The Master

i think i see PTA’s work as self referential, bit of a snake eating itself. (at least that’s how i contextualize it ?) i don’t think i’ve been able to appreciate everything he’s done without the whole body of work as context. at the core of his films are (usually two) people that are compelled to each other. there’s just this pull. this power of connection. it can be rooted in love and/or destruction, but people find their way together somehow. lancaster tells freddie throughout the movie that he seems so familiar to him and that he knows him from somewhere. at the end: “If we meet again in the next life, you will be my sworn enemy” maybe not the next life, but in the life/universe directly before, lancaster and freddie could have been daniel plainview and eli. maybe there are remnants of connection throughout these ‘lifetimes’. when freddie leaves lancaster’s gravity in england, their lifetime together has come to an end. but he regurgitates that specious psychobabble from lancaster that was used on him on this winn manchester. there’s a piece of dodd with him that he’ll carry forever, in ways not understood to himself maybe, but it’s felt. that connection was there. sometimes you connect to new people and rebuild with the remnants of those in your past life, in your past gravity. your past friends, loves, masters.