The Master, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

[rinue]

The thing I like about Paul Thomas Anderson's films is that they make me excited about fiction in general. The characters are rounded and human in a way that is normally complimented using the term "literary," but Anderson's films are firmly films, and tell stories using interposed images. Interposed and carefully composed; I never get the sense he is using a shot simply to cover the action. The distance of the camera from the actor and the way the actor moves or does not move through the frame is meaningful and intentional in a way more often associated with Kubrick but without Kubrick's emotional distance; nobody would accuse Anderson of caring more about photographs than people. Not even when he is shooting in gorgeous 65mm.