The scene where the master is arrested and he urges the rest to carry on and laugh. His daughter then tries to calm him down saying: "We're all laughing daddy!" after which the master replies: Not you!
The dry intelligent side in Seymour Hoffman's character wins over the dreamy cult-master side in this case.
There were a lot of funny scenes; I think There Will Be Blood and The Master are funnier than Punch Drunk Love and Inherent Vice. Freddie is such a shambles, his body careening about, his speech all slurred, his brain a blur. Just putting him amidst Master and his bright-eyed followers is amusing. He doesn't understand the verbiage, the science-fiction premises of the cult, any of that. He's just there, an utter incongruity, clueless, attached to Dodd like a dog to a leash.
Master's delusions are funny, too. The creeping feeling that he's aware just how ludicrous it all is, the tension just beneath the carefully crafted exterior of infallible wisdom. There's a sadness there as well. What led him to such an extravagant, fantastical fiction?
Death is a grim prospect I suppose, the nothingness it entails. Taking refuge in a deathless, swashbuckling soul, living from body to body, ranging across the arc of time, must have helped a little, made life a bit easier. The reason this film I think has emotional dimensions is that it doesn't really try to slander Master's charlatanry. It's compassionate toward him and his need to be soothed by an increasingly elaborate alternate reality.
What the h?
A great comment. Thank you.
I'd thought similar things but was unable to voice them.
I got that impression that Freddie was just there until he became bored or uninterested, and in his instinctive/impulsive ways just rolls on through his existence.
I definitely need to watch the film again.
This was a very well written and insightful comment. Thanks!
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