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.
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.
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: Paul Thomas Anderson [Director of The Master] 10/28/2012, Andrew Buckle Source: Graffiti With Punctuation
On Wednesday 24th 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 1st 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.
RN is, of course, the station you are listening to and Marc Fennell is my name. Filling in for Julian Morrow who is stuck in TV land. And just imagine this: Imagine coming back from the brutality of World War II to nothing. No family, no money, no future. Well that is what faces Joaquin Phoenix in the highly-anticipated new film The Master. He becomes a drunk, a sex addict. That is until he falls into a cult ruled by Philip Seymour Hoffman in a character heavily inspired by the founder of Scientology and Dianetics, L. Ron Hubbard.
(0:30 - 1:10 - dialogue from the film promo - "Why all the skulking and sneaking?" . . . "above all, I am a man.") Mmm, dark stuff. We caught up with the man behind The Master earlier today, Paul Thomas Anderson. He's also the director of movies like Magnolia and Boogie Nights and look, let's just say it was an interesting chat. As a director, you get flown around the world and asked the same questions over and over again. And it can take its toll, which you're about to hear. The film is set immediately after World War II ends and at that period in United States history, a lot of new spiritual movements started to take off, like Dianetics and Scientology and I began the interview by asking him why was that period, after World War II, such a fertile period for these ideas, these religions to take off.
Well, the theory is that any time there's a lot of death, people start wondering what happens, giving way to these discussions and these ideas happening. I read about this idea that spiritual movements can take hold more easily after wars and that seemed to give me some focus on what I was writing.
With the film The Master some of the most compelling scenes are when the Master himself, Philip Seymour Hoffman, I guess tries to tame Joaquin Phoenix with these very kind of brutal, repetitive exercises and one of them, he has to walk from the wall to the window again and again to describe what he sees and feels. And you can tell he's slowly losing touch with reality. I'm curious, was that based on something real that you read about?
Uh, it was based on an exercise that you - the idea is to repeat an action over and over again, hopefully taking you through all stages of emotion where, you know, from "this is fun" to "this is kind of driving me crazy" to "what's the big deal?" where you kind of ultimately are getting to the place where you realize that the wall, there is nothing there. There's a wall? You can put your hand through the wall, if you want to. You can put your hand through the window, if you want to. You can, you can feel beyond those things, kind of like an auto-hypnosis sort of feeling. Sort of makes you, hopefully, the idea is that it makes feel kind of free, free of a lot of the things that bog us down. Windows and walls.
We're getting very metaphysical in this interview (laughs)!
I know, I know. Well, you started it. It's my fault, it's my fault. Blame me. But there's a lot of scenes like that, a lot of different processes that the Master puts Joaquin Phoenix through. How many of them were based on real things and how many of them were things that you concocted?
As any writer may admit to you, the difference between things that are real and things that I made up is like a fuzzy line. I don't really remember. It's years ago, I've been working on this film for five years. It all seems like a distant memory right now. I know I should remember this stuff and promote it better and act like I know but oh God, I don't remember!
It's okay, you're on the other side of the world. You've had a long flight, we understand. Look, what have you been up to today, you sound so tired? I'm wondering if we can break out of the mold of talking about movies and just talk about you for a while.
Hey, that sounds - that sounds great.
(laughs) Tell me what's been going on in Paul land?
Well, just been down here to promote the film and it's been good so far. Starting to wear on me a tiny bit, I'm just sort of tired and I miss my kids, I miss my home but I'm going back tomorrow. Nothing against down here, what I really hoped would happen is that they would have come down with me but unfortunately they couldn't make the trip so - Yea, it's hard. You go away from home, you get lonely. Really, it can be - It's an uptown problem to have but, I got three kids at home. It's primetime over there where I come from, it's Halloween. Carvin' pumpkins -
Ah, you should be taking them trick-or-treating, dude!
Well, we will when we get back. It'll be carving pumpkins and costumes and - a Wonder Woman costume. A Yoda costume!
On a scale of one-to-ten, how sick are you of answering questions about Scientology?
Uhm, Ten. (laughs) I thought that might be the case!
Ten. Fifteen. 20. 25. 30, 35. You know, it's not that you get sick of the question. I understand, I mean, we've made a film and you have to speak for it. Sometimes you get the sense from people that they have another agenda. I'm not getting that sense from you at all. But you can feel a kind of smirk sometimes, with people talking about it. And it just gets my defenses up. Makes me feel, I dunno, it makes me mad.
Why?
Mm, 'cause, I dunno. I'm gonna get to the bottom of it, I'll figure it out. I don't know.
We need to get some therapy going on the air -
Yea.
'cause everybody knows National Radio is the exact time to get therapy, isn't it?
Well, don't they have that though? Come on you've gotta have some, like callers call in and you know, like, Loveline? You know what I mean, like you call with love problems and stuff . . .?
Well, that's basically what we're doing here, you know. "It's Psychology Radio and our guest is Paul. Paul, how are you doing?"
I'm fine. My penis is in a knot and what do I do, like, that kind of stuff?
Screw talking about the movie, let's talk about your penis!
I broke my dick. What do I do?
We should also do a love song dedication when we're done with those. If you could dedicate a love song to anyone, what would the song be and who would you dedicate it to?
Oh, that's a good question. I would dedicate a song to my daughter. You know what? I'd play 'Call me Maybe' for my daughter.
(laughs) Little bit of Carly Rae Jepsen on Radio National!
That would be - Actually, honestly? That is the song that I need to hear again to make me happy again. That song makes me so happy when I see it it - when I hear it.
We can totally do that for you. Just lastly, before I let you go, because you are out here to promote a film: What's the one thing about The Master that you wish people would know before they walked in ?
Well, you know, I would lower your expectations in terms of plot. And I would raise them in terms of performances and watching two great actors work together to tell that story that way. I mean, it's kind of a joke, but it's actually true. You want to let people not only know that you have a film that's out there in theaters so they can get there to see it but help manage a little bit of what we've done. And say, yea, "Lower your expectations on plot." That's what I would say.
That's the only time I've ever met a director that says "lower your expectations in regards to our film." The film is called The Master. It is is in cinemas November 8. Paul Thomas Anderson. It has actually been quite a pleasure talking to you!
Thanks. Well, you've made me happy.
Now we're gonna play some Carly Rae Jepsen. You're listening to RN Drive.
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.
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.''
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.
Introduction of the event with ‘Get Thee Behind Me, Satan’, after which Paul Thomas Anderson and The Moderator take the stage amidst thunderous applause.
Moderator: So I guess the big and obvious question is, why 70mm? Why did that matter to The Master and to you?
PTA: It didn’t, and it shouldn’t. It was kind of like, if you took a blind taste test, you know, and just somebody said what looks right for your film, you know, whether it was shot on your phone or whether it was shot with a 45 year old camera or whatever, it didn’t matter! It was just sort of figuring out what scene to write to this story that you were doing. And you have to kind of say to yourself at the exclusion of what might be easy or what might be financially the smartest thing to do, you just have to kind of throw it away and say what feels right and figure out a way to make it work. So, it was not like some intention, some like great goal like “We’re going to shoot 70mm!” It’s just, it’s undeniable how it felt and what it looked like and how it could evoke the period and make you, you know, time travel back to that era as best you could. You know like going down the timehole, like Master says. Felt like that was the best way to do that.
M: You talk about making it easy, and watching this film, thinking about 70 millimeter, all of the incredibly long, single takes. At some point, something in my brain just went…well, why don’t you make things easier on yourself? Why?
PTA: Where’s the fun in that? (Laughter)
I guess… But that is fun…when it’s not easy, it is fun, you know, for us. That said, you get to a scene like that dinner table scene when they’re talking, when Amy says, “Why is he here?” I remember shooting that and I remember feeling like this is really easy. And it was, it was easy in the best possible way. It was actually like, finally to get to a scene in this movie where it’s well written and it wasn’t complicated. It was so fun to go and do. We shot it in like three or four hours, really easy to do. Those were fun to do, but only after you’ve done something that’s driven you round the bend, made you crazy.
M: So when you get to those easy scenes are you like, “Why don’t I write more of these?”
PTA: Yeah, absolutely, yes, completely.
M: I wanted to ask about Joaquin Phoenix’s performance in this film, which is kind of astonishing. He plays almost a caveman for stretches of the movie. How much of that was in your head or on the page and how much of that was his performance that you discovered during the filming?
PTA: All of it was his, I mean, not all of it. I wrote something that was pretty good, but he made it something that was amazing, you know. Really, that’s not just being humble as a writer or kind of being cute, or anything like that. The distance between writing something in your room and thinking that it can be a good character and somebody doing what he did is vast. (Guy ominously places a piece of paper on the stage that PTA reads: “Please raise your mike Paul, thanks.” Laughter follows. PTA reminds himself about why he’s here by getting some more applause.)
M: When you’re shooting someone like Joaquin Phoenix and he’s bringing all of that to the role, are there moments where you worry it’s being stretched outside its original conception? That you’re going to get into editing and not have what you wanted or needed?
PTA: No, not that! Yes to the first part, like yeah, sometimes you can feel like whoa what’s going on? This is different than I’d imagined, and that’s your own shit that you’re bringing to it. Like, you kind of have to let go, you have to let this thing become a real human being and when someone’s doing stuff that’s really magnificent, but it’s hard to recognize maybe, at first, if you’re kind of a control freak and you’re sort of recognizing like “Well, you know, God, what is this?” And so it can be distracting, you know, you have to reconcile yourself with handing it over to somebody who’s making it flesh and blood. But you don’t ever get to the place where you think “Oh, I’m not going to be able to edit this together.” If anything, it’s the opposite. You’re recognizing what’s going on and you’re enjoying it and you kind of want to make sure that…no, I guess you’re right, you can edit it together, but through no shortage of material. Through, just sort of making sure there’s not an overabundance of material. Yeah, I hope that makes sense.
M: The other thing in the film is the astonishing amount of close-ups, crazy close-ups of actors’ faces. Are actors daunted by that? Do they love that opportunity? What kind of direction do you need to give when the camera is just here (makes gesture to indicate where) for so long?
PTA: Well, my experience is that they don’t like to know exactly where the camera is and I s’pose if the camera is right here (makes a similar gesture), they know it’s a close-up. But hopefully, you can kind of find a way how to do a nice close-up when the camera is a little bit of the distance away without being too far away that you’re kind of seeing what they’re doing. But, for the most part, the actors that I’ve worked with don’t really have that much of an interest in how close the camera is or not is, you know. I think its kind of a vanity of an actor to say like “Where are we here?” you know. As if to say “If we’re here, I’m really gonna give you the good stuff. If you’re back there, I’m not gonna give you anything. But that said, there is some kind of practicality to that.
You do want to say to an actor like, the camera is halfway across the room and I just have to get a shot that kind of establishes where we are. Don’t start acting your heart out because I won’t be able to see it. And that’s more about sort of a management of their energy and their time, you know, because imagine if you have to do this stuff. It takes a lot out of you and you don’t wanna sort of pretend like its an Olympic event but it does spend energy and if you’re asking somebody to spend a lot of energy where you’re not in a position to film it properly, they should know it, you know. Joaquin’s been acting for almost thirty years, he’s acted since he was a child. Phil’s been doing it for about twenty years and Amy’s kind of the same, so everybody kind of knows the measure of what it is to make a film and hopefully you don’t waste their energy or waste their time.
M: This movie convinced me that there mustn’t have been second takes in some scenes. Watching some of Joaquin’s was like watching a Jackie Chan movie and knowing he did all of his own stunts. I was exhausted.
PTA (chuckling): That’s good, I never heard that before. Jackie Chan, yeah. There should be outtakes of him just, like, splitting his soul open, you know, like when Jackie Chan’s pants would break and he’d, you know…
M: He could give the thumbs up at the end credits like Jackie.
PTA: Right, yeah, don’t worry, my soul is still intact. (laughs all around)
M: One of things that’s most surprising about ‘The Master’ I thought was how kind it is to Lancaster Dodd and to his beliefs. Do you think that would disappoint some people? Was there ever a version in your head which was more about false prophet on tirade like the end of There Will Be Blood?
PTA: No…I mean that you’re making the assumption that there’s something disingenuous about him, I suppose, and I don’t think that there is, so...
(audience laughs)
M: It’s not like your films are known for necessarily being kind to their characters…though…I felt like there was a kindness here, there was a gentleness to the depictions here, that I haven’t necessarily seen in some of your other movies.
PTA: Really?
M: Yeah! There was a sweetness to this film that I wasn’t expecting.
PTA: Well that’s different, that’s fine. I s’pose it’s probably a movie that’s more minor key than major key. I guess what I mean by that is there’s no, kind of, big moment where somebody kind of either realizes something or kills someone or something…nothing big happens. And…I s’pose at one point there was probably a discussion about how you kind of, wedge something like that into this story. But, ultimately, you have to kind of accept that if you can’t, you can’t. You have to try to make something that’s hopefully satisfying and engaging to an audience that doesn’t have that, because if it doesn’t have that then hopefully you invest in who these people are and these minor choices that they make, which maybe minor at the moment but ultimately maybe major in their life or something like that. I don’t know, yeah.
M: I think that Dodd singing to Freddie at the end’s one of the most romantic things I’ve seen in a movie in a long time. Is this a romance? Are you happy to call it a romance?
PTA: Yeah, for sure, absolutely. I look at it that way. But it’s a way to kind of look at a story that you can understand. I mean I don’t think anybody doesn’t understand heartache or romance or love or lost love. Those are the kinds of things that you can figure out through your own experiences. It’s very hard to kind of figure out anything bigger than that, for me at least. I mean I can’t hold that much inside my head. No, really, you kind of hold inside your head the experiences that you’ve had, the things that you latch on to when you’re trying to figure out when you’re making a film. You relate it to personal experiences that you had, you know. Those are the things that make sense to you. Anything bigger than that is just too hard.
Yeah, you think about that desperation that you feel about somebody that you may have been in love with that you know it’s just not gonna work out. We’ve all had that, I’m sure, or if we haven’t, we’re gonna. It’s not a new story; it’s kind of an old story actually. It’s just about how we deal with it, how we manage that kind of thing that happens to us. So, yeah…it’s getting fucking maudlin in here. (audience laughs)
M: So let’s lighten things up here. I read a quote from you. It was something about, you know, that directing a film’s only half of it and the other half’s protecting your film, protecting the film you’ve made from these outside influences. Your film seems so uncompromising, but obviously there must have been compromises. Do you see the scars in your old films when you look back, at that old fort and won or loss?
PTA: Yeah, sure, but that’s very sweet of you to feel that there’s no compromises. But everything is a compromise. I mean, it’s just not, and what I mean by that is, you write a scene and you have this kind of idea in your mind about what it might look like. You get there, and its three dimensions and there’s flesh and blood and there’s a great actor who has a great costume on and somehow you had some kind of ridiculous preconceived notion in your mind. Does that disappoint you that it doesn’t look like that? Well that’s ridiculous, because that’s just some kind of fantasy. You might as well play video games or something like that and be happy.
The point is…and the compromises are good, you know. The sun’s going down, you have to get this scene and well, it’s not exactly how you thought it was going to be. Well, you know what? Fuck it, it’s usually better. It’s always better, honestly. When something erupts whatever preconceived thing you had of what it should be, when the day kind of attacks you, the sun’s going down and forces you into something. Honestly, I feel like those are the best times we’ve had making films and the best scenes we’ve had are usually based on that. That kind of film that happens, that takes you out of, you know. Otherwise, you draw it, you make a cartoon. And those are great, but that’s not what we’re doing.
M: At the moment it seems like you’ve changed tactics slightly in filmmaking. You’re uploading your own film teaser trailers for The Master, you’re taking it on the road. Was it a conscious decision to become more involved in the reception as much as the making?
PTA: No, it wasn’t conscious, it was something we always wanted to do, but we just never could, because…when I started out, there was no such thing as YouTube. As funny as that sounds, you kind of had to beg, borrow, and steal to get your trailer into theatres, to get people to think about that you had a film coming out. You’re kind of at the mercy of how much dollars they would spend and to think that there was a situation that you could put material out there, let people know you had a film. It’s like fantasy land, you know. Now, it’s as it should be, it’s great.
M: Another great quote I read of yours is “Film school is a con, and you can learn more from listening to the commentary track on Bad Day at Black Rock than you can from 20 years of film school.” Is this an accurate quote?
PTA: Well…
(audience laughs)
M: I feel like a lawyer and I’m like, “Did you say this, sir?!”
PTA: The only problem with giving an interview, ever, is not being misquoted, but being quoted exactly.
(audience laughter and claps)
M: Okay, well, if you’re the professor and this is your class of people…
PTA: What did you say when you were 24 years old?
M: I dread to think…what are three films that would be on your curriculum of your film school? Commentary tracks or movies that would be educational.
PTA: Aw, great question. Let’s think…I’ll tell you something I watched. The first film I would show right now, if we could watch another movie right now, I would show Ted. We were just talking about this…That is the funniest movie I’ve seen in a long time. And it’s just sort of like, you know, no joke, just how enjoyable movies can be to watch and it’s so well written and so funny and so well performed and so great and just like, just to look at that reminded me like, you can kind of get into weird stuff and serious stuff and 70 mil stuff and all that kind of stuff. But to see something that just sort of snaps you back to that excitement, you know, when you saw Airplane! the first time. I remember when I saw Airplane! the first time, I was watching Ted tonight and like, this has so much energy and so much enthusiasm behind it and I loved that film. I would start with that just because that’s what’s on my mind right now.
M: I think you may have some surprised students at your film school on that first day.
PTA: Well, the first thing when I went to film school was they started showing you this really dull stuff like…Citizen Kane’s not dull at all, but like they’d start with these like really kind of, chore inducing…kind of felt like homework. Black and white silent films, which, I love, but…the first day of film school, film class, it’s like, you don’t want to watch that. It’s either too intimidating or you’re not in a place where you feel like you’re ready to watch it or whatever it is. It just doesn’t feel like…it feels like it’s turned the whole thing into homework and a kind of chore, more than the reason we’re all like, feeling like we’re here right now it’s nice. You know, like, fucking you wanna have some fun, you know, you wanna watch a movie. Yeah, that’s what I think.
M: Well, I have like a million more questions, mostly about Punch-Drunk Love, which is my personal favorite of your films. But, I’m not gonna ask them, because I know that we have a gazillion people in the audience who are keen for questions…but while you’re lining up I guess there’s time to ask one question about Punch-Drunk Love! Does Punch-Drunk Love feel like it’s far outside your other films or do all your films feel as distinct from each other as that one does? Because to a lot of people it does seem like it’s outside a lot of your movies.
PTA: No, I think if you ask and you’re sort of asking me to think like that about it, I could say, yeah sure, because it was kind of regarded in a particular way when it came out and I can realize all that stuff but in the scheme of things, I don’t feel that way. I feel that way when I’m forced to think of it that way but…you think of films, if you’re lucky enough to be in the position to make them you think about them as milestones in your actual life. When did I have kids, where did I live, what was going on in my life at that time. Really, you think about them that way. I remember writing that movie and September 11th happened. I remember certain personal things that happened in my life, but they’re more important to me than the films are honestly. I think of them that way.
M: So, they’re like tattoos…
PTA: YEAH! You know, fuck, that’s great, exactly. (audience laughs) No yeah, that’s really kind of beautiful.
M: My work here is done. Shall we open it up to questions from the floor?
Audience: I just wanted to congratulate you first of all on a fantastic film, but also on not missing the opportunity to present full frontal nudity in 70 mil.
PTA: YOU’RE WELCOME! (laughter)
Audi: I think, many of us here would think you’re one of the most important filmmakers of the last maybe, 20 to 50 years, and so I want to ask, what’s your process of writing and making choices? So, choosing projects and choices within that.
PTA: I’ve just been thinking about it a lot lately because we’re sort of promoting the film and people asking stuff and…it’s just like honestly, it’s like a great mystery…don’t really have a good answer about how these things come about. Except I realized a couple of weeks ago somebody kept asking about writing processes and stuff. I was like, you know, I remember feeling like, I had a lot of stuff that I’d written…you write something on a napkin in a hotel room or whatever, but at a certain point you have to get serious about it.
One of the most serious things that I can remember for this film was kind of like, you know I really wanted to make a film with Phil, because we’d worked together for a couple of weeks here and there and everything else, but it was enough of a reason to say, “I want to get serious about, figuring out what my thoughts are about things that I have and…” It’s as good a reason as any to kind of keep moving forward with something and that’s sort of the writing process. Sorry, I fucked it, was an unsatisfying answer. (audience laughter)
But, the other thing that I would say I guess…maybe I’ve read it somewhere, I think I’ve read it about Ernest Hemingway, who I like. I mean he’s not one of my favorite writers, but what I remember, reading about writers. That he had a regimen of writing every morning and things like that. I remember reading that and feeling like aw, I should try that. And it worked for me. It worked to have a discipline, to wake up every morning. You know, some people have different things; they write before they eat or they eat and then they write. Whatever it was, whatever that thing was, it was just discovering what worked for you.
I know people that are great writers and they work exclusively at night and that would not work for me, I just couldn’t do it. I know people that sleep till two o’ clock in the afternoon and they wake up and they have a little bit of a life and then when everybody goes to sleep, that’s when they write. And that’s what works for them. That wouldn’t work for me, but I’ve found that the things that’ve worked for me, I’ve stuck with me. I mean I don’t do them every day, but when I do them every day, that’s when it feels like I’m at work and that’s when it feels good.
Audi: Hi, my name’s Ashley and I think you’re probably one of my favorite directors of all time and I think you’re wonderful. I was wondering, you’ve cycled through three or four editors through your feature filmmaking career and I was wondering what qualities you value in an editor.
PTA: I think that’s a great question, and the memories that I have…I worked on this film with Leslie Jones, we also did Punch-Drunk Love together. It’s just amazing the kind of gulf of time…the times when you’re just sitting in the same room, not editing the movie and you’re just bullshitting about what’s going on with you, talking about other things and the time you’re spending actually at the computer editing. Just want somebody you can be with, that you’re comfortable being around and sharing your life with. That’s what I look for.
M: So, do you look for friendship, as in, people you’re really…
PTA: Yeah, for sure…
M: I think that’s admirable. I don’t think they’re enough people…
PTA: I don’t want to make a movie with somebody I don’t like! Nobody wants that, right?
M: What if they’re a supremely talented dick?
PTA: Fuck ‘em. (audience laughter). There’s no such thing, anyway. If they’re THAT good, they’re not dicks. Don’t you think?
M: I’d like to think so.
Audi: Thanks for coming down to Melbourne and this is a question I’ve had in my mind for a long time. Do you often get approached by big studios to do tentpole movies, blockbusters, superheroes, explosions, and if so, could you go into much detail about that?
PTA: No, I’ve never really been asked to do that kind of thing, and…I understand your question and I understand where you’re coming from, but it’s hard to kind of accept that…you look at what Christopher Nolan did with Batman. It’s like, that’s like the meeting of the highest-level of artistic skill and a kind of commerciality, sort of appeal to a wide range of people, which is what anybody would want. It’s amazing what he did with those films and kind of unparalleled actually. They don’t come to me for those and that’s all right, you know. (audience laughs) I didn’t mean for that to be a joke, but I’d be thrilled to do something like that, it’d be great.
Audi: Thank you for coming down. I first wanted to strongly disagree with the interviewer. I think you write some of the kindest impressions of people like, ever…
PTA: See, thank you!!! (audience claps)
Audi: …across all your films and I just wanted to ask, I feel like there’s a very strong intensity but also a kindness to the characters in the films that you write and I wonder how…I don’t know, I’m just assuming because I have to because I don’t know who you really are. But like, if you had to have that kind of intensity in your everyday life, how would you deal with that or how do you leave a project that takes up so much of your time, which seems to be like dealing with these really intense and you know, scary things…
PTA: That’s a great question, fuck that’s a great question.
Audi: Sorry…
PTA: No, no, it’s great. Audi: I mean, you work with some of the most intense seeming actors as well, and you seem to draw out the best performances of them. But it seems so temporary, for someone who just watches the movies…(tapers away with half formed sentences)
PTA: Yeah, it’s funny, I know your question. Like those days when you feel like maybe you’ve done an intense scene or something like that, they probably don’t feel half as intense as they do in the final film. But you just made me think of sometimes when you write something and you really are happy with it, which rarely happens. You’re sort of writing a film and maybe once for every sixty days, you get something that really excites you and makes you feel good and you can’t sleep at night, you’re just wired. You’re like, you’re completely high and you are just thrilled by something that happened. And then it goes away, and you’re just sort of right back down to kind of feeling insecure or confused and you’re sort of clawing back up to try and get something which might make you feel that way again.
That happens a lot in writing. It happens in this sort of slightly different way when you’re making a film in my experience because it’s just more practical because there’s a lot of people around and you have to kind of keep moving forward. You can’t indulge in emotions and feelings in the way that you might normally do if it’s just you. There’s a practicality to making a film that doesn’t really allow to an overindulgence of emotion. But sometimes that can happen. You get sad when you end a film, just because the experience of being with everybody is gonna be over…
Audi: D’you ever get exhausted by the really kind of crappy aspects of filmmaking, the harder aspects of filmmaking? The repetitiveness of having to like…you have this idea and then it ends and then it’s sad but during the time when it could be stressful or whatever. Is that ever like, you don’t want to deal with that or you just have some extreme drive to do it?
PTA: Yeah, all the time.
Audi: All the time? Okay.
PTA: Yeah…
Audi: My question for you Paul is, throughout your films, mantras and repetitions of dialog happen as a recurring theme. Especially in Boogie Nights, you have a big, bright shining star. Especially in this film I noticed with Quell going back and forth from the wall to the window and so on. Could you comment on why this is such a prevalent theme?
PTA: Hopefully you don’t do things that you know are a theme or hopefully you’re doing things that you don’t even know you’re doing. One of the most amazing and fun things that can happen is when you write something. If you’re writing really fast and you’re typing and some weird thing comes out of you, like a typo or a turn of phrase, you just don’t correct it. Don’t fix it. Don’t do spell check. Don’t do grammar check or whatever they have. Let them be, make sure that they exist, because there’s a reason why they’re there. They’re not typos…yeah.
M: So is that trying to find the balance between precision and instinct?
PTA: Yeah, for sure, for sure, always. Nobody wants to see a movie that’s perfect, do they? It’s like all clean and polished and everything like that, and sometimes, you know, I’m a victim of cut and paste and it’s fun to mess with stuff but it’s also fun to mess it up.
Audi: Watching There Will Be Blood was an incredibly meaningful and powerful experience for me and I just wanted to thank you for that. And it’s not just because my first name’s Daniel and my last initial is P. But one of the things I love about that film and especially about The Master was how real and authentic everything feels from the performances to the sets to the costumes, just every element. And I was just wondering with an increasing use of computer generated images and computers in general being used in films, how do you feel about that when it comes to making things look and feel real when it can just be generated on the computer?
PTA: Well, I don’t know, I mean…(audience laughter)
M: He’s leading you back to your superhero blockbuster, isn’t he?
PTA: Who uses instagram here? (audience members raise their hands, PTA points at them) Right, right, right, I don’t know.
Audi: I’m sorry.
PTA: It’s like…
M: Because it’s inauthentic? Is it that?
PTA: No, it is authentic, because it exists, but it’s not…it’s just amazing, it’s hilarious. It’s like creating something that can make it look old and it looks amazing, it looks great, it really does. But something’s not right. (audience laughs) I can’t figure it out. What I like is that everybody can see it. I love that part of it. I love how easy it is. And that is fucking great. But there’s something else that doesn’t quite fit, I’m not sure what it is. That’s not to say that using it’s bad, but it’s just so funny. It’s like we use this thing and we want to find a way to mess it up. It’s the same thing, isn’t it?
M: So, not wanting things to be too perfect again…
PTA: Yeah, we wanted it to be perfect and now oh no no no, we don’t want it to be perfect, we want it to look like it used to look. And like, I don’t know. This is like a complicated conversation (audience laughs).
Audi: Hi Paul, I’d like to know more about your encounter with Stanley Kubrick on the set of Eyes Wide Shut, because your last couple of films seem to be heavily influenced by Kubrick.
PTA: Well, let me just say I don’t think there’s anybody who hasn’t been influenced by Stanley Kubrick. I can’t speak for other directors, but it feels like what he did was kind of like a watermark for all of us. Just to say like this is how you should sort of treat what you do and this is how you should address it with a kind of attention, compassion and…yeah, I was lucky enough to meet him and it was a great privilege, great honor and everything else. I think I’ve said this before, it’s like no big mystery, but he was like nice to me when he knew that I directed Boogie Nights but he was much nicer to me when he knew that I wrote it. There was a difference between being a person who directed something and somebody who wrote and directed something, which is pretty cool. That kind of stuck around. Yeah, I count myself as pretty lucky to have been there and that really resulted in going to meet Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman when they were making that film.
Audi: Hey Paul, this is the first feature film that you’ve shot without Robert Elswit. I really loved the aesthetic of The Master, but there were no hyper-fast track-ins, no whip pans. There were long takes, but they weren’t as like, tightly choreographed or as movement heavy as any of your other films, so I guess I’m just wondering if the shift had anything to with it and how it might have affected your approach to cinematography?
PTA: No, that didn’t have anything to do with Robert not being there or Mihai or anything like that.That’s just what you’re doing mainly because of the story, you know, I just don’t know where we would have done that stuff in this movie. Anytime there was kind of an opportunity to do something that was a little energetic we were like so happy, like Freddie getting on the boat, we were like throwing down hundreds of feet of dolly track and we were jazzed up because most of the time it’s so straightforward. It’s weird when you’re writing a movie that some part of you wants to be unleashed and kind of do something like whip pans and crazy stuff like that but what’s coming out of you as a writer is not that. It don’t add up, I think the writer wins every time, that’s kind of what you’re doing. So yeah, good question, but it has nothing to do with Robert or Mihai, it’s more about what the story is, you know.
Audi: Hi Paul, my name’s Ebb. I just wanted to ask you, how do you respond to negative criticism? I mean, if someone really gives the business to something you’ve made, do you take stock in it or do you stick to your own guns?
PTA: Well, yeah, I mean, it’s weird when you get negative criticism but it’s okay, it’s good, it’s fine.
M: Do you read reviews, do you keep track of…
PTA: Yeah I try to, especially when it comes out. When a film comes out, you’re sort of excited to find out what people think and you get some really good ones and then you get some negative ones and you’re sort of scratching your head and everyone’s talking and then you’ve kind of gauged the temperature of what might happen and then you’re not really sure what to do. It just is what it is, it doesn’t change anything at all, because it’s all kind of like a fucking fart in the wind. It doesn’t mean anything.
M: Are there good bad reviews and bad bad reviews? Bad reviews that you feel are accurate or truthful in some way other than just not getting it?
PTA: Yeah sure, sometimes you sort of read something and think well wait a minute…ah, I know what you mean, okay. You kind of get defensive, but you can understand what they’re saying and you kind of recognize your own weaknesses in what they’re saying. And perhaps they’re right, but then you find a way to justify that.
Audi: Hi Paul, did you have any trepidation going into The Master without Robert Elswit and do you think you’ll reunite for Inherent Vice?
PTA: Of course, it was very difficult to do just because I’ve worked with him but I hope to shoot Inherent Vice with him. That’ll be great.
M: And this is the first time Pynchon’s allowed a book to be adapted. That’s right, isn’t it?
PTA: Yes.
M: So, no pressure or anything…?
PTA: Has anybody read the book? No one’s read the book, that’s great.
Audi: Hey Paul, I was just wondering whether you’re going to be doing any more film commentaries for your films in the future? I know you want your films to speak for themselves, but I was just wondering if you could at least do a technical commentary where you would be with your cinematographer and you could explain the technical issues of the movie.
PTA: Sure, that would be great, do a commentary. (audience laughs)
M: Is that stuff you enjoy?
PTA: Well no, not really, but that’s all right…
Audi: Hello Paul, my name’s Scott and welcome to Melbourne and thanks for making this wonderful film for us to see. My question is because you’re such a prolific writer, obviously if you were to take some of the screenplays you’ve made and turn them into books, you’d probably be a well-regarded author. My question is, how and when did you know that film would be your medium and not any other?
PTA: You know, listen, if I could have made a living being like a real writer, like a novelist I probably would have done that. That would’ve been great because…that would be amazing. I never felt like I was that, I didn’t practice to do that. I always thought like, like ten years ago that would be a really good idea. Writing was screenwriting, which is pretend writing. I don’t mean that as a demeaning thing, it’s only half of what you’re doing. I wish I was a good enough writer, that that’s what I had practiced to be because that’s hard. That’s something else.
M: Is it, just what you fall in love with first? Did you fall in love with movies before…
PTA: Yeah, exactly, that’s exactly what it was. I didn’t know what writing books was really. I thought you just wrote because you made a movie and the other thing came afterwards, but great question.
Audi: My question’s about Jonny Greenwood doing the music for your last two movies. Just wondering how you ended up working with him and if you’ll work with him again in the future.
PTA: I’d love to work with Jonny Greenwood for as long as he’d love to work with me. I feel privileged to know him and to work with him. Amazing composer who looks like he doesn’t know what he’s doing but actually does. It’s my honor to have him make music for what we’re doing, it’s great, amazing. When I saw movies, when I grew up, watching Steven Spielberg’s movies with John Williams, I was like fuck, that’s how you do it. Music and what the movie is, they bash together like, there’s no, not that I’m comparing us at all. That’s what influenced me, that’s how it should be. These two things smash together and you’re supposed to smash and audience with that stuff. Then I saw what Bernard Hermann did and Alfred Hitchcock and stuff like that and I was like, that’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s been my feeling about how music should be in movies. Working with Jonny makes me feel like I have a great collaborator who just makes sense, that feels, you know, expands my mind or my ears might hear something.
Audi: A lot of your films are about transformation, especially this one, and I’m just interested in your emotional experience with process and whether you’ve actually done any of that stuff and how you’re moving towards freedom through that, because it seems to be a theme or whether Tom’s got any secrets for you.
PTA: Thank you for your question. When you look into something you’re going to do as a story, it just can’t help but affect your life. It would be foolish to spend a couple of years on something that doesn’t affect you. You hope it affects you, you hope it opens your eyes to something. It makes you smarter and better and cooler and happier and all that stuff. Otherwise, fuck, why do it?
Audi: So, do you?
PTA: For sure, I feel like, if you’re into something and you’re kind of looking into it and the point of siding by something is that it has value not that it doesn’t have value. That’s like a dead end. Why would you spend your time doing that, just to make fun of something? Doesn’t seem right to me.
Audi: I feel like you needed some really tough question. Your films tend to have some really flawed men, in particular. What are your biggest flaws? (audience laughs)
M: Is it that you care too much?
PTA: See, no. I’m too polite (audience laughs).
Audi: What I’ve always wanted to know was regarding Boogie Nights. Apparently you watched hundreds and hundreds of hours of pornography. How did this influence you as a filmmaker? (audience laughs)
PTA: Probably not enough, you know. Great question, because, good pornography knows what they can stretch in terms of your patience and I don’t think we’ve learned that lesson. It really feels like, sometimes you sort of sneak in the back of the audience and you can just feel the back of their heads going “Enough already! Give us a fucking cumshot, give us a boner…” But honestly, yeah, there’s a structure, like they’re supposed to teach you in a screenwriting book. Like, they can seduce them for this long, and then they should start fucking right here and then he’s going to cum by here and there should be another seduction and that’s not to be trifled with. And there’s a reason why not, boners only last so long, you know. And after you cum, it takes that long to get another boner.
M: This will be another screening in your film school, obviously. Ted, pornography, Bad Day at Black Rock.
PTA: But if we started to watch this film again right now, it might be exciting for five minutes, but then it would be kind of dull probably.
M: I wish we had some more time to discuss this filmic boner metaphor a little longer. Do we have more questions?
Astor Staff: I have a few people in line who have pretty much the same question, which is about how you got started and what motivated you to be making films.
PTA: Well, as a blanket thing, just to be talking about that stuff…I never felt like there was something that motivated me to get into films. I felt it was something I’d wanted to do since I was like a little kid. I just had nothing else I wanted to do and at least that’s the way my mom tells it. That’s the way I remember it. They always felt like they didn’t know how to support their son, who expressed no interest in anything else, which I probably guess was quite a risk. For them to feel like, well what happens if you don’t…you know, if you’re not good at that or what happens…and which I completely can see now as a parent. It’s a wild thing to have a son who says, “No, I’m gonna be a movie director and I’m gonna do this and that’s exclusively it.” Fucking nuts, you know. I was lucky enough to just kind of like, I think more than anything, somehow, writing was the most important thing to me.
Because I remember like peers that I started out with that weren’t as interested in writing as I was and maybe it was harder for them just because that was so much more elusive. Everybody was talking about, if we could just have a script. Just like, that was the thing that people were talking about, and still talk about, at the highest levels of production and skill level. People talking about, “If the script was right.” It never goes away, whether you’re starting out or whether you’re like Martin Scorsese. You’re like, “Where’s the script?” It was through no kind of design of my own that that was attracted me but it just was and it’s probably through that kind of dumb luck that that was something that appealed to me. That kind of thing that happens that you do alone in the room that’s so fun, that’s so elusive and so fucking maddening.
M: Were you ever tempted to just write screenplays and not direct them?
PTA: Sure, yeah. But not to do it for that reason, but more the reason of having material that did not have a home and you wanted it to have a home. There’s never a day that goes by that I don’t write. I love writing, writing is like breathing or exercise, it’s a privilege and a joy to do. And anybody can do it, you know. It’s like playing the piano, it’s not that fucking hard. Just fucking keys on a keyboard, how hard could it be? Yeah, it’s great. That’s it, come on, that’s fucking it.
