Analysis: “The Master” [Part 3: Lancaster Dodd]
Like many people, I was both amazed and confounded by The Master, equal parts “oh, my God” and “what the hell”. Weeks after seeing the movie, I am still thinking about it.
What I propose to do is use the next few days to parse the story and see what emerges. Honestly I don’t know where I’ll end up. Bear with me. These posts will be pretty much brain dumps as I sort through various ideas.
Those of you who have not seen the movie yet, do not click to read more as it’s spoiler alert city. If you have screened The Master and want to engage in a conversation about what it could possibly mean, follow me below the fold.
Mentor: Lancaster Dodd
Of course, he’s a Mentor, right? He’s The Master! And Dodd certainly impacts Freddie, the story’s Protagonist in substantial ways, steering his way toward…
What? Salvation? Wholeness? Or perhaps something else.
While Freddie is clearly the Protagonist, the character with whom we spend the most screen time and through whose perspective the story is told, the movie is called The Master for good reason: Dodd is the saga’s central character. Once their paths intersect, Freddie spends most of his time reacting to the spiritualist guru.
But what if we engaged in an analytical exercise and switched Protagonists? What if we looked at the story from Dodd’s point-of-view?
When we meet Dodd, he is on a boat. About to marry off his daughter. Word comes to him about a stowaway. This stranger has a flask. Filled with a mysterious libation.
What does Dodd do? He drinks all of it.
What do we learn from this? Dodd is an experimenter. He has an appetite for altering his state of consciousness.
When he invites Freddie to stay on board, even attend the wedding, we gleam that Dodd is impulsive.
And when Dodd asks Freddie to create more of the alcoholic brew, we suspect Dodd has the instincts of an addict. Powerful urges.
What is fascinating about this is the message Dodd preaches, especially to Freddie, is that we, as humans have, “beastly” impulses, and those impulses are tied to issues arising from our past lives. Members of The Cause go through intensive training including something called “Processing” which enables a person to understand the nature of reincarnated impulses. Once understood, we can control our beastly nature.
This describes the essence of Freddie’s psychological struggle, at least from a Doddian perspective. But what we learn about Dodd from the very inception of his relationship with Freddie, those first few days where they talk, drink and go through Processing together is this: Dodd’s message derives from his own psychological struggles.
Over the course of the movie, we learn that Dodd’s current wife is not his first. Indeed he has had previous “wives” (we do not learn how many). This suggests Dodd has a strong sexual appetite, confirmed in a memorable scene where his pregnant wife Peggy simultaneously masturbates her husband to climax while whispering directives into his ear about not getting into “trouble,” straying from the marriage — at least publicly — because there is “too much at stake” [i.e., the fate of The Cause].
Dodd also has an enormous ego, one key to his success when he plays it to his charismatic best, but also prone to outbursts and dictatorial acts.
All of which points at Dodd’s struggle with his own beastly nature. I believe this is a key, perhaps the key to understanding why Dodd is so attached to Freddie.
Freddie is a projection of Dodd’s beastly instincts.
This leads to a dualistic relationship: On the one hand, Dodd believes if he can get Freddie — a self-loathing, shell-shocked drunk — to control his base instincts, surely Dodd, a learned man, can learn to control his own beastly nature. On the other hand, the power of Dodd’s base self is such he enjoys partaking it with Freddie, like an ex-smoker who enjoys sucking in secondhand smoke.
In other words, Freddie feeds two powerful needs in Dodd: The need to believe he can master his own instincts, and the need to feed those instincts.
Thus if in this exercise we look at Dodd as the story’s Protagonist, what is Freddie’s narrative function? I would suggest he is a Trickster. Sometimes an ally to Dodd [when Dodd works with Freddie and manages to control him], sometimes an enemy [when Freddie acts out and against Dodd’s edicts, giving into his beastly nature].
And like all good Tricksters, he tests Dodd: Who will Dodd become? Master or Beast?
In the end, just as Freddie hasn’t changed much, neither has Dodd. He chooses to continue to live at an everlasting pivot point between Master and Beast. He needs to feed both.
With that frame, consider the lyrics to the song Dodd sings to Freddie during their last moments together:
I’d love to get you on a Slow Boat to China
All to myself alone.
Get you and keep you in my arms evermore,
Leave all your lovers
Weeping on a far away shore.
Out on the briney
With the moon big and shiney
Melting your heart of stone
I’d love to get you on a Slow Boat to China
All to myself alone.
The temptation might be to look at this as some sort of homoerotic messaging from Dodd to Freddie. I think it goes deeper than that. Dodd needs Freddie, the song a plea with Freddie to stay. My guess is after Freddie vanishes, Dodd finds another type of Freddie to feed both of his needs: Master and Beast.
Previous posts in this series:
Friday: “The Master” and “The Odyssey”.
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