Interview: The Australian

Out to sea with the master and a mangled young man 
BY: STEPHEN FITZPATRICK October 31, 2012

Source: The Australian 

APPARENTLY not every journalist has raised the topic of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard with writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson in interviews for his long-awaited The Master.

"But that's only because I brought it up first, making it easier for them," the Californian auteur - if ever there were an apt individual for the term, he's it - says, laughing, good-naturedly deflecting the question. Anderson is famous for giving little away about his films beyond what he deems necessary.

The fact the central character in The Master, played magisterially by Philip Seymour Hoffman, is based on Hubbard and the plotline bears an uncanny resemblance to Scientology's early days has been the topic of fascinated discussion in the film world since details of the project began leaking out months ago. Anderson has expressed irritation at the focus even while acknowledging the story's origin.


"But I do know a lot about the beginning of the movement and it inspired me to use it as a backdrop for these characters.""I really don't know a whole hell of a lot about Scientology, particularly now," he said at a news conference after the film's debut screening at the Venice film festival in September.

And although Scientology-watchers have drawn many comparisons between details of the film and the early days and characters of Hubbard's world - the question has particular relevance in the tight world of Hollywood, where the movement flourishes - Anderson resists any suggestion his film is based on a cult.

"I never considered that we were doing anything about cults," he says. "It just never occurred to me. Anyway, one person's cult is another person's movement, is another person's hockey team ... I think the danger becomes when (a movement) is providing answers, when it's not about asking questions or getting people to investigate." The Master is the 42-year-old's sixth feature film since 1996's Hard Eight. Between came Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002) and There Will be Blood (2007), the latter winning two Oscars and deserving, in the eyes of many, a third, for Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood's score - that was disqualified on the grounds that a small portion had been originally written for another film.

There is widespread expectation of further Oscars glory for Anderson with The Master- and this time Greenwood is expected to be standing in line for a statue, as is Hoffman and his co-star, the brilliantly unpredictable Joaquin Phoenix.

That's despite the fact Phoenix has made it clear he doesn't give a toss about Academy Awards success, reportedly telling Interview magazine this month that "I think it's total, utter bullshit, and I don't want to be a part of it". This is, of course, the same man who hoaxed the world in his and Casey Affleck's 2010 mockumentary I'm Not Here, where he announced his retirement from acting to pursue a hip-hop career.

But it's a roguish attitude that sits well with his character in The Master, a demobbed World War II sailor named Freddie Quell struggling with alcohol and violence on his return to civil society, until he falls under the influence of Hoffman's domineering Master, Lancaster Dodd.

The film follows neatly in some ways from There Will Be Blood in that work's deploying of the relationship between wealthy oilman Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) and preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano).

In The Master, which begins in 1952, Dodd has assembled around himself a congregation of followers attracted to his book, The Cause, which gives its name to his movement and is presumably inspired by Hubbard's 1950 Dianetics text. Quell hooks up with the group after falling asleep, drunk, on Dodd's yacht. (The Scientology references keep coming, this one a nod to the movement's operations for a time on the high seas to avoid scrutiny.)

Phoenix's performance is electric, amplified by an assumed physical deformity that produces a limp, and downcast eyes seeming to suggest a permanent state of bewilderment.

Anderson says he didn't force his star in creating the character and is on the record in other interviews having wondered while on set whether Phoenix was pushing himself too far. ("There is no such thing as out of character," the director muses on this point. "People are always behaving against their better judgments. They're intuitively doing things that they should not do.")

Quell swings from psychopathic drunken rages in the early stages to a point where Dodd has successfully led him through his "processing" technique into a kind of quiescence whose unnatural calm Anderson describes as "like putting diapers on a monkey".

That is, it can never last, and so it proves to be a limited sort of taming whose frailty we see uncovered through the film's final act. The questions that Quell's state of mind raise about how men come home from war are as pertinent now as they were then.

The biggest difference, Anderson notes, is that there is little of the sense of patriotism that might have motivated a man to serve in World War II. "No one is feeling about what's going on the Middle East the way they felt about World War II," he says. "There's much more ambivalence and confusion - there's no ticker-tape parade through Times Square, some celebration of this victory that's making people feel as if the country's completely galvanised around celebrating this win."

He agrees the post-traumatic stress disorder Quell displays is wound through parts of the US as a result of the past decade of military conflict.

"It seems like we're supposed to know that much more - this idea that, suddenly, don't worry, we now know what might have gone wrong with the World War II generation (and) we now really might have a better handle on PTSD because of what we've gone through with Vietnam, and now we're really in a position to manage all the stresses that you boys will come back with," Anderson says.

"It's just like convincing yourself of a ridiculous idea.

"Because there's no f . . king way. How can you expect it? How can you send someone off to do that and expect them to come back the same?"

The tension of this mental disfigurement in Quell is energised by a barely suppressed homoerotic relationship between him and Dodd that underpins the entire work: as Anderson continues to insist, it's not a film about Scientology as much as it is a film about the turbulent relationship between these two men. Amy Adams as Dodd's wife also plays an important role in that dynamic.

As to next moves, Anderson is working on an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's novel Inherent Vice, which he describes as being "like working with a Rubik's cube and the endless possibilities and combinations of how things can go". The work of the American writer, whose fiction is as dense and complex as any of Anderson's films, is providing an "education".

"Just when you thought you were becoming a good writer, to just see how he does things and to look at the combinations of words that he can put together, it's so inspiring and it brings you back down to realise that you've got a long way to go," he says.

"It's really exciting."

The Master opens nationally on November 8.

Here Are Your ‘Gone To China' Contest Winners

A little over a month ago we invited readers to serenade someone with their rendition of "(I'd Like To Get You On) A Slow Boat To China" for a chance to win a copy of the soundtrack or an official "The Master" one-sheet. After days of deliberation (from the window to the wall and back again), the Cigs & Vines team have chosen our 5 favorite videos which you can view below. Feel free to share/blog/etc.

Outpour Productions:



Joslyn Jensen:



ludipjero1965:



Brandon Flyte:



Reelist1000:



Runners Up: GredalBee, Drew Nugent, ptaangel

We'd like to thank everyone who entered, we really had fun watching all the videos. Winners will be contacted via Twitter immediately. If you'd still like to make a video, go ahead and send it in and maybe we'll send a copy of the soundtrack your way. Which one is your favorite? Sound off in the comments below.

Stay tuned to Twitter and Facebook for the latest news and updates.  

Interview: Graffiti With Punctuation

INTERVIEW: Paul Thomas Anderson [Director of The Master] 
10/28/2012, Andrew Buckle
Source: Graffiti With Punctuation

On Wednesday 24^th October I was lucky enough to represent Graffiti With Punctuation in a round table interview session with the director of Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood and The Master, Mr. Paul Thomas Anderson. He is one of the most talented and most respected filmmakers of his generation and admirers of his films (myself included) claim them to be amongst the greatest American films ever made.

Paul was in town to promote The Master, his most recent ‘masterpiece’. Later that evening he would be introducing the film at the opening of the 1^st Cockatoo Island Film Festival and the following night he would be conducting a Q&A session at the Astor Theatre in Melbourne, where the film would be screened in the desired 70mm format.


Shane A. Bassett  [SB] (a reviewer for the Central Coast Express Advocate), and Jamie Watt [JW] (writer for AskMen) joined me for the roundtable.

SB: When I first spoke to Jeremy Renner he was disappointed that he wasn’t in the THE MASTER. Was he considered for Freddie? Did he audition?

PTA: Jeremy didn’t really audition. We were talking and there was even a moment three or four weeks into pre-production, but the script wasn’t ready and we had to call it off. By the time we got started again Jeremy was off doing other films – multiple films – and the script had taken a different path. You know, in the life of a film every one of them is different but what ends up happening is usually the right thing.

SB: He told me he wanted to work with you again. Do you think in the future you will have a role for him?

PTA: For sure. Without question.

AB: How was it working with Joaquin, considering this is his first film since ‘I’m Still Here’?

PTA: It was great. I remember when I worked with Adam Sandler he just had his first flop. It was called ‘Little Nicky’. It’s great to work with an actor when it feels like they have entered into something new or just messed themselves up, whether intentionally or unintentionally. It was clear that Joaquin had just had it with being in films in the regular way. It was clear to Phil (Seymour Hoffman) and I when we were writing the film, and Joaquin was doing ‘I’m Still Here’, that he was acting out against having to go “hit your mark and say your lines”. That rejuvenation that obviously happened to him paid off. He worked with James Gray a lot, and I know James a little bit. He said to me: “He’s just totally different, he just seems like he’s enjoying it so much more”. He probably only got to that by going through what he did on ‘I’m Still Here.’

AB: How much of his character was brought by him and how much of it was down to your direction and the script?

PTA: All of it was him. All of it was him. Really.

SB: You recall a lot of the same actors over all of the movies you have done. It was great to see Melora Waters’ name in the credits, providing a voice. Is that because you know that they won’t let you down with your screenplays or do you write specifically for actors such as Phil?
PTA: Well this was very specific for Phil, but I am always eager to work with new people. With Amy and Joaquin, that was new. Sometimes it gets nerve-wracking; you’re trying to get to know somebody and do this intimate thing together and it takes a little while to work out how to talk to each other. You don’t have to do that with somebody you have worked with for fifteen years. You don’t have to be polite and just get on with it. For somebody like Melora we had some stuff for her on camera that just didn’t make the film. Sometimes that’s the way it works. You need someone to sing a song and bring in an old friend.

JW: There’s another highly charged interpersonal relationship between two male characters like there was in There Will Be Blood. Is there something that keeps you coming back to these dynamics in the relationships?

PTA: Yeah, for sure. Dramatic situations seem to crop up out of these kinds of relationships. I hope it doesn’t seem like we’re being repetitive, though.

SB: Is it a compliment to you, being a powerful filmmaker, to learn that you’re making your audience feel uncomfortable?

PTA: Yeah. Absolutely. But it shouldn’t be that the audience is throwing their hands in the air and saying: “what the fuck is this?” When I go and see a horror film I like participating with the film, having the shit scared out of me and feeling on the edge of my seat. Shouldn’t it do that? It should do that, for sure.  I like to think audiences are uncomfortable but satisfied at the same time. Sometimes you see a film and you’re just uncomfortable. That’s not good.

AB: I think on another level where some audience members might be made to feel uncomfortable is through the score. Now, I loved Johnny Greenwood’s scores in both THE MASTER and THERE WILL BE BLOOD, but this one reminded me of PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE and I have always thought that the music accompanying the sequences where Barry is very bewildered and anxious was what was happening inside his head. I got the same sense here with Freddie. Was that considered?

PTA: Music can be alienating to a wider audience. You could be right. Johnny is not making music that is really easy, but it can be abrasive and untraditional film music, but I always grew up on movies where the score was a big part of it. There was no difference between a film and its music. They jam together and they are one unit, attacking you, like Bernard Hermann stuff. I always thought that’s how it was supposed to go. It’s not what you think of when you think of a Woody Allen film, but we’re definitely invading your space with the music.

SB: There are quite a few years between your films. Was that planned?

PTA: No, it was never planned. When we finished THERE WILL BE BLOOD the idea was to go straight to work again on this film. I went to Phil and said: “Lets make a date and we’ll start”, but he had commitments in theatre for the next year and a half so that changed and then by the time we were ready we couldn’t get the cash. So these things are never by design. They just never turn out the way you planned. It’s mad to me that it’s been that long since we made a film, but that’s alright.

SB: And you’ve met Stanley Kubrick, I believe. How was he?

PTA: It was very brief so I can’t really talk with any authority. I don’t have any strong memories; it was the luck of the moment. He was actually very skeptical. He was polite about BOOGIE NIGHTS until he realized that I wrote the film too and he was then warmer. For him directing the film wasn’t enough, but if you also wrote it he was a little bit more welcoming. That’s what I remember.

AB: The desired 70mm projection has been the source of discussion here in Australia. Very few cinemas can screen it in that format, which is unfortunate, but what made this the story to shoot in 65mm on film?

PTA: It is just as simple as the way that it looked. It evoked a great feeling. It’s the worst marketing tool you could come up with, let’s shoot in this dying format. We were just testing old equipment and gear, and when we tested this format it felt right. It would not have mattered if we shot it on an iPhone and it looked like that, we would have used it. If anything you had to talk yourself into something that was going to be difficult. They’re big cameras and they’re clunky. It was a decision based purely on instinct cause it evoked that period pretty strongly. There’s something nice about using something that’s 40 to 50 years old. You’re kinda hoping that the DNA and little bits of dust and dirt that’s been there for a long time get into your film. That there are ghosts and critters that occupy what you’re doing and rub off on your film somehow. It’s always nice to use that kind of stuff. More fun than shooting with an iPhone.

JW: What was it about post-World War II America that made it a breeding ground for movements like The Cause?

PTA: I read a line that somebody said: ‘Any time is a good time for a spiritual movement to begin but a particularly good time is after a war’. There are so many shell-shocked people wandering around wondering where they loved ones went. There’d be movements that would say: “What about here? They’re in the next life. You can talk to them.” ESP becomes popular. Ouija boards. I don’t want to think somebody is gone for good. None of us do. I think it’s that.

SB: Have you changed and developed as a director since HARD EIGHT and BOOGIE NIGHTS? How?

PTA: Just more confidence. The amount of miles makes you more comfortable with what you’re doing and probably less desperate. At the same time that bites you from behind, because the second you think you know what you’re doing and you get comfortable, it all goes upside down again. You have to make sure you’re not getting too comfortable, keep scaring yourself. Inevitably you don’t have to do that because something is going to present itself to you that you can’t handle and that’s all the fun. It’s more fun when it’s dangerous.

SB: Have you thought of directing a lighter film or a comedy? You showed a bit of flair with some SNL stuff you’ve done. Do you think you’ll go the other way to what you have been doing?

PTA: Yeah, hopefully. I was talking the other day; I would love to make a film like AIRPLANE. It’s just funny. Its not trying to say anything other than: “this is funny”. I’d like to try and so something like that. I was just as excited by seeing that film as I the day I saw STAR WARS. Are you kidding me? You can do this in a movie? You can fuck around and make jokes for an hour and a half.

SB: So what is up next?

PTA: I’m not sure. I’m still trying to figure it out.

I urge everyone to watch The Master - it is in cinemas November 8 – and if you haven’t seen some of his earlier films, to seek them out too. You will some day thank me.

Interview: AAP Newswire

 
Transcription coming soon.

Interview: Bish's Biz

 
(Interview Begins around 8:00)


Q: Why was this something you wanted to make a film about? What was the kernel of the idea of writing it? Where did it come from in your mind?

PTA: Oh, it’s so foggy looking back, I’m trying to figure it out. I couldn’t say for sure, I had a lot of pieces to the story for a while. When it came time to kind of get them all together I think the main thing that was driving me was working with Phil Hoffman again. We’d worked together before, made some films, but he was more of a supporting actor. I wanted to find something that we could kind of do together and build from the ground up. And that’s as good a reason as any to get into something, as good a reason as the story is or what the themes are or that kind of stuff. Starting something from a personal place, wanting to work with somebody.

Q: So Lancaster Dodd was created for Phil. Where does that character come from?

PTA: Well that character’s a creation of mine for him. Sort of equal parts Charles Laughton, L. Ron Hubbard, Orson Welles, WC Fields, it’s a sort of a creation of ours. It’s hard, when you have an actor as a friend, unless you can kind of grab hold of them and work with them they’re going to be in your life too infrequently because they go off to make films. And the only time you can have with them one on one is when you’re working together, so maybe it was secretly just a way to hold onto him.

Q: You found another good one in Joaquin Phoenix. You didn’t go around developing that character the same way, I guess, you had the character and then you cast it.

PTA: Yeah, but that’s not to say that Joaquin wasn’t sort of nagging away in my mind. When you write a film, hopefully you’re – at it’s best, you’re writing this sort of creation but you know it’s a film. And you think “well sooner or later you’re gonna have to find somebody to do it,” and he kept coming to mind. He’s so dynamic and electric, one of the great young actors of my generation. I always wonder, if you were an actor (even if you’re not an actor) and somebody said “you can pretend to be somebody else for 3 months, would you do it? Morning, noon, and night you can just pretend, like have a completely alternate life.” And that’s what he did, that’s when it’s fun for actors. They can just completely shed their skin and play make believe for 3 months. Even if it appears to be uncomfortable, it’s probably a lot of fun.

Q: It’s been reported that at the Venice Film Festival “The Master” was to take the top award, but they decided you’d already won enough. That’s pretty rough!

PTA: Yeah, I know, like this counts against you for being “too good” or something. (Laughs)

Q: Anderson isn’t ashamed to admit that he’s on the hunt for some Oscars for this movie.

PTA: When you have a film like ours that’s not going to set the box office on fire and maybe is slightly more peculiar, you have a limited kind of life in terms of people going to see it until you’ve get these things that they give out that can kind of translate to extra cash at the box office. Which then translates to the ability to do it again. So they factor into my life right now in a very practical way.

Q: He’s been nominated before for his films “Boogie Nights,” “There Will Be Blood,” and “Magnolia,” which starred prominent Scientologist Tom Cruise. There’s been lots of discussion that this film is based on Scientology, is it?

PTA: I mean, Scientology at this point is an incredibly large spiritual movement, a very large religion. We don’t do that, what we’re doing is sort of inspired by “Dianetics,” which is a sort of pre-cursor to Scientology. So if you’re going to get technical about it, specific about it, there are a lot of parallels between that story and our story. Tons, you can make a list and show all of them. And you can make just as big a list of differences. That’s what happens when you make a film, when you’re sort of dramatizing something you have to be free. Unless you’re making a biopic, as they call them, as a screenwriter you get to sort of steal pieces that you need and you cheat and you lie, and you kind of fabric your own thing together.

Q: Does it help that Scientology has been in the news of late?

PTA: You know, I don’t really know if it helps or hurts. I don’t know if people want to see a film that has to do with Scientology or not. I think if they’re into Scientology they’d be a part of Scientology. I think people are more curious about it.

Q: You directed Tom Cruise in Magnolia, one of your previous films. He’s of course a very famous Scientologist, have you shown him this film?

PTA: Do you know the answer to this?

Q: You know I do.

PTA: Alright, then don’t ask.

Q: Okay, fair enough. It is interesting, that’s all, that you would show it to him given the subject matter.

PTA: Alright, but you also know the answer, so…

Q: Well, my viewers don’t. The director and the actor remain friends and he says while he has shown him the film, he won’t discuss his reaction.

PTA: It’s between us.

Q: When I look back over your roster of movies, they are eclectic, they’re a very broad church of subject matter. Do you yourself see a common thread through the films that you’ve made? Is there one thing they all have in common?

PTA: I mean, I don’t know, just good memories. Each one, besides being just films that exist and there they are, when I look at them they are just great memories of making them. Usually, if it’s what you do for a living, you sort measure where you are in life. Like how many kids you had when you made it, or did you have no kids, or where you were living at the time, where it took you, where you filmed it, who was around. I think so little about the actual films and what they’re about, what their stories are. A lot of the thinking is about the personal attachments to making them.

Q: You shot this on film while the rest of the world seems to be steering towards digital. Why?

PTA: I have no axe to grind against new things at all, I mean I use them as well. We use computers to edit our films, if there was a need to shoot something digitally we would do it. But this film, it didn’t want to be shot that way. I suppose I’m an old fogie, I learned that way. I learned on film and I know how to do it. I like doing it that way. I just hope that nothing goes away. We’ve used cameras from 1910, we’ve used lenses from 1911, they don’t break. They don’t just go away and disappear, you want to be able to use whatever you need to do the story that you’re doing.

Q: Your wife is also in the biz, you have kids too. How do you juggle all that? Do you want to collaborate at some stage? How do you manage it?

PTA: It’s like trying to write “War and Peace” in bumper cars, as somebody once said. I stole that from somebody, I don’t remember who. Anyway, it feels like we’re doing an okay job. There was kind of a perfect storm of things happening in both our lives, in terms of work, that I don’t think will happen again. But the kids seem to be surviving alright, they’re not orphans. They’re fed and they have attention.

Q: If you had to tell a potential movie-goer to see “The Master” what would you tell them?

PTA: Oh god. I think what this film has is Phillip, Joaquin, and Amy working at a kind of level that’s really really strong, that’s really high. Very focused, filled with a lot of humor and compassion. That would be our…we should put that on the poster, that’s kind of all I’ve got, really.

Transcription by Martin Cohen

Interview: The Age

It's not about Hubbard, says Master filmmaker

Garry Maddox | October 26, 2012
Source: The Age

FIELDING questions about Scientology is nothing new for the acclaimed American filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson.

After early reports that his much-anticipated follow-up to There Will Be Blood featured a character based on L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the controversial religion that some consider a cult, there was speculation The Master would be some kind of exposé.

The five-time Oscar nominee, whose other movies include Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Punch Drunk Love described the speculation during his visit to Sydney as ''kind of irritating''.

''It's like a little fly buzzing around your head because it was not the film that we were making,'' Anderson said. ''But you can't manage people's expectations particularly when that word makes people buzz and get excited and they salivate over it and they want to know more and they want to gossip about it.

''You just have to tune that chatter out and not think about it.''

The Master, which opened the first Cockatoo Island Film Festival this week, centres on a damaged World War II veteran, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who falls under the influence of a charismatic cult leader, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.

It's an ambitious, thoughtful drama that has been considered a likely Oscar nominee for best picture since it won directing and acting awards at the Venice Film Festival.

Anderson, who was keen for a swim at Bondi during his visit to Sydney, said it was a delight having the movie selected for the new Sydney Harbour festival.

''I can remember starting out and you just want to be part of a film festival,'' he said. ''And you're lucky to be in some sidebar way over here and you're screening at 10 o'clock at night.

''I just loved it when it was presented to me a couple of months ago to be the first film in the first year. It's so much cooler than the second year.''

Anderson is an Obama supporter but is unsure how the US presidential election will pan out.
''I have a tendency to be a thing that I'd hate if I saw it in anybody else, which is an over-confident Democrat who just sits back and thinks 'there's no way, right? We'll be all right','' he said. ''I hope everything turns out all right.''

Interview: The Film Pie

Interview - Paul Thomas Anderson Is The Master 

Friday, 26 October 2012 07:56 | Author: Matthew Toomey
Source: The Film Pie

I can’t quite describe my reaction when I heard that Paul Thomas Anderson was coming to Australia to promote his new film, The Master.  He’s my favourite modern day director and Magnolia (released in Australia in early 2000) is a masterpiece.  On 24 October 2012, I took the day off work and flew to Sydney for a chance to spend 15 minutes with Paul and ask him a few questions.  It was an honour to be in the company of such a gifted filmmaker and here’s what he had to say…

You can download an audio extract by clicking here.

 

Matt:  The guy standing in front of me is not THE god but he is A god as far as I’m concerned.  He’s the man who brought us Boogie Nights, Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood and one of the greatest films in the history of cinema, Magnolia.  Mr Paul Thomas Anderson, welcome to Australia.

 

Paul:  Yeah, thank-you.

 

Matt:  Is this your first time in Australia?

 

Paul:  No, it’s the third time.  Boogie Nights we came down for and then I came for a vacation in 1999.

 

Matt:  Now you’re an acclaimed filmmaker with 5 Oscar nominations but I’m curious to know with a film like The Master, how easy is it getting that off the ground?  Getting the funding for it?

 

Paul:  Difficult.  I thought after There Will Be Blood, because it did so well and we hard a lot of hardware that we came away with, that it would be very easy but it’s a miracle anytime you get a film made.  For some reason, getting the cast together for this one was difficult.  They never come together quite how you expect they’re going to come together but they end up being just how they should, if that makes sense.

 

Matt:  The actors you’ve worked with have often gone on and won awards like Tom Cruise, Burt Reynolds and Daniel Day Lewis.  Now here we have both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix being discussed as possible Oscar contenders.  What’s your secret?  How do you drag out these magnificent performances from these already accomplished actors?

 

Paul:  They’re pretty great without me.  You can write a scene really well and do all the other traditional things that get you there but you’d be surprised how much of a contributing factor scheduling can be.  A performance can be like an athletic event.  If you’re asking someone to come in and deliver something, it takes a high degree of concentration and physically takes something out of them.  It’s as small and as incremental as managing hour-to-hour what they’re doing and what they’re up against.

 

Sometimes an actor will go and do a film and the director won’t tell them how many shots they’re going to need to do a scene.  So they have to spend an enormous amount of energy in anticipation of what may be asked of them rather than being clear about how to schedule the day.  It helps you invest in what you’re doing and not just throw a bunch of things at the wall and overcrowd it and get tired and grumpy and sick of making a movie.

 

Matt:  I know you would have been asked about this a lot already but the use of 65mm in this film.  The last time I saw one of those films was Hamlet back in 1996.  Why this particular film?

 

Paul:  Did you see Baraka?

 

Matt:  No, I didn’t.

 

Paul:  You’ve got to see that.  That is a great film that was shot in 65mm.  There’s another film which is a sequel to that called Samsara that is coming out that you should really find.  People talk about Hamlet as the last film and these guys with Baraka have shot more 65mm than anybody else.

 

Anyway, it was a decision about what looked right and what seemed to evoke the period.  It was never like “we’re always going to shoot in 65mm”.  It was more a question of trying to find cameras and lenses that gave some feeling to the film that looked right.  Those were the ones that did it.  It wasn’t a selling point on anything like that.  It was just as simple as finding what looked and felt right to us.

 

Matt:  It’s interesting that one of the themes in Boogie Nights is in the porn industry with film giving way to tape and so now here we are in 2012 with film giving way to digital.

 

Paul:  Yeah, I know.  I feel like Jack Horner in that film!

 

Matt:  So going forward do you have plans to continue to try to use film if at all possible?

 

Paul:  It doesn’t matter.  I’d like to be able to use whatever we need to tell the story and do it right.  The cameras we were using were 30 years old and lenses that were 40 and 50 years old.  We even used lenses that were nearly 100 years old.  But we also used gear that’s brand new.  So I don’t care what it is.  The drag is when things go away because there’s no one to take care of them. 

 

Matt:  So many movies get made around World War II in the 1940s and it feels like it’s a period of history that’s been done to death but this film here is set in the early 1950s in America which I think is an unexplored time in terms of cinema.  Why did you choose this particular era to set this film?

 

Paul:  I don’t know why.  There are obvious reasons like sexy cars and sexy songs and sexy wardrobes… but that’s not why.  It helps though.  There was a thing for me in that my dad was in the war and he came back.  There’s a gravity that brings you to a story and it’s hard to put your finger on why.      

 

Matt:  I saw this film only for the first time yesterday with a friend of mine and we discussed it for about an hour over lunch.  We went in thinking it was going to be referenced to the Church of Scientology and so forth but for us it was really more of a character study.  Joaquin Phoenix’s character seems so aimless, so directionless and he latches onto the Philip Seymour Hoffman character as this father-type figure.  Tell me – are we on the right track?

 

Paul:  That’s exactly the right track!  It’s not big on plot, this film.  There’s not a lot of plot but hopefully we make up for it with an abundance of character. 

 

Matt:  But with Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lancaster Dodd, what is it about him that keeps drawing him in?  His wife, his kids keep saying to get rid of this guy but he keeps him around, he keeps wanting him there.  What’s drawing him in?

 

Paul:  He wants to fix him.  If he’s proposing that he can make people happy, wouldn’t it be great if he could make this person happy and assimilate into society or into a family.  It’s not just that selfish motivation of using him like a guinea pig or a mantelpiece project.  I think he deeply feels connected to him and excited by him.  It’s like the way any of us are drawn to the deep loves in our lives.  It doesn’t matter why.  You just are.

 

It’s hard to resist that kind of thing despite better judgement or advice from outside people.  They say “you cannot be in this relationship, it’s going to hurt you” but you look at them and say “what do you know?” 

 

Matt:  The sexual themes in the film are interesting.  It seems to be something that Joaquin Phoenix’s character thinks about a lot.  It reaches a point where we’ve got something I never thought I’d see on screen with Amy Adams masturbating Philip Seymour Hoffman in the bathroom.  Why did we go so intimately into the sex lives of these characters?

 

Paul:  Weren’t you happy to see Amy Adams jerk off Phil?  (laughs)

 

Matt:  It was a great scene.

 

Paul:  Well that’s why you do it.  Because it’s a great scene. 

 

Matt:  Let’s talk about the music.  Jon Brion’s work I loved, especially with Magnolia, but here you have Jonny Greenwood who you used on There Will Be Blood.  What were you looking for with the music in this film?

 

Paul:  The films I grew up loving and that made me want to make films had great music.  Music wasn’t the afterthought.  It was clearly a partner with the film like what John Williams did with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and what Bernard Herrmann did with Alfred Hitchcock.  Everything was given equal weight and it kind of moved together.  I just thought that’s what you were supposed to do.

 

Working with Jonny is like having another actor like another Joaquin or another Phil.  He’s someone who can contribute to the overall experience and draw the audience in.

 

Matt:  We have a change of cinematographer here.  You used Robert Elswit on all your previous films but you’ve brought in Mihai Malaimare Jr here. What was his background?  Why did you get him in for this project?

 

Paul:  I liked the work he did with Coppola.  I don’t know if the films made it down here but they were smaller films that Coppola has been making like Tetro and Youth Without Youth.  They’re real small and experimental and there was a kind of youthfulness to it.  Maybe it was what Coppola was doing but it felt like he was back to being experimental and taking risks and there was some excitement in those films that I felt coming through that made me want to reach out to Mihai and get to know him.  It was great.

 

Matt:  It’s been five years since There Will Be Blood and it was five years before that going back to Punch Drunk Love.  Please tell me we’re not going to wait another five years for something from you.

 

Paul:  I hope not, no.  That was never the idea.  After There Will Be Blood I went to Phil and said I’ve got a great idea.  I’ve got a collection of these pages and let’s make a date and three months from now, go make this film really quickly.  It all went out the window because he had theatre engagements here in Sydney… right down the street actually.  The next year we couldn’t make the film and all that momentum changed and was lost.  At this point for us it’s just trying to find a way to get everyone back together again.

 

Matt:  So sticking with the same ensemble?

 

Paul:  Yeah, the same people behind the scenes as well.  Hopefully it won’t be five years.

 

Matt:  Well The Master is about to be released in Australian cinemas and thank you so much for speaking with me this morning.

 

Paul:  Thanks for coming down.