Sexuality and Spirituality in The Master
Freddie Quell is the opposite – barely a man, more an animal
of basic instincts. He succumbs to impulsive pleasures compulsively. He cannot
control his sexual urges – one of the first things we see him do is masturbate
into the sea publically. He reacts to situations he cannot control with
aggressively violent behaviour that requires no intellectual processing. He
seems to disprove Dodd’s theory that human beings are not animals. He grunts
his way through conversations and lives day to day, not millennia to millennia,
like Dodd.
They are opposites when they meet. One of the most curious
things about the film is how they each transform once their paths cross. They
provide each other with the opposite of what they are.
The idea I am suggesting is that Dodd is gay. PT Anderson’s
description of this film as a love story may be as literal as that. However, my
argument is that it is one sided in terms of sexuality. Dodd is actively
working to conceal and repress his homosexuality as a leader of a community, a
husband, a father and a spiritual man in 1950s America. This also links in with
ideas about Scientology’s apparent belief that homosexuality must be some kind
of illness. From the moment Dodd lays eyes upon Freddie the sexual attraction
is unmistakable; he rarely takes his eyes off him, he refers to him playfully
as a ‘scoundrel’ and a ‘naughty boy’. Even after an intervention by his Lady
Macbeth-esque wife and family, he refuses to give up on Freddie – or simply
give him up. Because he wants him. After his release from prison, Dodd runs to
Freddie, embraces him and wrestles him to the ground where they roll with each
other and laugh. As well as being a valid way that Dodd can express his sexual
urges for Freddie, Anderson also uses moments like this throughout as a
juxtaposition; Dodd’s central philosophy revolves around the idea that we are
not animals – Anderson takes every opportunity he can to show us people acting
like them.
So Freddie awakens in Dodd a dormant, repressed sexuality.
Whereas Dodd awakens in Freddie a barely understood desire to embrace something
bigger than himself that he cannot comprehend or articulate. Freddie doesn’t
understand Dodd’s ideas – he is not an intelligent man. But something about the
way Dodd speaks to him and takes an interest in him soothes him spiritually. We
see Freddie constantly and instantly giving in to his urges – sex, drinking,
violence – he is clearly a manifestation of Freud’s Id. But Dodd causes him to
stop, just for a second, and examine himself. This doesn’t necessarily imply
that he gains self-awareness (although the ending implies that he does) but it
still allows him some form of contemplation and comfort – something that
physically and mentally he has not felt, perhaps, ever.
So what we have here is essentially the film Vice Versa
starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as Judge Reinhold and Joaquin Phoenix as Fred
Savage. But instead of concerning itself with the physical swap of two people,
The Master is about two people swapping emotional, spiritual and mental states.
Yeah, it’s Vice Versa directed by Sigmund Freud.
Didn’t see that reference coming did you?
After this almost instant attraction between the two men –
an attraction for opposing reasons – we have the first ‘sex’ scene between them.
The unbelievable Processing sequence – when Dodd repeatedly and incessantly
questions Freddie on everything from his past failures to incestuous sex with
his aunt - is treated by Anderson as an aggressive, passionate sexual
encounter. The camera shifts unflinchingly back and forth between tight close
ups of the two men over and over again until the tension is finally released
and the two men fall back exhausted into their chairs. They then even light
(post-coital) cigarettes and smoke them silently for a second, a humorous
inversion of this cinematic cliché utilised by Anderson to make it clear that
this was something more than a conversation – this was Freddie losing his
spiritual virginity and Dodd having sex properly for the first time.
Dodd’s wife Peggy is not an idiot – she may even be The
Master of the title (there is a wonderful sequence where she rants at Dodd as
he types. A first reading of the scene seems to suggest Dodd trying to collect
his thoughts and carry on writing whilst she interrupts him. An alternative
reading suggests he may be typing down exactly what she is saying) – and she
can see the two men are sharing something much more intimate than she shares
with Dodd. In the scene where she masturbates Dodd in front of a mirror, she
tells him to come only for her. In the next scene she reproaches Freddie for
drinking and encouraging her husband. By placing these two scenes next to each
other, Anderson uses juxtaposition in order for the audience to understand
something that Peggy knows all too well – Dodd and Freddie are an item, just
not in a conventional way. There is also a suggestion in the sub-text that Dodd
may have slid partly down this path before; he has had a series of marriages
that haven’t survived – could his repressed homosexuality be the reason?
One of the most peculiar things to happen in the film is the
moment when Dodd sings to Freddie at the end. If we read the film as I have so
far discussed, it makes perfect sense. Dodd sings “I want to get you on a slow
boat to China, all by yourself, alone.” The meaning here makes no effort to be
evasive – it is as clear as a crisp day. Dodd wants Freddie for himself. It
might not be love and it might not be tender, but it is passionate and lustful.
It is with a beast-like intensity that Dodd yearns for Freddie, something that
is highly ironic and another moment where Anderson decides to show us a human
responding to subconscious animalistic urges, despite assertions to the
contrary from the animal himself.
Freddie cries as Dodd sings not because he feels the same
lust, but because he senses the absolute finality of this moment. Freddie tells
Dodd he cannot stay with him and go along with his beliefs – even as an
unintelligent man, Freddie can see Dodd’s ideas are full of nothing. He cries
because being with Dodd is a comfort to him, ever since that first ‘sex’ – he
gets spiritual warmth and a womb-like protection from Dodd.
This then makes the final sequence make sense too. As
Freddie falls back into his lifestyle, impulsively picking up a woman for sex –
he comments that he has lost his erection. It is then that he starts to question
her and repeat phrases from the processing scene – the moment he lost his
spiritual virginity to Dodd. That moment was so monumental for him, so
life-changing and shot through with passion and intensity, that the only way
the can function now as a man – both sexually and spiritually – is to return to
it. A return to that comfort, that joy; the warmth and protection of the womb.
The final thing we see is Freddie curled up next to the
sand-woman, foetal, his head nestled into her.
Kind of says it all.
