{"id":332396,"date":"2026-03-16T14:33:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T14:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/332396\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T14:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T14:33:13","slug":"paul-thomas-anderson-on-one-battles-racial-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/332396\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Thomas Anderson On ‘One Battle’s Racial Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBackstage at the Oscars<\/a>, Paul Thomas Anderson<\/a> fielded the hard questions about his socio-political family action dramedy One Battle After Another<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tOne journalist asked what One Battle After Another\u2018s message was to society, given that the Oscar Best Picture winner often tells the temper of our times. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI thought we were supposed to be partying!\u201d Paul Thomas Anderson sighed and quipped at first, before answering seriously, \u201cOur film obviously has a certain amount of parallels to what\u2019s happening in the news everyday, so it obviously reflects what\u2019s happening in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie opens on Leonardo DiCaprio and Tenaya Taylor\u2019s anarchist group raiding a military controlled ICE-like encampment and freeing the prisoners. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn terms of where it\u2019s going \u2013 I don\u2019t know,\u201d answered Anderson, \u201cBut I know that the end of our movie is our hero, Willa, heading off to continue to fight against evil forces, and I think like I said in my speech, at least put common sense and decency back into fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the short session, another reporter bluntly asked Anderson about the pic\u2019s portrayal of Black females and racial politics. What\u2019s Anderson\u2019s response to those who have interpreted and critiqued the film\u2019s portrayal of race? <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI know a little bit about that critique,\u201d said tonight\u2019s 3x Oscar winner, \u201cI know that Teyana (Taylor) has talked about it a lot. I know we have the portrayal of many different characters, in particular her character who is so flawed, and unfortunately makes decisions that are detrimental to the revolution she is trying to fight.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHe continued, \u201cIt\u2019s complicated. We always knew we were trying to make something complicated. We knew weren\u2019t making something that was heroic, and we needed to lean into that, and we needed to own the fact that this woman was suffering not only from postpartum depression, but she was suffering from issues of her own, that she hadn\u2019t really reconciled with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: All The Best Picture Oscar Winners \u2013 Photo Gallery<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty dangerous thing when you start off and want to change the world, but you become selfish. You read your own reviews. That was our hero in (Taylor\u2019s) Perfidia, who becomes an anti-hero. The point of it is to set up the story of Willa, the next generation: What happens when your parents who are damaged have handed quite a difficult history to you, how do you manage that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s our story, and our story is in Chase (Infiniti\u2019s character) and her evolution.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: All The Best Director Oscar Winners \u2013 Photo Gallery<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tOne Battle After Another cost a reported net $140M before P&A. It is Anderson\u2019s highest grossing movie at the global box office with close to $210M worldwide. Some have questioned the movie\u2019s profitability, however, what Motion Picture Group chairs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy\u2019s intent was to make an original Warner Bros library classic for generations to come. Warner Bros won One Battle After Another in an auction over Sony. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Backstage at the Oscars, Paul Thomas Anderson fielded the hard questions about his socio-political family action dramedy One…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[78674,430,156,111,139,69,26870,2584,36526,15599],"class_list":["post-332396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-awardsnews","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-one-battle-after-another","tag-oscars","tag-oscars-2026","tag-paul-thomas-anderson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}