Review: PTA’s Master-Piece & The Cult of Corporate America
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
George Orwell
“The victim of mind manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free.”
Aldous Huxley
“Thou shalt be free
The Tempest
As mountain winds: but then
exactly do
All points of my command.”
I finally got round to watching The Master which I’d somehow missed and yes, it is a masterpiece. On the face of it, a WWII veteran with PTSD struggles with the transition to civvy street, drifting from job to job and succumbing to serious alcoholism, before being taken in by a manipulative cult leader who examines people’s past lives. (Loosely based on the infamous L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology.)
PTSD is a major theme throughout the film, which borrows heavily from John Huston’s Let There Be Light. This groundbreaking documentary from 1946 exposed the truth about the ‘shell shock’ experienced by US army veterans and was suppressed by the Government until as recently as the 1980s.
As PTA himself has emphasised, this film isn’t really about Hubbard and Scientology – that’s just a jumping off point. As a Hollywood director, he has a vested interest in keeping them on side. He’s sure to rub shoulders with those in the organisation, and has in fact worked with Tom Cruise – arguably its most famous member.
So what is The Master about? The Rorschach inspired marketing materials give us a clue – it could be about a lot of things, depending on your past experience (or lives). Daddy issues, latent homosexuality, the human need for community and belonging, lost or unrequited love, Prospero and Caliban.. the list goes on.
It reminded me of the cult of Corporate America, bringing back memories of my own ‘past lives’ working for American corporations. In many ways, it was a lot like joining a cult!
Golden Handshake or Poisoned Chalice?
A Charismatic Leader
Brainwashing
Once You Leave, You Can Never Come Back
So what’s the ultimate message? Scientology’s exploration of historical past lives as portrayed in the film is just a metaphor for confronting our real, lived past. How helpful is it to confront and relive past trauma? Will it heal us, or hurt us more? How far do we really recall the past truthfully, and how much is essentially our imagination? How do we get over trauma and move forward? It doesn’t resolve any of this of course, but don’t the best films ask more questions than they answer?
