until the very last frame of There Will Be Blood. Finally, Freddie Quell dances the same jig in The Master.
It’s difficult to root for Dodd’s transformation of Freddie, as Dodd drifts further upon the sea of his own misguided, cultish gobbledy-gook, but we do root for him because we want Freddie to change, to turn into something, anything! Yet, every time he inches closer to wholeness, there’s another drunken night, another brawl, another misstep, as both men spiral down the cloggy drains of their own design.
Films without a third act character revelation are difficult, but necessary. The colossal acting in The Master alone makes it worth the two hour burn. Kurt Vonnegut once boiled down all fiction characterization to this: “Put someone in trouble. Get them out!” For P.T. Anderson, the new method seems to be “Put someone in trouble. Put them in more trouble. Await further instructions.”
We go to movies for the same reasons we go to worship services – we want to be made to feel like we can change, and we want to see other people experience change. We want the narratives to unfold for us, fanciful as they sometimes are. We reach toward perception, inner peace, and inner resolve. But when we leave the sanctuary, the theater, the gymnasium, or the living room, how do the narratives translate within us? How we change has perhaps become even more important in our current age, as what we change into. In our embracing of the Gospel, what is real change, and what are the rote motions of a changeable person who lacks the deepest desire to know the truth about oneself?
Those embedded in social justice and missional movements ask these types of questions daily. Alongside the hope that Christ promises for new life, new vision, and new kingdom realities, sits the perpetual reminders of systemic poverty, violence, and the same cycles of society that have kept certain people in the same situations for decades. We need to be reminded that change is often slow and occurs in inches, if at all, even with the Gospel as its fuel.
The Master is a frank look at “the least of these,” and is actually a portrait of ministry in action, even if the minister in this case is selling nonsense in the end. We’ve been taught for years that iron sharpens iron. In The Master, we see the scabbards clashing but little sharpening being done. Freddie Quell is in the same group of poor, miscreant losers that Christ first called when He started his church. If we passed such as them in the street today we would hardly take notice. They seem to be lost causes, past hope, and past help. As we are fond of saying in the faith, though, upon their worn faces are the lines of Jesus.
The Master reminds us that the walk of faith is a long-distance haul, fraught with reverse movement and continuous letdowns. Whoever said that Christianity is a long obedience in the same direction had it right. Change is hard, and when a person is comfortable in his patterns and addictions, change can be nearly impossible. Yet, our ministry with people and to people is the same. We walk together, in continuous search for our true selves. The Master illustrates how messy this process can be for all parties involved.
Our pursuit of change goes on, and there is strength in numbers. Bonheoffer said that when Christ calls a man he bids him come and die. He never said there wouldn’t be brothers and sisters standing over the casket, reaching down in joy, arm in arm, to start the long, difficult climb out from the grave together.
Kevin Marks has been the Creative Arts Director for The Highway Community since 2001. He is also the Creative Director of Highway Media, a non-profit production company focused on spiritual filmmaking.
