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The Master Director: Paul Thomas Anderson


Port magazine has just made Lynn Hirschberg’s interview with filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson from their Spring issue available on online:

The Master is not supposed to be a riddle,” he said, when I asked him if he intentionally made the film hard to embrace. “It’s not meant to be medicine. It’s not meant to be something that you have to work hard at deciphering. It’s a same old – same old story presented in a new way. It’s about Freddie and Dodd’s love for each other, what it means to be a master and a subject and vice versa. I don’t find it particularly difficult, but maybe it’s operator error.” Anderson paused and then smiled. “Meaning maybe it is my fault, but fuck it.”

Interestingly, Anderson’s next film is a Thomas Pynchon adaptation:

Anderson seems to move on faster now, although he may not be dwelling on the complex reaction to The Master because he is in the midst of pre-production on his next movie. It’s an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 novel Inherent Vice that is set to begin filming in late spring. This is the first screenplay of a Pynchon novel that the author, who is known for his literary pyrotechnics and his mysterious, reclusive nature, has authorised. The book, which is set in the late 60s and early 70s, centres on a counterculture detective that, reportedly, will be played by Joaquin Phoenix, but Anderson would not discuss any aspect of his new project. “I have always loved his work,” Anderson said, not even willing to voice Pynchon’s name. When I peppered him with questions, he shook his head no, with a stubborn half-smile.

And if Stefan Ruiz’s photographs of Anderson haven’t convinced you that Port is beautifully looking magazine here are a few covers:

Long may it continue.