Episode 1: The Master: I’ll Go No More A-leeching
Episode Summary
In the triumphant return of the Leech Podcast, the guys board the Aletheia and head into uncharted waters to discuss Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2012 film, The Master.
Episode Notes
After branching out into a new aspect of leech anatomy (1:45), Aaron, Banks and Evan dive into The Master’s leechiest themes (7:46), scenes (15:12), and characters (27:20). To get some relief, the guys head to the shore for Leech on a Beach (35:51). They conclude by considering the film’s medicinal qualities (39:45) and giving an overall rating -- from 1 to 4 -- of the film’s leechiness (54:00).
We’re always looking to expand our pond -- please reach out!
Series URL: www.theleechpodcast.com
Public email contact: theleechpodcast@gmail.com
Social Media:
@leechpodcast on Twitter
theleechpodcast on Instagram
External Links:
TS Eliot, The Wasteland [link]
AO Scott review [link]
Credits:
Hosted by Evan Cate, Banks Clark, and Aaron Jones
Editing by Evan Cate
Graphic design by Banks Clark
Original music by Justin Klump of Podcast Sound and Music
Production help by Lisa Gray of Sound Mind Productions
Equipment help from Topher Thomas
Transcript
Evan 00:24
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the leech podcast, the most visceral podcast. I'm your host Evan Cate and I am joined by my guinea pig and protege Aaron Jones and Banks Clark. Hey guys well the leech podcast is a show about movies that suck the life out of you. But they also stick with you. They may even be good for you like a leech. Here's the leech podcast we're excited to welcome you back to Season Two of the Leech. We have a whole slew of great leechy films for you this season. And we are beginning this one with The Master. The 2012 film by Paul Thomas Anderson written and directed. Stars Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams, each of whom are nominated for an Academy Award for this very strange, very interesting film. And we look forward to diving into this shortly. Before we do so we want to remind you that we're always looking to expand our pond. So to that end, please check us out on Twitter at leech podcast on Instagram, the leech podcast, and our website, the leech podcast.com. All right. Let's dive right in. Aaron. Tell us about leeches.
Aaron 01:45
Wow, Evan, I have so much to say. I always like to draw connections between the movie we've been watching and leeches around the world of course. And so this movie actually begins in Japan and the Pacific front of World War Two. And so I went I wanted to go to Japan and learn more about leeches. It turns out in 2021, there was a book published I think it's a children's book called leeches don't fall from trees. Leeches don't fall from trees. And the thing that's happening in Japan is that there are these Yamabe which is land leeches, which typically live far away from human civilization. But with a kind of rewilding of some areas in Japan and close to towns, they've started to have an influx of land leeches to the point that people are like surprised to look down and find leeches attached to their ankle and like their sock full of blood. Oh, no. Like this is a surprising infestation. And some children in Japan got really interested…
Banks 02:47
Understandably
Aaron 02:48
Some children got really interested because of a nature study instructor at their school, and started doing all these research projects on leeches and let me just quote the article which is coming from the Mainichi and news outlet that says they were surprised that quote, “the way children would overcome their initial disgust at land leeches to the point that their eyes would sparkle as they learn to catch them.” I just want to say at the beginning of season two, we're not the only ones interested and leeches around the world.
Banks 03:18
There you go.
Evan 03:19
Well, my eyes are sparkling Just hearing that and seeing your face again on the screen, b eing back together, it brings a tear to my eye to hear more about leeches.
Aaron 03:30
Yamabiru land leeches, everyone beware!
Banks 03:33
Is it bad that when I heard the articles name was like, leeches don't fall from trees? Im Immediately were like, Wait, leeches fall from trees? Like, why do I need to be comforted about this? I'm worried about leeches falling.
Aaron 03:46
Oh, here's what they found out. The children research this question. Because leeches they would find were like biting people's necks. Yeah. And it's not that the leeches were falling from trees, but they could very swiftly climb up people's clothing from their feet to their neck and clamp on. Like a very vampire bat sounding–anyway, they don't fall from trees that come up from the ground.
Evan 04:09
Wow. Although, you know, it's interesting. I feel like that would be a great detail in a different PTA movie, Magnolia.
Aaron 04:17
Yes.
Evan 04:22
Sorry, that was a spoiler alert. I think if we've if we're spoiling Magnolia in 23. I feel like there's the expiry date so because Well, speaking of which, that's a great segue. I want to give a quick spoiler and content warning for this film we will be talking about what happens in this movie. We will be spoiling plot important plot details. Also this film want to give a content warning it is an adult film. It's right at our for good reason. So please take care as you watch. Banks, what happened in this movie?
Banks 04:57
Oh man, fun thing about this film, you know this film was actually shot on film. Oh, this was shot on film? Yeah, I think it's like on 65 millimeter film. So that doesn't happen that often. But, you know, I thought that was pretty cool as a photography buff myself. So I'm the master you know this is kind of a story of two men Freddy Quill is Joaquin Phoenix's character and he's a World War II veteran and he is a deeply disturbed dude is sort of antisocial and awkward is can be very aggressive. So that's what kind of perverted I think he might there's sort of like a sex addiction thing happening. To say that he's an alcoholic is an understatement, I think that he kind of is a paint thinner are called like, I think he's mixing the paint thinner stuff here. He's but he's also very childlike. In some ways. He's very, in some ways, he's just sort of goes into the world playing with forces that are a little bit too big for him in some ways. And one night, he's living his life, drunkenly, and he stumbles onto a boat owned by Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character, Lancaster Dodd, I guess it's not owned by him, but he's throwing a party on it. And Lancaster is the sort of larger than life charismatic leader of a spiritual religious group, we kind of ended up learning is much more of a cult, but he's confident, self assured, well educated, but also is has a little bit of desperation under the surface. And as the plot goes through, this group moves sort of from place to place from Philadelphia to Phoenix, and then finally to London, and we also see that Freddie never is able to fully fit within this group. And Philip Seymour Hoffman, his character, and his family are all sort of trying to fully bring him in and are using him to sort of feel more assured themselves in this belief system, and he never quite fits. And it's about how that continues to progress through time. And as really, Lancaster is trying to progress his community, his struggles on sort of writing a second volume of their sacred text, his financial struggles, and part of the reason they're moving is they're kind of running away from embezzlement or something fraudulent, you never really know. And then in the end, the film ends with these two men still sort of trying to figure each other out still, at odds, you know, Lancaster ends up sort of asking quill to sort of really you like, accept me as your master. And Freddie kind of goes on his way. He just continues to not fit and just sort of be himself. But also like, he's kind of messed up and it's still in its in its own way. And I think that also, there's a bit of like, respect a little bit from Lancaster, but also like, you will be my mortal enemy from now on. But that's, that's when the movie leaves us.
Evan 07:46
Yes, we will dive into that. I'm sure in many ways, thank you banks for the summary of this film that does really put these two guys against each other. I want to dive now into our major themes, our leechy themes of this film. The first thing I'd like to highlight is actually the name of the boat that Lancaster Dodd has commissioned from San Francisco that travels around through the Panama Canal to New York City. It's called Alathea. It is a Greek word. And it's most commonly translated as “truth.” Truth. They're on the boat of truth, traveling these chaotic waters. It's an interesting word on the surface, like there's so much about what is true, what is scientifically true, what is spiritually true, what is psychologically true for many characters here, including Dodd and Freddie especially, but this word Alethea, in the 20th century, was picked up by Martin Heidegger, who had much to do with it. And he highlighted that it was not just about truth as such a reality. It was about disclosure or unconcealedness “ah-lathea,” means what is hidden. And it's the negation of that. So the opposite of what is hidden. So this is about this process by which things become revealed or unconcealed. And there's so much of that in this in this film of unconcealed, that I just want to need that theme up from the start.
Aaron 09:20
I want to I just want to jump off that for a second, and highlight that it's also a boat and it's moving across water. And so much of this film is about journeys at sea. And imagery, that deep imagery of, of water, yes, and questing across it. So I want to, I want to highlight this, this imagery of water, and birth. And there's this amazing quote from Dodd, when he's sort of like doing this therapeutic method on Friday, late in the film where he says, what we do now, we're urge you toward existence. And he means that in a lot of different ways, but this is a whole movie is actually I think, kind of a birth story where there's this kind of like unborn human who lives in an adult body, and he's being urged toward existence. And, and actually secretly, they're winking at you for most of the film, where the mother, Peggy Doddd is pregnant for the entire film, and often in ways that kind of like Freddy will be positioned next to her. And actually, she's like, pregnant with him. He's the unborn child. And then the final scene where you see her in the movie, she's no longer pregnant anymore. And he's free of Dodd's grip. And it's, I think this is a birth story. And it's a really leechy deeply uncomfortable birth story, because all of Freddie's issues about like motherhood, are also deeply sexually deviant and destructive. And like the first woman that we meet in the film is actually a woman made out of sand that Freddy is like, doing terrible things to. And I want to explore like Freddie's really fraught relationships with women. Like through this lens of birth and motherhood.
Banks 11:06
So much of this movie is fraught, right. The characters are complex, and you know, I hear like, birth story. And I'm like, maybe, but like, here's the thing, like, there's definite progression for Quill by the end. But how different is he? In some ways, it's hard to tell. And like, it's kind of a weird thing like to have to go through a cult to get to the birth, and I'm like, there's all this weird stuff. I don't know, it's, I'm going to be chewing on that one. But for me, like when I think about this movie, and the theme, the theme of denial for me was really big. And like, that is the leechiest thing throughout this movie, Dodd has this belief system and it's airtight, and he’s his charismatic leader, but he has all the answers. And he is, you know, under attack and defensive. And throughout, like, you can see his world getting chipped away chipped away, because Freddy is not does not fit. And they're looking to him to like, be this, like, people that like watching him, like can like get the community together to like, watch him progress or like be converted, or whatever, it is some breakthrough. And he just keeps on doing him. And he's like, I don't know what this is. He's like looking for a script. He's you know, he's just confused and getting more confused. And then like, he can't write anymore. Dodd is trying to write a second book, he can't write it. Right. He's like, go and like, dig up his like old stuff from the desert. And he's struggling. And there's this like process of denial of this world caving in, like this need to try and rationalize and understand. And, yeah, it's so interesting, and I'm not really sure where it goes. But for me, like, that's what kept on hitting that need to understand that need to rationalize and just trying to fit people or fit ideas within to that worldview. And Freddie quill being this character, who, for whatever reason, just does not fit, right. Like the exercises just don't work. Like he's not very mature. Right? He, he just is very in touch with his more like animal side coming out, and be like trying to really quell that in him. And I think you're right, like, there might be some maturity that happened,
Evan 13:22
what you said they tried to “Quill” that in him?
Banks 13:26
But by the end, he just still he like there's this poem at the end that Dodd writes about, you know, being you know, free and being like, his own self out without a master. And guess what, that just continues to be what he does.
Aaron 13:39
I think I've come to believe in the kind of hero's journey of pretty well, way more than I did like the first time I watched this movie, textbook leech movie. I was like, this movie makes me feel awful. Yes. It's despicable. I will never watch it again. Yes. 10 years later, watch it a second time. And I'm like, yes. Oh, my God. I think there's a lot more here than I thought once you the third time, I'm like, All right. This is Odysseus. Like, this is like, the ugliest, most twisted Odysseus I've ever seen. And here he is. If we were to look at a hero with 1000 faces, I think Freddie quell would like very strangely. Yeah. Be a textbook example. He would check every box. And I think, oh, secretly, okay, I'm gonna stop soon. But secretly, I think it's because you have to journey home to have a hero's journey. And he goes back home to Doris, his mother's house, where he had like, fled from years and years and years ago. And I think that that return is actually the moment where we see that that he's not the same person at the end. Something different has happened.
Banks 14:49
I don't think he grows I think he's still the same person. Right, he's the see the movie ends with him lying right next to that to the same sand castle lady. Like, he might be more peace with it. He might not be like, you know, as violent or as alcoholic, but pretty sure he's still drunk at the end of the movie.
Aaron 15:10
More on the sand lady later.
Evan 15:12
Yes. Okay, so we're, we're already diving into some key scenes of this film who? Okay, but my question is, what is the leechiest scene of this film?
Aaron 15:23
Oh, wow, gosh,
Banks 15:25
we just seen.
Aaron 15:27
So there's the scene that stuck with me. So I told you I watched this movie in 2012, when it came out, sort of never watch it again, the scene that stuck with me the most. It's kind of smack in the middle of the movie. And it's really unforgettable, because it's so odd. And it's the scene where they're at character Helen Sullivan's House in Philadelphia. And Dodd decides that it's time for a musical number like. And this movie is full of like strange and very significant musical choices, by the way, and one of them being the song algo no more a roving, which decides to sing in front of this rather gathered crowd of supporters, many of whom are women, many of whom are women. “And I'll go no more of Roving,” a roving, roving, and he's, he's singing and there's this grand party atmosphere, and all of a sudden, the camera pans to Freddie and we get to see the world temporarily through Freddie's eyes. And it's an uncomfortable world, because every single woman in the room and Freddie's eyes is naked, is unclothed. Because Freddy is this animal consciousness, right? He's like a lizard brain on legs on human form. But what's interesting is I think this scene, I get so uncomfortable, because it's so weird. Like, everyone's just performing this normal kind of like party game. But all of a sudden, people are exposed in a way that they don't realize. So Freddie's exercising this uncomfortable kind of power, like reaching into people's intimacy, right, and like their intimate space and self. But at the same time, this is why I think this thing is actually really leechy you secretly realized that I, I kind of think Dodd sees the same exact room that I'm shown Friday, and I'm led to believe on FirstWatch that I'm seeing the world through like, through perverted Freddie's eyes, the objective fire, but Doddd as he's working that room, and he's flirting with these women's Yes, I think he's the same person in a way. I think he sees the same room, people as this like as intimately uncovered. And he is trying to charm them out of their clothes, so to speak, every person who meets.
Evan 17:43
And I think that's confirmed by the scene following with his wife, Peggy, who basically like knows that he is flirtatious, and maybe even carrying on with other women and warns him about it and then reasserts her power in the relationship.
Aaron 17:58
Presumably gonna say that scene is there leechy is scene.
Banks 18:06
But there are so many leechy ones, but like, it's true. Like, I think that scene is like, it's asking the question about okay, who's in whose imagination are we? Is it Freddy's? Is it Dodd? And like, it's profoundly uncomfortable. But like, you know, it's an answer the question that keeps coming up over and over, like, what the heck is quill doing like, what does Dodd see in this guy? Right? There's a connection. And maybe like, they're like, the fact that there's a slippage like, there is there there is an implication that like, maybe they do or sort of like working from that same imaginative space and maybe that's part of why God is like, so enamored with this sort of strange man Freddie and as a leechy scene,
Aaron 18:49
Can I float, Can I float a quick theory that that he sees Freddie as one of four things are all of them at once? As a as a son. As a brother, as a second self. And I can't remember the fourth one… a lover, yes a lover, Yes, that's what it is actually. Like many times he has this this sort of glowing look in his eye.
Evan 19:11
I want to get you on a boat to China. I want to get you a loan on a boat to China is how the movie ends I mean, that seems there's there is deep longing there.
Aaron 19:21
I'd love to get you on a slow boat to China all to myself alone lovers.
Banks 19:32
My gosh. There's so much here in this movie. It's you know each scene in this movie really builds on the last and like that, like you know the song scene is definitely one that stands out. It's a moment where like, it's a really bold cinematic choices that went into doing it that way. But I think for me like I have a different one. Because I think it has to do with you know, I saw denial and this knee jerk nationalized and like dad's world sort of caving in on him as sort of that just really, that's sticking with me since I watched it. And the moment that I think the scene where that was most palpable for me was when they had this, like the first annual conference in Phoenix. And he's about to go on stage and talk about the book. Yes, that you're kind of wondering like, that he hasn't been able to write you just saw him like dig up his like old writings from Gosh, knows when. It's like high school, high school history papers. Yeah, exactly. There's a reason why I haven't returned to my undergrad grad school writing. But like, The scene opens, and he's like, like, in a room that's super dark, the blinds are halfway down. So he's, like, trapped in this little part of light in this, like, in the front? Yes. He's trapped in the light. He's like, created this world where he, like, can't get out of it. He has written himself into a corner. He's sort of trapped within the own system that he's in May, yes. And he's just has to find out. And so he gets on stage. And for me, this is so leechy because he has this group who've given everything right. These are the people who drank the Kool Aid with him. And he's gonna say, and he's like, I have the secret. It's last now on to the next thing he's just saying random stuff at that stage. I know he just was and then like, after that, like, you're like, Yeah, this like, this book is awful. Like, it's like you like, I haven't read it, but like already on page 13 you like, you kind of broke the fundamental premise of what we do here. And like, it's, it's amazing. Oh, like that whole scene of like, that conference is just super leechy to me, because it's that's his desperation seeping out leaching out of them.
Evan 21:46
Yes. It's also a really key scene for Freddie, I think, which we can get to, because I think it is a some kind of breaking point for Freddie. But I actually want to go to an earlier breaking point for Freddie.
Banks 21:59
Oh, well, no shortage of breaking points for that. Poor guy,
Evan 22:02
But it's the first processing session with Dodd. Oh, early in the film in the boat in the bowels of Dodd is wearing a red robe. He calls Freddy a scoundrel, and then they drink this potion together. The Freddie has made this concoction and he does processing this is this method of Dodd's group, the cause where it's a series of questions, Freddie has to keep his eyes open without blinking the entire time or else it's a quote, infringement. And they have to start over. It's a very intense process, and it eventually unlocks these really terrible things that Freddie has done, including incest, drunkenness, all sorts of difficult issues with his family. It is this laying bare of Freddie's life and Freddy soul. And I think in a weird way it it connects actually Aaron to your scene of the laying bare of bodies that Freddy imagines. But in a psychological sense. He is laying bare this person's soul who he doesn't know, right? He is revealing the reality and truth of him. And it's so uncomfortable. It's so painful and yet like, it's like, did it actually help? Freddie? It seems like there's a breakthrough and yet it's so invasive and uncomfortable. It's just leechy. For me.
Banks 23:17
Well, I think it's similar in that, like, it's stripping them of something that they thought like, there's a reason why that stuff doesn't come out. Yes. And this is a person who's going in with a scalpel and just like cutting open and saying, cool, I'm going to get this is what I believe. And I'm going to be like trying to, you know, there's there is like a evangelistic tack to all of this now. Yeah. And it's, it's a way of seeking their own confirmation in really, in some ways. Trump like re traumatizing, yes. Him through His worst experiences. And is there potential like benefit? Maybe? But like, ouch.
Aaron 23:58
I don't I'm not sure Dodd is interested in a benefit. I actually think that for Dodd, that is a way of him getting off. I think he is utterly exhilarated. Oh, I think class to open someone up and dominate them. And for me, this actually, this links up with the scene, I think, not as exposed at many moments in this film. But you can see at the end when he's when he's riding the motorcycle, and he's trying to see how fast he can go. And like ride the edge, that razor's edge of danger. And I kind of think that's a similar feeling to what God feels when he's kind of probing Fred and probing these people and seeing what can I get away with even on the stage banks like you were talking about, like, how much can I get away with up here to charm people like I'm living on a razor's edge? I could be found out any moment and that's so hot and so exciting. Yeah, I mean,
Banks 24:51
He's created a world at which he gets to be the psychoanalyst, right. It's like sort of a bastardized psychoanalysts like but that's what he's doing and he gets to sit in the chair and ask them questions with the people, right with their eyes closed and like, you know, go into their their memories. And like he's built an entire world where he's at the center of it, he is the master of that space and has an entire belief system that supports him being able to be in that space and ride that metaphorical motorcycle as fast as he wants. But like, it's funny, because like to do that he has to, like be repressing all emotion. And so like the motorcycle to me it literally and getting that. I think that part of what makes him a character is like, he's like repressing need to like have big, full blown emotions. And he is like trying to, like get that in these other weird ways. Including, like, you know, driving a motorcycle super fast.
Evan 25:46
I think I think that's right. And I think there's a way in which Aaron, you're making me see that, like, there's so many points where he is putting himself on the edge of being exposed and experiences a rush or a thrill. So I think about the scene in New York when they first get off the boat, where he gets challenged by John Morris, about, you know, the inconsistencies in his belief system or the lack of scientific proof and rigor to his thoughts. And Dodd first tries just straight dismissal ignores him, then he has bluster and confidence. And then finally, he just cusses the guy out. Right? And you can tell that he's, you know, on a rewatch, and the first time through, I thought I didn't catch it, but I was watching it again. And again, you see, oh, he's, he's, he's lost it. He's been exposed here. He actually doesn't have an answer.
Aaron 26:35
Right. And so we just like strikes with a hammer. Yeah, yeah.
Banks 26:38
It's not even that he stopped. He doesn't stop actually, with that. Like, he then has a guy who goes and beats him up.
Evan 26:44
Yeah, he gets ready. He sends. He sent his animal to go get him.
Banks 26:48
It's almost like, you externalize the physical aspect, right? Well, after the verbal abuse, let's go straight to physical and that's what? He has a guy for that. And like, he's like, oh, you know, you know, bad boy. Don't beat him up. But like, this is like, what do you expect from this guy?
Aaron 27:03
Yeah, but Freddie becomes just kind of, yeah, he's guard dog in a way. Yeah. He becomes the muscle. Like the the loose cannon.
Evan 27:12
Yeah, he becomes sort of the Master’s Id like who? Who will do the things that the Master isn't supposed to do? externally?
Aaron 27:18
Yeah, such an amazing comment.
Evan 27:20
So okay, we have gotten into two really important characters already. Maybe that's a segue for us to talk about our leechiest character. Bank? You got one?
Banks 27:32
Is it Freddy or Lancaster. You know, is it the the most charismatic and confident or like, the individual, ever struggling, but like, kind of innocent, but incredibly, not innocent Freddy? Like, who is it? For me, I'm gonna, I think kind of have to get with Freddie. Yeah, because Freddie remains undefined. undefinable in his own way throughout the film. Yep. You know, I love this idea. Like, you know, cure Oh, narrative, you know, a birth narrative, or, you know, the id like, and I'm like, yeah, these all fit but the thing I love most is like, none of those perfectly fit. Yeah, my point is he has no master he the enigma. There's an enigma there. And I think that sticks with me a little bit. And I think that needs to be because that is exactly the enigma that Lancaster cannot get over. It's kind of driven him mad a little bit. And it's so much so that like his wife, right, who's also like, portrayed by like, Amy Adams, like she's in this film like Peggy Dodd. amazing performance. But this gets piston has to leave. Like he's not gonna get any better. Like this is the last call is like, I'm out of here. And it's leechy because Freddy was the leech on Lancaster the entire film. And he just keeps on going after that. And I'm kind of curious, like, I want to know what happens to Freddy. I really don't care about Lancaster. But I kind of want to know what happens to Freddy a little.
Aaron 28:54
Yeah, I love that. As you were talking. I was just like, yes. Even Dodd vines ready. leechy This is the secret, right? In some ways. He's good for non in some ways, he causes not a lot of trouble. But he can't seem to let him go.
Evan 29:06
Yeah, I won't point out even says or maybe Peggy says he will be our undoing. Yeah. It's, you know, banks. You're maybe convincing me actually because I think for me this film like Aaron was incredibly leechy when I first saw it, and I said, I will never watch it again. And for me, it was primarily because of Joaquin Phoenix's performance, which was so physical like this hunch that he puts in his bag retablos or flared his face this all Oh, this this lamp, his face looks sort of like has not sent it. And I just I found it unforgettable and deeply uncomfortable. I didn't want to go back to it. And also what he did on on screen was so terrible, and I didn't know I still don't quite know what to make of the movie because I don't quite know what to make of Freddy. He is enigmatic in such a deep way so I I definitely see your point and I'm I'm very open to him being the leeches but let me just give a few words for Lancaster Dodd as a leechy character. Sticking with my point about Alethia, or the uncovering of what is hidden, I find Dodd’s method. When I step back and think about it, so uncomfortable and inappropriate, especially given his lack of training, his lack of any sort of like, support besides just his own bluster.
Banks 30:26
I find it so he's just he's making it up.
Evan 30:29
He's making it up. And it's so terrible and like real people's lives are affected by this. He is fraudulent. He is taking people on a ride. And I think part of what makes him leechy is that he's he is uncovered. He is revealed through the course of this film, as a charlatan, I mean, there's a way in which I'm like, is he actually the master is, is Peggy perhaps actually the master? Like there are ways in which in the film I know she's seems like a more minor character, but she does stand out in certain ways. As she's directing him. She's telling him what to do. She has a strange power over Freddie as well. And so I think like the revelation of His fraudulence is so leechy. To me,
Banks 31:07
one of my things that I thought was most interesting is at the end of the film, when he's like, in all of Freddie, because it's like, This guy seems to have no master. Yeah, right. And there's an implication there that like, you see it throughout the film, he's desperate. Right? Lancaster is desperate. And he's trapped within his own issues and his own thing, but also like, Who's his master? Because he clearly feels like he has. Yeah,
Aaron 31:32
yeah. Yeah. Freddie. I love this. This image of Freddie as the master list one and Dodd, envying him by the end, because Dodd has done everything in his power to master Freddie. And I think mastering others is the only way for Dodd to come to terms with the fact that he has been mastered and willingly Yep, he's a lamb led to the slaughter like he, he didn't I wanted to talk about I wanted to talk about Peggy Yeah, I let me introduce this other idea of leaching this. Is that sometimes a leech you don't know that it's bled you? Oh, it is. It is the hidden one. Pick, go back to your thing about the unhidden leech off and you look down in your socks bloody Oh, and I think and I think there's something there. And part of this comes back to my idea about motherhood, right? Because Peggy then is like the one living archetypal, primal mother figure in the film. And the moment where, where she comes at Dodd in the bathroom, and hits Him at His weakest point, she goes for the sex tool she like masturbates him in the bathroom, while she's giving him instructions on what he can and cannot do. So there's this weird way in which like, her sexual power over him, and her insistence on his obedience are entirely and deeply connected. That's that's a relationship where, like, who's wearing the pants in this relationship? Who, who stands over whom. And you see this also, I mean, this is why I love I've gone back and watched the the final showdown scene of this movie even more times than then I've seen the whole thing because I just love studying the dynamics of it, where Freddy walks into this cavernous room in this school that the dads have opened in England, and Dodd is seated at this kind of gorgeous table, where he's master of a room actually, now that's totally empty. What do you think is maybe a beautiful image? Yes. And she is seated, kind of in the shadows off to the side, but he almost doesn't say a word while she's in the room. And in fact that one moment looks right at her as if expecting her to be the one that leads the conversation. I think she and and she does, she's the one who leads Yeah, she lays down the ultimatums. If you're not in this for a billion years. You're not ended at all. Like she's the one demanding total commitment and obedience. And so this question like the title of the film is really interesting, the master, so I'm struck by mother as master, actually, because I think in in Freddie's life, who is it that masters Freddy, it's actually the image of the absent mother. He is like this film is mother haunted and Freddy is mother haunted and he is mastered by his trauma of losing his mother to insanity. Oh man in the quote Loony Bin as he says, and don't ask him that she's psychotic. Yes,
Banks 34:26
this is the leechy movie, I think and what do you say? Unforgettable, but deeply uncomfortable?
Evan 34:32
Yes. Yes, exactly. You know, as I'm listening to Aaron, I'm thinking there's a way in which each of those three characters has a legit claim to being the master. I mean, Freddy, I don't know if we would say that he is sort of mastered himself in any real sense.
Banks 34:48
Freddie's the master
Evan 34:52
but he's, if he is sort of unmastered does that in a way make him an individual in some kind of sense. Rest out is the fake master. And perhaps Peggy is the real hidden master. I mean, in that scene Aaron that you describe, it opens with a wide shot and she's in the shadows, you have to look for her to see her there. It's not until another cut in that scene that you see that she's actually sitting there. So she is this sort of hidden mover behind the scenes.
Banks 35:18
And the interesting thing when you think back I'm not putting these together like she's the one that announces the conference. She's the one that actually sort of says, and we'll be releasing the second book, and it makes you wonder like, if that was her giving an ultimatum yeah to Lancaster saying Guess what? To do that because like then the next thing is cool. Guess it's time to you know, on earth, the grad school writings
Evan 35:41
in his like, lovely cowboy outfits, and he's like, weird like Ronald Reagan propaganda photos.
35:49
It's time for Legion.
Evan 35:51
I think it is. It's a beach. It's more of a leech on a desert, sandy place. And I think actually we should just remember in our content morning, we probably don't want to focus too much on the scenes that are on the beaches, because they're not at a place of comfort or ease in the midst of a leechy film which is what we do on the beaches about so I'll start us off I have a few thoughts that are especially beachy for me. I think if you if you take it as a given that Lancaster Dodd is pretty full of it. On a rewatch many of his quotes become very funny. I just want to read some of them to you. He says to Freddy, when he first meets him, you will be my guinea pig and protege
36:37
so casually.
Evan 36:39
Who says that? He says to Freddy, I like cools. minty flavor.
Aaron 36:47
Rather bass taste Yeah.
Evan 36:49
And then one of my favorites. We're in the middle of a battle that's a trillion years in the making. If we meet in the next life, you will be my sworn enemy and I will show you no mercy. We also just
Aaron 37:06
talking about his so called memory of how he and Freddie first met
Evan 37:10
they work together in Paris at the pigeon post during a siege by the Russians
Aaron 37:15
sending messenger posts and balloons during the Franco Prussian war. What is happening
Evan 37:22
he literally was like I read a history book. Here's like a weird fact. Let me go prove to Freddy that I like no understand my past consciousnesses. Oh, and that'll get mastery over him again.
Banks 37:34
It's so funny
Aaron 37:35
another random moment of a beaches movie that I just remembered isn't it when Freddy is watching Casper the ghost in the movie theater randomly which I think is actually deeply symbolic of some of the like pre birth like can people talking to their dead ancestors like what is your mother telling you when you go back to the before place? Yeah, but Casper the ghost that was like really loving that lol
Banks 38:02
shout out to Casper look for Casper the Friendly Ghost in season three of the leaps looking forward to that. One of the things that I think is hilarious is so there are all these scenes where Freddy doesn't quite fit well within like the expectation. So like there's an entire like, brainwashing montage, which is like, trying to like indoctrinate him within this and like he keeps messing up. And if you just watch like Philip Seymour Hoffman's face, he's just owning it and just being like, what is this guy that he's just like this, there's this weird thing. It's like touch a window. But it's not a window that go to the wall and back and forth, and back and forth. And like he just doesn't get it and like filter out and like has gathered all these people for something like some breakthrough and he's just like, Yeah, whatever. It's fine. But my favorite, he just makes up a game. It's called like, what is it like drive to a point like, cool you guys drive? Sure, I'm sure there's been a Game Pass down in the Dodd family for generations. So it gets in and drives and then comes back to cool. This is like okay, Freddy, your next pretty girls. Cool. I'm gonna go to that rocker, that mountain. Great. And then goes and then I guess your status goes from this is working. This is this is working. This isn't working. He's not going to stop. Ah, he just gets this great. Just like facepalm moment of like, oh, Freddie. I like that ends up just being this like this whole it's just so funny. Yes. This is like the moment that are slowly breaking him as he's realizing like, oh, not everyone can be fit into this. And so I was laughing about the John desert has some great on a beach on
Evan 39:45
a desert. All right. Wow, that ends are one of our favorite parts of the leech podcast leech on a beach slash desert. All right, gentlemen, we have entered the The phase of the leech podcast we talk about the hirudo therapy. What is medicinal, beneficial salutary? What is what do we need to take away from this film
Aaron 40:10
Rudra therapy, I need some medicine here, and a place where I want to go. I want to start with photography, and Freddie as the photographer, and Freddy, as someone who, throughout this movie is an observer of life, who doesn't know how to actually be born into life, who doesn't know how to be alive? There's a moment where Amy Adams character says to him, you can't take this life straight, can you? Yeah. And it reminds me of this TS Eliot quote, where he says, like human beings can't take very much reality. And Freddy is someone who is entirely overwhelmed by reality, and probably for good reason. Because his his family history is just like, riddled with trauma. He's been a soldier in World War Two, who has killed people and says he doesn't regret that but is obviously like maimed by that experience. You see him actually, he starts the film on the beach, kind of looking like he's kind of peeking his head over the edge of a ship. And he kind of looks like a baby, like poking his head out, like kind of coming out of the womb. He's like, hacking up coconuts, which look like testicles. He's a casting sand women on the beach. He's cutting open, like the inner workings of these long phallic bombs, and like drinking their inner juice as this kind of strange, terrible liquor that will end his life shortly, I'm sure. And he's doing everything he can to sort of not be in life. And I'm not surprised that he finds himself doing photography. He's not in front of the camera, he lives behind it in a way, right? That's No, no shame on photographers. I'm just like, the bit. This is Freddie, we're talking about like, when he comes back to live a civilians life. He doesn't know how to be present in it. And I actually I read the end of this movie, where he for the first time actually is having sex with a real woman, not just looking at a woman, but somehow has found himself having sex with a real woman. And he finds himself out of that experience. But doing two things, one, attempting to practice Dodd’s own method kind of playfully on the person that he's having intercourse with, which I kind of feel like is him either joking around or becoming a supervillain I don't know. But then he, I promise, this is going somewhere, he returns to this memory of the sand woman on the beach. And instead of harming her, he's holding her. He's like resting his head on her shoulder as if he's finally kind of like, made peace with her in a way. And, and I'm seeing this as a kind of return to life of like, stepping out from behind the camera, stepping out from his alcoholism, and his past and trying to reconcile, you know, the past and the present these different forces these memories in his life. And I think I'm maybe I'm reading this in a rosy way, because I want this movie not to just be chaos, and not just to leave me in pain. But I think there's a strange invitation for me, as I'm watching Freddie have that experience of kind of finding a path out of being unborn in the past, and somehow born into your own life in the present.
Banks 43:40
Yeah, that is such as, like, I think about this, the poem, right, that Dodd says to Freddy, about, you know, this being a chance for you to find your own life for you to go out and live away without a master. And if you figure that out, come back and let us know. And like, yeah, like, I think I too, want this to be like a story of growth, because you're kind of desperate for the guy at this point. Like you want him to find some, I don't know, I think you're kind of wanting to get a break, or you want him to just find some healing, or you just want something to be happy. And because maybe it's kind of brutal. But like, I don't know, if I if I have such a rosy view? Yeah, no, I think like, for me, the return to the sand was a return, it wasn't a growth, because like he kind of laid like in the opening scene he kind of lays with in the same way, at the very end, the very start of the film. And so when it to return, I guess I see this guy as this human who's just like, yeah, he's stuck behind the camera. And he's still trying to figure out how to live life and like, not just be an observer and just try and find his own existence within this space. And maybe he's doing that a little bit better. But it's also like he kind of just got swept in some weird stuff. Right, and he's maybe a little older. A little wiser now, but he's still this guy who's going through. For me, he's the leeches killer because I can't figure out what to do with him still.
Evan 45:07
It is a kind of Rorschach test. Right? Yeah. What you think about Freddy, as you watch the film says so much about maybe what you're hoping for in a storing a positive outcome. how willing you are dealing with chaos, things like that.
Aaron 45:20
And there's a Freddie can only see one thing in the test obviously. A lot of other things you could see. So better my Freddie because I can only see it one way. I don't know.
Banks 45:35
I'd forgotten about that scene.
Evan 45:37
That was really you are a scoundrel.
Banks 45:38
Don't apologize. You're a scoundrel, you're
Aaron 45:40
an animal, Freddy, you're an animal.
Banks 45:42
I guess like in for me, like that's the hybrid of therapy of this film like is movies like this make you work for the mean? Like there cannot be just a consumption, you cannot you have to be present. And you know, Paul, Thomas Anderson, right is this director who enjoys taking his time, but also making his viewers take time, in those unforgettable but deeply, deeply uncomfortable spaces. And being there you have to find meaning there. And he's this, that effort that work, I think is just really meaningful, and the way that it makes you wrestle with what is mastery mean? What does it mean to deal with the cults of our lives? What does it mean to be dealing with issues of trauma and rebirth and Perth? And for me, like, that's the hirudo therapy. This film is just being in that space. And so hats off to Paul Thomas Anderson for making films that do that so well.
Evan 46:41
Yeah, absolutely. I, I guess I want to stick with that scene a minute as well. The final scene. He says to her, during intercourse after he's done the process on her. He says, You're the bravest girl I've ever known. And he starts laughing, which is right, Dad said that to him. After that first processing. You're the bravest boy I've ever I've ever known. And it ends in laughter, which again, was the secret. It's what he said Dodd full of it. said that was the secret was laughter and so I don't know what my favorite of therapy is. But I do. I'm wondering if in some part of Freddie's strange journey, he did learn something from the master made it a parody in some ways. But I'm kind of with more with Aaron, I do think there is some growth in him. And I do think that the the mirroring of the opening scene, I do think there's a difference in that Freddie laughs when when Freddie is has gotten clean, and just not drinking, when he's with the cars. He's, there's no laughter. He's not actually happy. But in that scene at the pub, so again, he's drinking again. But he's now with an actual woman, and he is laughing. And that that does seem to me some type of growth. And I don't know what the medicine isn't that. Except they're accepted laughter. Laughter.
Banks 47:58
I got it. This is the secret is laughter. Laughter.
Aaron 48:03
Because I want to add something, and I want to make so I want to push back just a little bit about this. Because I feel you resisting this, this narrative of growth a little bit. And I want to offer a reading of a moment. That I think is probably the crucial moment of of Freddie's his turning point toward taking the motorcycle away from Don. So we've we've talked about the Phoenix, the Phoenix Arizona conference, but it's right before the Arizona conference where I love when you said the brainwashing montage. One of my highlights of the episode where they're having them walk between the window and the the wall, and he's just kind of walking back and forth
Banks 48:45
from the Yeah. To the window to the wall. Yeah.
Aaron 48:47
Into the window to the wall. Yeah. Excellent, excellent. With that moment, what Freddie learns from that, he's going back and forth between that space, and then these conversational spaces where people are throwing triggering words and ideas at him. And he's trying not to react. And there's a moment in all of that, or he says these words, I choose to stay here. And all throughout the movie, Freddy has been running away. And when Fred is being processed earlier in the film, DA says like, tell me a word. And he says, away, away, who's going away? I'm going away. He runs away from Doris. He runs away from his mother. He runs away from his family, and the first time and says, I choose to stay here. I think he's taking control of his life, instead of being entirely maybe not, instead of being entirely mastered by the forces of his life, he becomes one of those forces. It's true. And I think he has I think that I think that allows him to take the motorcycle and to leave to go He becomes someone who can choose, he can choose now he can choose.
Evan 50:03
There's a kind of development of agency. Yeah, he becomes an agent.
Banks 50:08
I think that there is that agency is something and also you can see the difference in just the he does show greater maturity. And he is, well, what's a reactionary was a reactive individual than he is prior. I think that it's about it has to do with what causes it. Oh, right. And it has to do with the fact that he is maturing, and he is learning. But you could look at his experience within this. And say, like he's learning, yeah, because he has to adapt. Because this, this is a community that's literally just continuing to hurt him over and over again. And he's so much so that he has to run away from that. And then even, you know, he runs away on the motorcycle. And then he gets called back to London. And he leaves again, but like his sense of agency is grown. That I agree that there's growth. Absolutely. I think that it has to do with, like, from where does that growth come?
Aaron 51:18
Or maybe toward what? Let me let me ask you this. I don't think Freddie runs away. I think the word away, riding away on the motorcycle, he actually finally goes towards something for the first time. He's not just running away from having almost killed someone with a bad batch of hooch. He's running back toward Doris. And he's running back toward home.
Banks 51:42
He's running towards his life.
Aaron 51:44
Yeah. And that's what I that's what I think is the measure, you can choose to stay. Or you can choose to go back to the place where he's been needing to go for a long time.
Evan 51:54
Well, and what's interesting there is he goes back to that home and it's not home. Doris is not there. Yeah, right. She's married someone else. So then there's the allure, again, of going back to master, right? He goes home, it's unfulfilling, maybe master will hold out something for him. And actually, maybe that's the measure of how much he's grown is that he then he goes, but then he does reject master at the end of the day. Well, and
Banks 52:17
the thing that I will say, is if you know, we can talk about agency and going away, but part of it is, if there's a question of belonging, like that's something he never finds, it still doesn't quite belong anywhere, completely agree. And in that sense, I that's why I'm so curious about his journey still. Yeah. Where does he go next?
Evan 52:39
I totally agree. And actually, I guess maybe hearing y'all talk, I think the medicine for me in this film is that although Freddy does not find belonging in the community, yet, right, we don't see the full story. He has not found it. But he has come to a measure of truthfulness about himself and agency in his own life, such that he can say what he wants, and go after it in a more healthy way than he had before in non self destructive ways. And I think, you know, to come back to this idea of Alafia, and truth and what has been unconcealed, he's had to have so much pulled back revealed, stripped bare, and it's been deeply painful, and many of it much of it is not okay. And yet there's a way in which I think Freddy lives, honestly. And that he knows that he is just on this endless journey in a way that Dodd is not honest about. Dodd is creating a new school. He's always trying to establish himself in all these ways that are deeply fraudulent. And in a way this strange sailor of the seas, Freddy, is actually more honest about the strange vicissitudes of life than the master. All right. All right, gents. There is so much to unpack in this film, we have unpacked a lot, but there's still much more for another time. However, it is. It is time for us to rate this film from one to four leeches for leeches would be an incredibly leechy film. One leech? Not so leechy where are we?
Banks 54:18
I'll put it out at three. I think it's a three leech film for me. Yes. And curious know what you guys think.
Aaron 54:25
I will say on first watch. I completely agreed with three, partly because it made me so uncomfortable that the idea of there being medicine here was off the table on the first watch, which took it off the for leech category for me, as I continue to watch it. And I become increasingly bought in to Freddie's journey, which is still a very problematic and disturbing journey. And as I've become just increasingly interested in kind of the artistry of the film, it kind of pulls me down to two Because I start to enjoy it more honestly, some hovering there between two and three and I need maybe Evan, can you pull me one direction? Or the other? What can you say?
Evan 55:09
On first watch, I was probably at a four on the scale. I don't ever want to watch this again, I think upon rewatch, I'm closer to a three. It has stuck with me. And that I keep thinking about certain scenes, I keep thinking about the lines of dialogue, the characters, and I keep wondering about what does it mean it and it sent me down all these rabbit I was reading Heidegger for goodness sake. So it is it is sticking with me.
Banks 55:39
He sends you there.
Evan 55:41
I mean, that should be for at least just right there. But I you know, I even think about like it's you know, there's, I think the first 20 minutes of the film, there are so many just images that are just printed in my brain, but especially when they're drinking, like the chemicals from the missile, while Douglas MacArthur is like praying for peace after World War Two like it, like that image is an image of America in the 20th century that that works on just within the nature of the film and the story itself. But it's also just like a pullout, like, whoa, we should unpack that historically, there is so much just in that one image. And I think for for me, this film is just filled with those images and scenes that make me uncomfortable, but stick with me, and I think do teach me things. Although the hero therapy is not as direct or is clear to me as maybe there will be blood or some other movies. This one has stuck with me and will continue to stick with me for a long time. So I'm a three leeches
Aaron 56:40
I think and that's actually what what does it for me as well like thinking about the element of this film as also a reflection on World War Two and mid century America. I think that brings me back up to three. I think that makes the film more significant than just Friday story.
Banks 56:57
Wow. A rare agreement on three.
Evan 57:00
Yeah, that. And you know, honestly, we didn't even talk about I think this film is in conversation with a lot of other films to all sorts of war films. You know, the story like usually it's a Vietnam movie where someone comes back destroyed by the war. This is World War Two, right, the good war, quote unquote, like the noble war, and this this guy comes back deeply destroyed by so I mean, I think he's echoing Terrence Malick Thin Red Line bunch of other films like there's so much happening in this movie.
Aaron 57:25
Right? Right. And I think he's also probably dooming himself to not being a not winning Best Picture for this right because he's not going to tell the world war two story anybody wants to see and hear in the American audience.
Banks 57:38
But what a story it is. Yes, stories that I'm gonna have to think about it even though I don't necessarily want to, but it might be good for me, but it might be good.
Evan 57:48
To quote Lancaster, Dodd at the end of his daughter's wedding. We have fought the day. And we won. We won. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the leech podcast. Evan cave. This is Aaron Johnson. Thanks, Clark. Thanks for being with us. If you would like to reach out to us on Twitter. We are at leech podcast, and on Instagram the leech podcast please send us your thoughts your feelings gifs of Philip Seymour Hoffman and others from this movie. Any other thoughts you may have, we'd love to hear from you. And we will look forward to seeing you again on the Leech. This episode was hosted by Evan Cate, Banks Clark and Aaron Jones editing by Evan K. Graphic designed by banks Clark Original Music by Justin clump of podcast sound and music production held by Lisa gray of sound mind productions and equipment help and consultation from Topher Thomas.
Aaron 58:53
“I'd love to get you on a slow boat to China, all to myself alone”–lovers!