{"id":38069,"date":"2025-09-26T01:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T01:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/38069\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T01:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T01:13:07","slug":"paul-thomas-andersons-one-battle-after-another-brings-revolution-to-the-very-big-screen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/38069\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘One Battle After Another’ brings revolution to the (very) big screen"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES — Paul Thomas Anderson spent about 20 years writing \u201cOne Battle After Another.\u201d<\/a> After two decades, it\u2019s never felt more relevant.<\/p>\n

The epic action thriller, inspired by Thomas Pynchon\u2019s \u201cVineland,\u201d hits theaters Friday. With a running time of 2 hours and 50 minutes, \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d wastes no time immersing audiences in its politically charged world. <\/p>\n

The revolution will not be televised, but it will be placed at the front and center of Anderson\u2019s film. The director isn\u2019t there to make his audience comfortable, star Teyana Taylor says, as he zeros in on themes of immigration, racism and systemic corruption showcased at their most absurd.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like PTA calls out a lot of things that are trying to get swept under the rug,\u201d Taylor told The Associated Press, referring to the director by his nickname. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what I respect. This is really waking, shaking and baking some s—. Like, you gotta shake the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor\u2019s character, Perfidia Beverly Hills, is a member of the Weather Underground-inspired<\/a> French 75 revolutionary group. From the film\u2019s first scene, we see the French 75 take matters into their own hands, liberating undocumented detainees, destroying corrupt political offices and launching their own form of justice, one right after the other. The group is peppered with members portrayed by musicians-turned-actors like Dijon Duenas, Alana Haim, and Shayna McHayle and notable actors like Regina Hall and Wood Harris.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, this movie is based on some of the revolutionaries and anarchists of the late ’60s, the Weathermen that were fighting for civil rights, environmentalism too at the time, capitalism, Vietnam,\u201d star Leonardo DiCaprio told the AP. \u201cBut it\u2019s about the implosion of that too, about the extremes that people go to for their own ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n

DiCaprio portrays Bob Ferguson, known in the French 75\u2019s initial scenes as Ghetto Pat, known for his knowledge of explosives and undying devotion to both Perfidia and the revolution. Together, Perfidia and Pat seem unstoppable, until the racist and xenophobic Col. Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn) sets out end the group to fuel his rise to power.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this is a movie, fast-forward, in today\u2019s day and age, where you see this sort of systematic breakdown that comes from it, if it\u2019s not done with grace and purity and consistently, the whole sort of\u2014 our revolution is dismantled and our past comes back to haunt us,\u201d said DiCaprio. \u201cSo that\u2019s what I love that Paul did. He shows extremity on both sides of the spectrum and how no one seems to be communicating or getting things done in the right way nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film jumps 16 years into the future. Perfidia has disappeared and DiCaprio\u2019s character lives under a new alias in a sanctuary city as a paranoid, stoner dad with his teenage daughter, Willa (newcomer Chase Infiniti). Everything is seemingly mundane until Lockjaw reappears, forcing the father-daughter duo on the run.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of moments where I was like, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m gonna be able to do this, but thankfully I had amazing scene partners and a great support system to kind of assure me that I was here to do my job and I knew exactly that I could do it,\u201d Infiniti said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d is Anderson\u2019s most expensive project to date and shot entirely in VistaVision \u2014 a decades-old format that’s been revived in recent years by movies like \u201cThe Brutalist.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Benicio del Toro, who plays karate instructor Sensei Sergio St. Carlos, says blending improv scenes with DiCaprio and shooting in the antique format forced the actors and Anderson to have unwavering faith in each other\u2019s decisions, knowing they only had a limited amount of takes. His character, also the head of an undocumented migrant hideaway, hopes his storyline will be an example of showcasing compassion beyond political affiliation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be pompous enough to say movies change people. But it might just open a door that leads to another door that leads to a hallway to another door,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

DiCaprio says portraying Bob Ferguson is his own version of freedom of speech,<\/a> allowing him to \u201cshine a light on certain issues about humanity and different subject matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always searching for a movie that doesn\u2019t necessarily have meaning but is thought-provoking, that holds a mirror up to who we are as a society, as people, of humanity,\u201d said DiCaprio. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what I think the heart of this movie is, is how to find humanity in a world that is incredibly divided. \u2026 It\u2019s not a film where there\u2019s a specific sort of ideology that Paul is putting into it. It\u2019s saying this is who we are, this is the world we live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Taylor, the 20-year-old script’s relevance is evidence of American history continuing to repeat itself. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t need a change; it didn\u2019t need to be updated because it was all still so relevant,\u201d said Taylor. \u201cIt\u2019s time to wake up, and it\u2019s time to shed light on the necessary conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES — Paul Thomas Anderson spent about 20 years writing \u201cOne Battle After Another.\u201d After two decades,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[31010,127,16731,146,85,8697,46,397,31008,31009],"class_list":{"0":"post-38069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-31010","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-corruption","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-immigration","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-race-and-ethnicity","17":"tag-racism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}