There are few Hollywood directors from whom "event cinema" is personally expected, but Paul Thomas Anderson is one. This year, he brought his reputation and prestige closer to Kubrick levels with this film, an epic based loosely on the early life of the Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Lancaster Dodd, a homespun philosopher and cult leader in postwar America. He is a bullish and conceited actor-manager figure who one evening chances upon a semi-homeless alcoholic called Freddie Quell who was invalided out of the US Navy with a nervous breakdown after VJ Day. Quell is played, unforgettably, by Joaquin Phoenix.
很少有好莱坞的导演期待自己的影片在悉尼event cinema上展播，但保罗·托马斯·安德森偏偏就是这样一个。今年，保罗凭借他的力作《大师》声名鹊起，威望几乎逼近了库克布里（美国著名导演，电影杂志《好莱坞报道》在全世界500位导演中评出40位“最有影响力”的导演中排名第五。）影片或多或少是根据山达基教创始人罗恩·哈伯德早期生平故事改编。菲利普·塞默·霍夫曼扮演的兰衷卡斯续特·多德是二战后美国民间的一位哲学家以及教会教主。这是一个高傲而自负的自编自导自演的角色，某天晚上偶遇上一个几乎无家可归的名叫弗莱迪的酒鬼。他是二战胜利日后因精神崩溃从美国海军退役回来的。杰昆·菲尼克斯扮演的弗莱迪形象深入人心。
Dodd decides to make poor, muddled Freddie a special project of his, but his failure to indoctrinate his new disciple, to exert his mastery over this troubled man's mind forms the backbone of this gripping and deeply mysterious drama. Just as in Anderson's previous film There Will Be Blood, the movie suggests a secret history or prehistory of the US; just as in that film, a troubled quasi-father-son relationship is all important. And there is also another bizarre, absurdist flourish in the dialogue. As Daniel Day-Lewis's rapacious oilman, Plainview, boasted about sucking up another man's milkshake, so Hoffman's Dodd starts singing (I'd Like To Get You On) a Slow Boat To China – at great and uncomfortable length.
多德决定把穷困潦倒，昏头昏脑的弗莱迪当做特殊的试验品，但他没有成功教化他的新弟子，没能控制这个不安的人的思维，这构成了这个扣人心弦而又极其神秘的故事的主线。正如安德森之前的电影《血色将至》一样，《大师》也暗示了美国的一段神秘的历史或史前史。在《血色将至》里，陷入危机的父亲与儿子的关系极其重要，影片对白也奇怪而荒诞。丹尼尔·戴·刘易斯扮演的贪婪的石油大亨普莱恩维尤（Plainview）吹牛要一口吞掉另一个人的奶昔，同样奇怪地，《大师》里面霍夫曼·多德开始哼唱一首叫做“I'd Like To Get You On a Slow Boat To China”的歌曲，哼了好久，让人听了心里不舒服。
There Will Be Blood was about entrepreneurial capitalism; The Master was about entrepreneurial religion, gimcrack philosophy, prospecting for snake oil. Dodd is giving America a new vernacular belief, or rather self-belief, with a little of this and a little of that. Bits and pieces are taken from religion and pop science and science fiction of the sort written by Hubbard and his contemporary, Philip K Dick. And Quell, intoxicated by the Master's rhetoric, shows his own parallel genius for being the life and soul of the party by brewing up booze. Almost by magic, he can create fiendishly addictive hooch from fruit, bread, bathroom medicaments – anything. Dodd and Quell have a match made in sociopath heaven, and there is a kind of covert, erotic excitement in their association. One of the most startling scenes is the one in which Dodd starts singing I'll Go No More a Roving in polite company, and we see – through Quell's eyes, and perhaps through Dodd's – the women there unclothed.
《血色将至》是讲企业家资本主义的；而《大师》是讲企业家的宗教信仰，华而不实的哲学，寻找骗人的万灵油。多德给美国创造了本地化的信仰，或者说是自我信仰，夹杂着一点这种信仰又有一点那种信仰。该影片借鉴了哈伯德和他同时代的飞利浦.K.迪克的宗教作品，大众科学和科幻小说。Quell被宗教大师多德的花言巧语所迷惑，通过酿酒，表现出了成为灵魂人物的天分。他用水果，面包，浴室里的药剂等唾手可得的任何东西神奇地配制出了极其令人上瘾的烈酒。多德和Quell在他们的cause教会，这个反社会分子的天堂里一拍即合，在这里有一种隐秘的对情欲的兴奋感。最令人震撼的一个场景就是当多德在一群举止高雅的人当中哼唱“I'll Go No More a Roving”这首歌的时候，通过Quell的双眼，又或是通过多德的双眼，我们看到那些女人都是赤身裸体的。
It is a difficult, challenging and, at times, opaque movie, which does not have the story arc of a conventional Hollywood biopic. Unconvinced audiences have praised the performances but complained about the lack of "story". It's an understandable reservation, but I think Anderson is offering something closer to a colossally ambitious portrait, or dual portrait, perhaps comparable to Don DeLillo's depiction of Lee Harvey Oswald in his novel Libra, or the woman with polio lying in the tawny grass in Andrew Wyeth's painting Christina's World. And Phoenix's agonisingly intense and blazingly committed performance makes this our film of the year.
这部影片没有传统好莱坞传记片那样的剧情，有点深刻，极富挑战性，有时又晦涩难懂。观众因此并不全盘肯定。观众们对演员的出色表演表示好评，但却批评影片缺乏故事性。这种有所保留的评价完全可以理解。但我认为安德森导演想要塑造一个极其雄心勃勃的人物形象，或是双重形象，也许可以媲美唐·德里罗在小说Libra里塑造的李· 哈维·奥斯瓦尔德（被认为是肯尼迪遇刺案的主凶），或是安德鲁·怀斯的代表作《克里斯蒂娜的世界》里那位躺在褐色草地上的身患小儿麻痹症的女子。菲尼克斯的表演迸发出了强烈的情感冲击，让《大师》成为了年度最佳影片。
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