Another new deluge of photos from Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" has arrived. Directed by Anderson and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams, the picture is one of the most anticipated films left in the year. Said to be a riff on L. Ron Hubbard and the nascent beginnings of Scientology, the early screenplay, trailer and several materials from the film don't do much to counter this idea. But the creative team still insist they're weaving a different tale.
"It's not the L. Ron Hubbard story," Hoffman told Entertainment Weekly in this weekend's issue via C&V. "[Scientology] was one of the bigger movements at the time, but there were a lot of movements at that time. There's nothing about how I'm behaving or talking that echoes [Hubbard]. I thought of a lot of other bigger-than-life personalities, charismatic people like Orson Welles. Joaquin's character is like a beaten dog," says Hoffman. "No matter where he goes, [Quell] gets into severe trouble. And somehow I'm able to deal with him."
Producer JoAnne Sellar echoed the same sentiment. "People are going to have to draw their own conclusions to that aspect of the movie," she said. "[Anderson] is interested in how veterans came back from World War II. They were these lost souls who were uncertain about their future."
Well, we'll find out soon enough, "The Master" arrives in theaters on September 14th and also arrives a few days earlier at the Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals. [Cigarettes & Vine Facebook/Cigarettes & Vine]
