The more we get these unnerving teasers for Paul Thomas Anderson‘s upcoming film The Master and the more we see the gorgeous photography, the unhinged performances and an unsettling score by Jonny Greenwood, the more excited everyone should become. Secretly leaked out online early this morning with no announcement at all, there is something big brewing around The Master and now we have another extraordinary trailer for you to look at.
While Joaquin Phoenix‘s Freddie Quell is again front and centre in the trailer’s imagery, the voice belongs to that of Philip Seymour Hoffman as the eponymous Master, Lancaster Dodd. We get our first look at his character here as well as Amy Adams, who plays Mary Sue Dodd, the wife of Hoffman’s character.
Is the film about Scientology? It’s hard to tell from this trailer alone but the voice and the look of Hoffman’s character is undeniably close to the way L. Ron Hubbard appeared. There is also a moment at the very end of the trailer where we hear Hoffman asking questions which are kind of a similar to the sort of questions Scientologists ask during E-meter tests.
The way the film looks to be framed and edited, with a single camera and very long takes, suggests we are going to get a visual (and possibly thematic) brother to There Will Be Blood. That was shot in a very similar style, allowing the performances to move around in static frame with little to no coverage thereby making the film feel very natural.
It looks fascinating and I simply can’t wait to see it.
The Master opens October 12th, 2012.