Paul Thomas Anderson has said that he was influenced to write portions of this story based up stories Jason Robards told him about being a Navy seaman while filming Magnolia. How they would take the fuel from the missiles and turn it into booze. Anderson heightened this story to create Freddie Quell, a man who is so full of pain that off the shelf liquor won't come close to putting an end to it. We see in the opening sequence that Quell is a man who presses his pain down with strong drink and acting out his lustful desires. It's when he meets Lancaster Dodd that he begins to find his way home, though not fully. Dodd is able to open Freddie up to the reality of his life and that his memories should not haunt him but provide him the ability to progress in life. This becomes a deep bond, nearly like father and son, in which Freddy seeks to protect Dodd by any means possible, which for him means beating anyone who opposes Dodd publicly. Anderson reveals a man with complex emotions in a way that is real and lacks sentiment.
Anderson is a master of the frame, as he allows his actors to exist in the heightened reality of the moments within his writing on screen. One such moment is when Freddie is arrested and put into a cell alongside Dodd. Providing a sharp contrast, Dodd remains still as Freddie tears his cell apart. We see that Freddie is a wild animal and the contrast of Dodd's stillness shows that these two men, though connected are quite different. They are both cage, but for different reasons, and they are together but separated by inches of steel bars. So, for however close they may become, they will never exist in the same world. This one shot reveals a depth of character through environment, behavior and time (the length of the shot). This is why Anderson is one of the greatest living director's of our time and will go down as a master whose work deserves deeper study.
The line that Anderson toes quite well is that of one man's will being paramount above all other reason (Dodd), essentially him being a cult leader and a liar who extorts people by manipulating their emotions, and Dodd being a genuine man who desires to help people. Lancaster's need to help Freddie is drawn out throughout the film and is walked in a very fine way that leaves one feeling as if they have encountered truth, but in the appearance of muck.
