MovieChat Forums > The Master (2012) Discussion > think i got it?

think i got it?

posted 8 years ago by EsmagaSapos
4 replies | jump to latest

let me start by saying that the acting was very-very good.

i'm not sure if i understood the movie, but i think i got a fair good part of it.

freddie quell was insane, i think we have enough information to say that he didn't went insane because of the war, he was insane since he was born probably.

lancaster dodd, was a wise man, that believed we could see our spirit, making a big story short: see our past lives with some therapy or whatever you may call it, in general he thought freddie quell problems came from a past lives, so he decided to help freddie and contradict those who attacked him because of the "facts" he thought he had.

the ending was in my opinion, the giving of the impression lancaster dodd used freddie and now discarded him, left him because he was now good in life and he didn't need a toy to improve/prove to the audience his beliefs were actually right, now he had a institution where he could perform that "therapy" to a lot more persons.

also, i think we can conclude that he didn't want freddie anymore because freddie was a living prof that comprove that lancaster dodd scholar life work didn't actually solve his problem.

what did i miss, what did i not understand? this might be a movie like 'there will be blood' that according to various amount of cinematographic experts, like tarantino, you need to watch two times in order to see the little details and understand the movie.

i'm not sure if i like this movie, i can say i like the acting - a lot.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] FreedomWatchTower 8 years ago

In other words you are up for Scienthology

[Excuse my english im not Canadian/American/English/Australien/whatever...]

[–] EsmagaSapos 8 years ago

Will talk with Tom Cruise and ask his opinion.

[–] mechafi 8 years ago

I think that you don't give enough credit to the similarities between Fred and the Master. In my opinion Dodd didn't seem that "stable personality" either but probably had had problems similar to what Fred was having in the past. He clearly likes to drink a lot and although he has to keep up the appearance of an "enlightened master", he at times has trouble controlling himself, just like Fred, and can be very moody.

This reflects the real-life Ronnie Hubbard, who himself was in the Second World War and felt kind of aimless after he came back. Hubbard was no teetotaller either and was prone to nonsensical outbursts and moodswings. That's what led to the founding of Dianetics and eventually Scientology. In the film both the Master and Fred have some qualities of Hubbard.

So, maybe partly Dodd was "using" Fred to his own ends but he also saw in him a kindred spirit and became emotionally dependent on him. They both were noncomforming fellows who had tried to rid themselves of all masters and servitude, so to speak, but as Dodd cynically had at last realized, the human existence would be impossible without having the Master of their own. Fred's Master was, for a while, the Master, but the Master's Master was his self-induced prison, i.e. The Cause and his domineering wife. The Master himself nailed it:

If you figure a way to live without serving a master, any master, then let the rest of us know, will you? For you'd be the first in the history of the world.