Lancaster Dodd: I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.
While Paul Thomas Anderson’s film catalogue may not be expansive his movies certainly are. He hit fame and encountered some notoriety with his highly original and flamboyant expose of the pornographic industry in Boogie Nights. Since then he has continued to go on to make some of the most challenging and innovative cinema. The Master in particular seems to bottle what is so alluring about how Paul Thomas Anderson makes movies.
IMDB Storyline of The Master: Returning from Navy service in World War II, Freddie Quell drifts through a series of breakdowns. Finally he stumbles upon a cult which engages in exercises to clear emotions and he becomes deeply involved with them.
For the regular cinemagoer The Master might seem like a hard nut to crack. You’ll find no redemption or atonement for wrong doings, nor even a typical narrative structure in this movie. We don’t follow a path well worn by any other movies, none which I can recall anyway. The Master leaves us to pick up the pieces and assess what it means to us. *You will find what it means to me in the last paragraph of this article. The Master on the surface is a story about an intense and complicated friendship (some say love story) between two men with alter egos who despite their obvious inadequacies and at times repulsive behaviour find some extraordinary kinship in trusting and believing in one another.
Here in lies the tragedy – the summation of such a profound friendship does not equate to much by the end. This is where many viewers might find the movie unclear and elusive or simply off putting. We don’t arrive at the end and say, ‘Oh Freddy Quell (Joaquin Phoenix’s character) is a better person for thinking this or behaving like that’. That despite such a profound kinship between the two egomaniacs, the movie and the characters essentially ends where it begun. They seem to be souls touched but as easily untouched by each other and those around them. To me the Joaquin Phoenix character is the alter ego of Hoffman’s Cult Leader character which is alluded to in the last scene between them. ‘If you leave me now, in the next life you will be my sworn enemy‘.
It dawned upon me in a later viewing of the movie when Freddy Quell is watching a movie in a cinema and Lancaster Dodd happens to call him out of the blue, that Paul Thomas Anderson like Dodd is having his way with us. Anderson in his director’s hat and The Master (The Lancaster Dodd character) are one of the same puppeteer. Dodd is pulling Freddy’s strings and we the audience like Freddy are going wherever he motions us. The irony is like the charismatic cult leader Lancaster Dodd in the movie, Anderson is seemingly making this up as he goes along. But he is The Master and we (the audience) are his loyal followers. Even if he sends Freddy from wooden paneled wall to window and back over and over again we like Freddy go along too despite how futile or meaningless the exercise may appear. He is the Master after all.
“It’s funny, but you never really think much about breathing. Until it’s all you ever think about.” ― Tim Winton, Breath
Tim Winton is Australia’s most-lauded novelist. He has won Australia’s highest literary merit the Miles Franklin Award an unprecedented 4 times including once for the novel I will discuss here – Breath. I have read nearly all off Tim Winton’s books. He is undoubtedly my favourite Australian author. To me what sets Tim’s writing apart is his ability to capture that almost inexplicable strange beauty of Australia. I have lived overseas a long, long time and of course I miss my home country, but if I ever want to get reacquainted with my island home then I will dive head-first into a Tim Winton novel. I have him to thank for that.
Good reads’ description of Breath: On the wild, lonely coast of Western Australia, two thrillseeking and barely adolescent boys fall into the enigmatic thrall of veteran big-wave surfer Sando. Together they form an odd but elite trio. The grown man initiates the boys into a kind of Spartan ethos, a regimen of risk and challenge, where they test themselves in storm swells on remote and shark-infested reefs, pushing each other to the edges of endurance, courage, and sanity. But where is all this heading? Why is their mentor’s past such forbidden territory? And what can explain his American wife’s peculiar behavior? Venturing beyond all limits—in relationships, in physical challenge, and in sexual behavior—there is a point where oblivion is the only outcome. Full of Winton’s lyrical genius for conveying physical sensation, Breath is a rich and atmospheric coming-of-age tale from one of world literature’s finest storytellers.
Shortly after Breath was published in 2008, I went to see Tim do a book reading in Melbourne to inaugurate the release of his much anticipated book. I had never before or ever since procured a book and read it as quickly as I did with Breath. I would read it another 3 times that year before I eventually moved overseas. A week ago I dusted it off to rekindle that old flame and see if my obsession with it was justified. Part way through I realised I was reading from a master at work. I was just as mesmerized as I had been 10 years earlier. Every page I was gobsmacked by some outstanding literary prose thinking to myself, ‘How did he come up with that, and that, and that?’. To put it bluntly, reading a Tim Winton book is a very humbling experience for any writing enthusiast. He sets the bar high.
“That was the simple objective, being airborne, up longer, up higher, more casually and with more fuck off elegance than anyone else in the world. I never understood the rules or the science of it but I recognized the single-mindedness it took to match risk with nerve come what may. Some endeavours require a kind of egotism, a near autistic narrowness. Everything conspires against you – the habits of physics, the impulse to flee – and you’re weighed down by every dollop of commonsense dished up. Everyone will tell you your goal is impossible, pointless, stupid, wasteful so you hang tough. You back yourself & only yourself. This idiot resolve is all you have.” ― Tim Winton, Breath
What struck me this time around apart from it being more of a page turner and easier to read than I remember; is this coming of age story of two adolescent surfers on the West Australian coast launched me back into my own adolescent self. Better than any family photo album could evoke, all the sights, smells and sounds of my youth in Australia came flooding back.
Arguably, Tim Winton’s magnum opus up to this point is his 1991 novel Cloudstreet. It’s nearly thought of in Australia as un-Australian if you haven’t read that ‘tower of book’. Many would recommend if you were going to get your feet wet with Tim Winton then Cloudtstreet would be the go-to book. However, I would contend that Breath is more easily consumable due to its no-nonsense literary prose and and it can be read in less sittings due to its shorter length and entrancing plot. As a blogging enthusiast, even if this post inspires just one person to read Tim Winton then I will be content.
The first sun gave the water a benign sheen and for a few moments there was nothing to see, little enough for a swoon of relief to course through me. I was, I thought, off the hook. And then a mile out I saw the sudden white flare. A plume of spray lifted off the bommie like the dust kicked up by a convoy of log-trucks and after a second’s delay the sound of it reached us. Now that was a noise to snap a boy out of his dreamy sense of wellbeing.
IMDB storyline: British diplomat Robert Conway and a small group of civilians crash land in the Himalayas, and are rescued by the people of the mysterious, Eden-like valley of Shangri-la. Protected by the mountains from the world outside, where the clouds of World War II are gathering, Shangri-la provides a seductive escape for the world-weary Conway. But is it the miraculous utopia it appears to be?
I was a little bit skeptical coming into this since I wouldn’t have exactly classed myself a doting fan of Frank Capra. I found his movies a little bit too saccharine for my tastes. Despite my dubiousness Badfinger20 urged me towards trying this early Capra piece. It is an almost impossible task to discuss this movie without revealing the biggest spoiler of them all which is the answer to the question (which would have all audiences pondering): Is Shangri-la the miraculous utopia it appears to be?
Firstly, Lost Horizon is a big film production for its time. It took 10 months to shoot and the film well exceeded its original budget. In fact the first cut of the film was six hours long. The studio considered releasing it in two parts, but eventually decided the idea was impractical. The version of the movie I saw was the complete 123-minute soundtrack. Some of the film was badly degraded and useless, so the restorers used sills to fill in the missing minutes. I only found it partially distracting but moreover I felt the scenes with the audio and sills were necessary to the story.
The sets they used in Lost Horizon were astounding. I doubt Capra’ vision of Shangri-la could even be replicated by today’s production standards. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia: Harry E. Huffman, owner of a chain of movie theaters in downtown Denver, Colorado, built a replica of the monastery depicted in the film as a private residence in 1937, calling it Shangri-La which still remains to this day. Honestly, I don’t know how Capra and his team pulled it off. Also the avalanche and mountain trekking scenes are outstanding even by today’s standards of hammy computer effects.
Ronald Colman was fabulous in the demanding lead role. It’s difficult to think of another actor who could have filled the shoes of the alluring Robert Conway as well as he did. He truly made it his. The three supporting beautiful actresses were stellar as well.
The mystical and captivating High Lama who we learn was in fact the founder of Shangri-la 200 years before explains to our protagonist Robert Conway that his presence at Shangri-la is by no way an accident. On a side note, the High Lama’s dazzling speech to Conway is almost prophetical as he describes his vision of forthcoming destruction. The prophecy would nearly eventuate two years after the movie’s release with the invasion of Poland and later the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Shangri-la is essentially a Christian missionary’s version of paradise. It’s been attempted many times in history. I had only seen more sober takes on the reality of attempting such quests such as De Niro in The Mission, Scorsese’s Silence and Peter Weir’s Mosquito Coast. Half way through the movie I thought I was in Conway’s dream or even his after-life after his plane went down in the Himalayas.
Lost Horizon is a wonderful movie. Probably few movies demonstrate like Lost Horizon just how movies used to be made – a little bit of blood, sweat and tears, and that in itself is its crowning achievement. You can envisage just how much work went into this movie to bring you this endearing tale. It definitely had me by the short and curlies when Conway’s brother brings a young female Shangri-la resident to Conway to convince him to escape with them from the idyllic Shangri-la.
‘I believe it (Shangri-La) because I want to believe it’
Sleeper is a scantly known Woody Allen movie recommended to me by fellow blogger badfinger20. I was enthralled by it and frankly it remains a mystery how it isn’t more widely known. I cannot remember the last time I laughed so hard watching a movie.
IMDB: Miles, a nebbishy clarinet player who also runs a health food store in NYC’s Greenwich Village, is cryogenically frozen, and brought back – 200 years in the future, by anti-government radicals in order to assist them in their attempt to overthrow the oppressive government. When he goes off on his own, he begins to explore this brave new world, which has Orgasmatron booths to replace sex and confessional robots.
“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. I’m 237 years old; I should be collecting social security.”
Apart from being one of the funniest movies I’ve seen, it also contains one of the wittiest premises. I’ve watched a fair few Allen movies and I have enjoyed them all, but his comedic genius radiates most intensely in this. I for one did not know that Woody was such a great physical comedian. His physical slap stick comedy is brilliant. But the intelligence behind his manic goofiness in Sleeper is the crowning achievement. Despite how different things are in the future, his neurotic Jewish Brooklynite’s wry sense of humour stays the same. The movie is interspersed with occasional ragtime theme music and stepped-up film speed which despite harping back to the comedic pioneers like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, still looks and feels as fresh as yesterday’s coat of paint.
Diane Keaton who regularly appears as Woody Allen’s confidante in his movies, is more than his match here and regularly steals the limelight. It showcases her unassailable comedic talents like no other movie I have seen her in. The highlight for me and what is one of the funniest scenes in the entire film involves her doing an impression of Marlon Brando. Her performance in Sleeper is one of the most hilarious I have seen by an actress full-stop.
The other aspect of Sleeper which impressed me greatly were the props and production design. The orgasm-machine, futuristic houses, round vehicles, stiff servant gay-robots, gigantic fruits all seem to indicate we are moving towards times where ignorance revels and empty pleasure-hunting is celebrated as the correct form of bliss. It genuinely feels like something you might expect to see if Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New Worldwas adapted for the screen, with of course a twisted comedic flavor. And regarding the premise and political commentary, you could throw George Orwell’s 1984 into the mix as well.
As far as sci-fi comedies go, Sleeper is a definite winner. I had so much fun with it. There wasn’t a pedestrian moment in it. Also, there aren’t many comedies out there which can top this in terms of gags-per-second ratio and just sheer quality. The ‘rewatchability’ force is strong with this one!
I wrote an article here in 2014 about the documentary – The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy. I wrote excerpts from the documentary in an attempt to expose the hypocrisy and misleading farse that which is the famous JFK movie directed by Oliver Stone.
I’m not insinuating there wasn’t some form of cover up, but what I am purporting is that JFK the movie has done more harm in hindering people from understanding what really happened than the suppression of information has by the US Government
Just this morning as I was doing some tidying up of my post, I came across this comment from Lance (who was once a keen blogger himself) in response to my article. Lets just say his comment induced a big belly laugh which I suspect it would have done the first time I read it:
You can read the whole article here which includes the documentary – The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy.
Heath Ledger was at the peak of his acting prowess when he sadly departed from this great play we all take part called ‘Life’. He was posthumously awarded the Oscar for best supporting actor in his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight. Despite the magnificence of his performance in Christopher Nolan’s 2nd film of his Batman reboot, I remember Heath more fondly for two other outstanding performances which often get overlooked in his film canon, namely Brokeback Mountain and Candy. Regarding Heath in Brokeback, I would prefer to let Daniel Day Lewis do the talking which he does so eloquently here about Heath’s ‘perfect’ acting in Brokeback. Daniel who dedicated his award to the memory of Heath received best actor in There Will Be Blood on the same night Heath’s father accepted his son’s award:
Candy, I find worth discussing because so few people are aware of it. That could be because it was poorly received. Why the critics didn’t like it is a mystery to me. Candy is a romantic drama centered around a couple’s drug addiction. I found that Heath Ledger and Abby Cornish gave such raw and salient performances and their chemistry was alluring and authentic. The story is engrossing and the ending very poignant as Tim Buckley’s song ‘Song to the Siren‘ draws the story to a close. Below is Paula Arundell’s gorgeous rendition of ‘Song to the Siren’ set to scenes from the movie (warning some scenes contain spoilers). Whenever I watch this clip I feel very sad about the passing of Heath Ledger.
I would be doing this post a disservice if I ended it without presenting the original singer-song writer of ‘Song to the Siren’ – Tim Buckley who tragically passed away without finding commercial success in his lifetime.
As far as musical sub-genres go, contemporary-spiritual music doesn’t get its just-deserts! Heck, we might have got into the weeds professing our love for folk-rock and alternative seattle music, but when did you ever hear people spout on about ‘contemporary-spiritual music’?
As I was listening to Leonard Cohen’s ‘Come Healing‘ it got me thinking about some of my other favorite contemporary-spiritual songs:
1. Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah sung by the enormously talented Rufus Wainright.
2. Peter, Paul and Mary’s cover of Bob Dylan’s transcendent Blowin in the Wind became a huge mainstream hit in the 60’s.
3. I posit that Nick Cave’s The Ship Song is one of Australia’s greatest ‘unheralded’ contemporary spiritual anthems.
4. Australian aboriginal Archie Roach’s There is a Garden produced by Australian songwriter David Bridie might also be in contention.
When all the trees have gone,
All the rivers dry,
Don’t despair when all the flowers have died,
For I have heard, there’s a Garden somewhere…
When you hear the children cry,
When you see them die,
And Mother can’t sing a lullaby
I can smell the blessed warm spring rain.
We are young, we are old, Oh but what we had, can’t be bought or sold, And we are paying for your crimes, Oh but everyday and every way, we get better all the time.
And when everything is gone, And you’ve lost all hope, And you have come to the end of your rope, Well I believe that the flowers will bloom again.
5. Archie Roach wasn’t alone. Fellow Australian Aboriginal singer Geoffrey Gurrumul delivered some of the most spiritually powerful songs heard in the last decade. This blind aboriginal singer who plays the guitar upside down delivered this absolute treasure, Djarimirri. Soon after Elton John and Sting wanted to appear on stage with him.
I thought it was good for men ‘to talk about their feelings’?
What surprised me was how the interviewer stated his remarks have offended people of colour.
How on earth could his remarks be interpreted as a racial slur or blight on black people? His point was clearly to acknowledge his own deep psychological suffering and tribal angst in that era of his life. That took courage in my book.
In effect, his openness about this issue may prevent or dissuade the next person who is out for blood when they or someone close to them has become the victim of violence.
Instead, the ‘modern’ left pigeon-holed Liam’s reflections into their collectivist ‘group identity’ narrative. His individuality; remorse; intended message; and of course the actual victim are really of little or no consequence.
I remember a time when the ‘left’ would be lining up to give someone like that a medal. Now the the ‘modern left’ want him publicly shamed and his career effectively terminated.
Below is Joe Rogan & Sam Harris’ take on the Liam Neeson Controversy:
I am an avid viewer of science lectures especially those relating to cosmology, the origins of the universe and quantum mechanics. I found the above lecture by Sean Carroll engrossing and challenging; so much so, I felt compelled to write excerpts in an attempt to internalize the information.
Most of what is written below is verbatim, however some of the lecture is partially redacted to be more reader-friendly:
Not every piece of The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is overwhelming in its size. This canister is where all the protons come from. The protons come from hydrogen which are shaken up to extract electrons and then fill up the LHC. There are 100’s of trillions of protons in the LHC at any one moment. This canister has enough protons in it to power the LHC for tens of billions of years. Effectively, the protons are smashed together and usually a whole bunch of particles we already know about are detected. The overwhelming majority of data is discarded. A trigger is used to look for interesting events. So there is a lot of effort put into isolating the signal from all the noise.
The Higgs Boson when immediately created instantly decays. The lifetime of a Higgs Boson is a Zeptosecond. You never see the Higgs Boson in the detector. They instantly decay into something else. And because it’s quantum mechanics you don’t know what it’s going to decay into, you can only discuss the probability. You are looking for an excess number of events of a certain type. Trying to find the Higgs Boson is not like looking for a needle in a haystack, rather it’s analogous to looking for ‘hay’ in a haystack. You are looking for the statistical deviation from the predictable number of produced particles. It’s like trying to verify that there are a few more haystalks of a certain fixed length than you would ordinarily see given the statistics of haystacks.
Quantum Fields
What nature is made up of is fields. Quantum field theory is the central organising principle of modern physics. Quantum field theory is the reconciliation of special relativity with quantum mechanics. It is the best idea we have of understanding the world at a fundamental level. It might not be true. There might be better approximations, but it’s the best understanding we have now. There is absolutely no experiment which has ever been done on earth that even hints that Quantum field theory is not correct. A field doesn’t have a location. It exists everywhere. Particles have a location; and fields fill space.
The Iron filings in the image trace out the lines of the magnetic field. In between the magnet and the metal there is a field stretching out which you don’t see. The field is being affected by the magnet and the metal and they are being drawn to one another.
How does this ‘laser pointer’ know to fall down. It’s because there is a gravitational field. There is a field at every point in space such as the electric field, neutrino field, the up quark field. Quantum field theory tells you that everything is a wave in a field and when we observe vibrating fields we see particles. What ‘we’ see when we look at the world is much less than what there is. What there really is; are waves. But when we look at it we see particles.
Creating the Higg’s Boson anew
By colliding particles together you are not releasing Higgs Bosons. You are creating Higgs Boson’s anew for the very first time. How are we doing that? The quarks and gluons inside your proton are really vibrating waves and when they collide at high energy they start another vibrating wave and that wave becomes the Higgs Boson. A good example of the way this works is if you play a piano sufficiently loudly and there is another piano sitting next to you, the sound waves can reach the strings of the adjoining piano and they will begin to vibrate and resonate. So the fields between the strings are connected to one another. So that is the world as we understand right now. It contains a bunch of fields interacting with one another and transferring their energies back and forth.
The gluons are the particles of the strong nuclear force that hold the quarks together. They merge together to make a top quark which then emits a Higgs Boson and then decays into bottom quarks and bottom anti-quarks. What is really happening here is; these waves in the gluon field set up a wave in the top quark field which converts into a wave in the Higgs Boson field that in turn converts into the waves of the bottom quark field. So now we have been able to complete the standard model of particle physics.
There are only 2 kinds of fields in nature: Fermions (such as electrons or quarks) and Bosons. They are matter fields and force fields respectively. The matter fields are the Fermions which have the simple property that they only vibrate a ‘fixed’ amount. Converted into ‘particle language’ this means: you can only have one particle in a given place at any one time. The reason this podium is solid and doesn’t collapse in on itself is because the electrons in the atoms that make up the plastic molecules in this podium ‘take up space’ because they are Fermions. The Bosons fields can oscillate widely. So in particle language you can pile Bosons on top of each other. Bosonic fields describe forces acting on and between the Fermions such as Gravitons. So these 2 kinds of particles make up everything we have ever observed in any experiment ever done.
So why do we need the Higg’s Boson in the standard model?
Without the Higgs field the standard model would make no sense. What makes the Higgs field a different field to any other? Consider this scenario: So you go out into empty space in the interstellar vacuum where there is no radiation and no dark matter and you effectively make the minimum amount of energy you can have in a cubic centimeter of that empty space.
All the fields are set to zero. So if you have a magnetic field it has zero energy. If it’s not zero then it has to have some positive amount of energy. You need to put energy in, for the field value to increase. The difference between Higgs and other fields is it wants to be nonzero even in empty space, even at its lower energy configuration. If you were a particle traversing between galaxies you would be moving through the Higgs field. You would not be moving through the other fields because they are close to zero. Essentially, the Higgs field is everywhere and surrounds us all the time. The Higgs Boson particle is a little vibration in the Higgs field and it effects the behaviour of all other particles that are moving through it.
What would a Universe without the Higgs field be like?
There’s a big difference between a universe without a Higgs field and one with it. Without the Higgs field elementary particles (like electrons and quarks) would be mass-less and move at the speed of light like other mass-less particles: photons and gravitons. Fortunately, electrons don’t move at the speed of light otherwise they would never get stuck to a nucleus and form an atom. The electron encounters the Higgs field as it moves through space which gives it some inertia and mass. Essentially the Higgs field makes particles of nature slow down; join together and form complex structures like you and me. So without the Higgs there would be no chemistry, no life. An atom forms when an electron joins up with a nucleus and in turn the atoms join together to make molecules. With the Higgs we have a complete theory of the everyday world.
Food for thought
We do know that there are no new parts of nature that we haven’t already found which could exert a substantial influence over our everyday lives. There are no new particles of forces that could be relevant for everyday life that science hasn’t already found. Could there be new forces of nature? Yes, but they would have to interact with protons, neutrons and electrons. So they would be very weak; weaker than a gravity and short range; like shorter than an atom.
Mandy was certainly a trip to the bottom of the pit. If ever there was a movie which will assuredly become a cult classic, it’s Mandy. Also, if there is such a genre as art-house supernatural horror, then Mandy would certainly feel right at home.
I went in expecting an above average horror-revenge flick, but by the time the credits rolled I realised Mandy had far exceeded my expectations and was groundbreaking in what it achieved as a cinematic piece of art. Oh and by the way; lay off any previews if you haven’t seen it. Watch it roar (misspelling and pun intended).
Viewing Mandy, for me at least, was like having a psychedelic experience. The movie’s imagery consistently reflects an other worldliness; a lucid dreaming state that is set to one of the best music scores I’ve heard in a long time. And I don’t even like Death Metal, but in this movie it was superbly propounded.
Not that Mandy is without it’s shortcomings such as an underwhelming and ‘slow’ first third, but that is soon forgotten by the waves of extraordinary scenes which follow. The tempo and unfolding of story is not unlike The Shining.
Now for Nicolas Cage: I never really dug his output perhaps since Adaptation, but he risks everything here and it pays huge dividends. You will remember his crazy eyes in ‘Face-off’, well he shits all over that in this performance. Mandy highlights just how in control he is of his craft. He truly embraces this like he is the last man.
Overall, it’s a very underappreciated movie from what was arguably a relatively lackluster year in cinema…2018. I think Mandy will become one of those unheralded gems and be embraced by cine-files for years to come.
The light shines
through everything
The light is true,
the lessons learned
His song of you and me
When I was at the bottom
of the pit...----From the movie script 'Mandy'
While Paul Thomas Anderson’s film catalogue may not be expansive his movies certainly are. He hit fame and encountered some notoriety with his highly original and flamboyant expose of the pornographic industry in Boogie Nights. Since then he has continued to go on to make some of the most challenging and innovative cinema. The Master in particular seems to bottle what is so alluring about how Paul Thomas Anderson makes movies.
Observation Blogger 