Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 2012

The Contenders:

Denzel Washington: Flight
Daniel Day-Lewis: Lincon (winner)
Joaquin Phoenix: The Master
Hugh Jackman: Les Miserables
Bradley Cooper: Silver Linings Playbook

The Master

Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

I’ve been told that The Master is at least in part based on the Church of Scientology. Having now seen it, that interpretation makes a great deal of sense. Of course, the film is much more than that, bearing a certain similarity to a film like There Will Be Blood in some senses. Still, it’s hard to avoid the comparison between the film’s fictional pseudo-cult of The Cause and Scientology, and I can’t imagine that it’s not done with a certain gleeful intent.

That said, this is a difficult film for me to judge in many ways. It’s a difficult film to “enjoy” for what it is, but is simultaneously a film that it is impossible not to respect for what it sets out to do. It would be tempting, when tackling something like Scientology even obliquely to make the film an exposé of the methods of the cult, but that’s not what The Master does, at least not obviously. Instead, it follows the fictional movement of the film through someone who may or may not be an adherent and who has his own horde of demons to quell as he goes through life.