The Master

How this film uses it

Freddie Quell is everything Lancaster Dodd wants to rise above: animal desire, uncontrolled rage, the body ruling over the mind. Dodd, in turn, is everything Freddie wants but can't name, which is authority, certainty and the promise that a person can be remade.

Where to see it

The processing sessions. Dodd and Freddie sit face to face, inches apart, while the Master drills into the animal in front of him. The scene is intimate and dominating, therapeutic and erotic at the same time.

How this film uses it

Mihai Malaimare Jr. shot most of the film on 65mm, a large format that is rarely used for drama. It gives The Master an image with extraordinary detail and depth. You can see decades of life in the texture of Hoffman's and Phoenix's faces. The frame is 1.85:1, and the big negative still makes the post-war landscape feel truly vast.

Where to see it

The motorcycle desert sequence. Freddie rides off across a flat salt flat toward the horizon. The 65mm frame makes the emptiness look physically huge, so his aimlessness feels as big as the universe.

How this film uses it

Anderson keeps returning to long close-ups of Phoenix and Hoffman. The screenplay holds a lot back, so the camera watches their faces do that work. In their tiny expressions, you read domination and submission, belief and doubt, affection and contempt. It all sits in the gap between what the face shows and whatever is underneath.

Where to see it

Freddie's face during the processing. The close-up catches exactly what it looks like when a man is being invaded and held at once. I feel like it's a portrait of someone who needs to be known and fears what that will cost him.

How this film uses it

Dodd is fixated on Freddie and insists on keeping him close despite the damage. That fixation drives the film. The Master needs the animal he claims to have risen above, and that need exposes the lie at the center of The Cause.

Where to see it

Dodd in the jail cell. Freddie calls him a fake and Dodd calls him worthless. The calm, philosophical authority gives way to open anger. He is lashing out at the one person whose doubt most threatens everything he has built.