Five minutes into his movie is all it took to realize I was dead wrong. <\/p>\n
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Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie \u201cOne Battle After Another.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Warner Bros. Pictures)<\/p>\n
\u201cYou really can\u2019t resist putting in weird s\u2014 in your movies, can you?\u201d I tell Anderson several weeks later at a Hollywood hotel where we finally sit down to talk about the film over a vegan lunch. <\/p>\n
The director lets out a sustained laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, thank you,\u201d he says, after collecting himself. \u201cI think that\u2019s a compliment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it surprises audiences when it happens,\u201d Anderson, 55, says of Perfidia\u2019s confrontation with Lockjaw. \u201cIt\u2019s a good feeling because we\u2019ve got a real intense vibe going there for a second, some sneaking around the edges. We don\u2019t really know what\u2019s going on. And then suddenly, out of the blue, we\u2019re in boner world. And you\u2019re like, \u2018Wait. We\u2019re doing boners too?\u2019 And it\u2019s like, \u2018Yeah, we\u2019re going to do boners.\u2019 You have to let the audience know, hopefully in the first act, what the parameters of the playpen are going to be. And that was a clear signal that we\u2019re setting up a real wide berth.\u201d<\/p>\n
The parameters of this film\u2019s particular playpen also accommodate a sweet father-daughter story when, 16 years after all that initial action, we\u2019re reintroduced to Bob, now a disillusioned burnout residing in Humboldt County with teenage daughter Willa (newcomer Chase Infiniti) and paranoid that the past \u2014 namely Lockjaw \u2014 will show up at his door someday with a battering ram.<\/p>\n
The movie also sports absurdist comedy and electrifying action scenes, as well as the tone and imagery (immigration raids, angry protests, surveillance helicopters) we routinely see played out today on news channels and social media. It\u2019s operatic and intimate, haunting and hilarious. It could be his masterpiece. It\u2019s no stretch to say that it belongs alongside Anderson\u2019s best films: \u201cThere Will Be Blood,\u201d<\/a> \u201cThe Master\u201d<\/a> and \u201cBoogie Nights.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n We\u2019re sitting down a few days after the movie\u2019s world premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre, which came on the heels of another screening at the Directors Guild that had Steven Spielberg interviewing Anderson afterward. (\u201cWhat an insane movie, oh my God,\u201d the \u201cJaws\u201d<\/a> director began.) Anderson is feeling overwhelmed by the generous response. It\u2019s enough to lift him off the ground and keep him afloat for awhile.<\/p>\n \u201cThis story could be told 20 years ago,\u201d Anderson says of \u201cOne Battle After Another,\u201d unconvinced it\u2019s the movie of our current moment. \u201cThis story could be told in the Middle Ages. You could take this story and put it in space.\u201d<\/p>\n (Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n \u201cI probably shouldn\u2019t say this, but here\u2019s the reality that is humbling and keeps you from floating off into space,\u201d Anderson tells me. \u201cAt one of those screenings, I did look over and there was a woman in the back row who was dead asleep. So you go, \u2018Huh. I guess we missed one.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n That woman was very much an outlier. In theater lobbies and receptions following last week\u2019s screenings, conversations were animated and occasionally heated, much of the talk focusing on the movie\u2019s depiction of white supremacists (there\u2019s a secret society called the Christmas Adventurers) and military roundups of immigrants in the sanctuary city where Bob and Willa live. Benicio del Toro<\/a> plays Sensei Sergio St. Carlos, Willa\u2019s karate teacher running something of an underground railroad for the town\u2019s refugee population. Parallels intended or not abound. <\/p>\n Is \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d the movie for our current moment? Anderson isn\u2019t quite convinced.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the mistake, isn\u2019t it, to think that anything has changed,\u201d he says. \u201cThis story could be told 20 years ago. This story could be told in the Middle Ages. You could take this story and put it in space. It\u2019s like the line Perfidia says in the movie: \u2018Sixteen years later, and the world has changed very little.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest mistake I could make in a story like this is to put politics up in the front,\u201d Anderson continues. \u201cThat has a short shelf life. To sustain a story over two hours and 40 minutes, you have to care about the characters and take those big swings in terms of the emotional arcs of people and their pursuits and why you love that person and why you hate this person. That\u2019s not a thing that ever goes out of fashion. But neither does fascism and neither does people doing bad s\u2014 to other people. Unfortunately, that doesn\u2019t go out of style, either. That\u2019s just how we humans are.\u201d<\/p>\n True enough. Still, that shot of the military SUV convoy on its way to an immigration raid \u2014 \u201cExpect the local population to be sympathetic to the criminal organizations we\u2019re targeting\u201d we hear at a briefing \u2014 feels a little too familiar. <\/p>\n \u201cI know,\u201d Anderson responds. \u201cBut there\u2019s a nice line when Leo says to Benicio, \u2018I\u2019m sorry I brought all this s\u2014 to your doorstep.\u2019 And Benicio says, \u2018Tranquilo. Tranquilo. We\u2019ve been laid siege for hundreds of years. Don\u2019t get selfish.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not trying to diminish what\u2019s happening right now,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cBut I\u2019m also trying to say that what\u2019s worse is that it\u2019s not going away. You could look back 20 years and find the same images. There are articles in the L.A. Times from 100 years ago showing this kind of stuff. The selfish part is for us to think, \u2018Boy, look at what\u2019s happening. I\u2019ve never seen this before.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Paul Thomas Anderson, left, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio del Toro on the set of \u201cOne Battle After Another.\u201d<\/p>\n (Merrick Morton \/ Warner Bros. Pictures)<\/p>\n Anderson is happy to own the personal connection he feels to \u201cOne Battle\u2019s\u201d story, loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon\u2019s 1990 novel \u201cVineland,\u201d<\/a> that he\u2019d been nibbling around the edges for a good 20 years, one that kept \u201cnagging\u201d at him. The main point of entry is obvious. Anderson has four children with his wife, Maya Rudolph: daughters Pearl, 19; Lucille, 15; and Minnie Ida, 12; and a son, Jack, 14. That provides a lot of \u201cammunition,\u201d he says, for the story. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re a dad and you\u2019re making a movie about a dad who\u2019s desperately trying to find and protect his daughter, you are going to feel that deeply,\u201d Anderson says.<\/p>\n But that wasn\u2019t all of it. Twenty years is a long time to spend thinking about a movie. What kept nagging at him?<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a good question,\u201d Anderson answers. He stops and considers. \u201cWhat nagged at me was getting the story right. Maybe I was enjoying the process too much. The risk if you work on something for a long time is that it gets past its due date.\u201d Anderson did reach a point several years ago when he thought he was ready and started looking for a young woman to play Willa. Nothing came of it. <\/p>\n \u201cI mean, the movies, they\u2019re all personal, but boy, you know, sometimes you spend two years, sometimes you spend five, sometimes you spend 10,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cBut you\u2019ve got one life and you just committed a serious chunk to it. That makes it pretty f\u2014 personal.\u201d His last movie, 2021\u2019s \u201cLicorice Pizza,\u201d the loose and thoroughly lovable coming-of-age story<\/a> set in a Nixon-era San Fernando Valley, came quickly, though like \u201cOne Battle After Another,\u201d he had been daydreaming about it for years.<\/p>\n If you want to get a little cosmic about it \u2014 and Anderson is fine with that because he does believe in the movie gods \u2014 he was simply waiting for Chase Infiniti to be born. The 25-year-old Infiniti made a name for herself last year in the limited series \u201cPresumed Innocent,\u201d<\/a> playing Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Negga\u2019s daughter. \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d is her feature film debut. <\/p>\n Chase Infiniti in the movie \u201cOne Battle After Another.\u201d<\/p>\n (Warner Bros. Pictures)<\/p>\n \u201cFinding Chase made it inevitable,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cFinding Chase made it: \u2018Game on. There\u2019s no stopping.\u2019 I found the girl who\u2019s the most important character to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Why do you feel that way about Willa?<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, everybody in this movie is crazy for the most part,\u201d Anderson answers. \u201cBob\u2019s completely unreliable. Perfidia is completely unreliable. Lockjaw is nuts. Deandra is semi-reliable, soulful, trusting. But she\u2019s lived her life. And here you have this golden egg. I think when Chase comes on screen, you think: Finally, somebody I can trust and invest in.\u201d <\/p>\n What did your daughters think of the movie?<\/p>\n \u201cThey love it,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cThey\u2019re very close with Chase now.\u201d He pauses. \u201cSome of them don\u2019t really love the blood and the guts that come up in the movie. They\u2019re a little bit young for that.\u201d <\/p>\n Has Minnie Ida seen it? She\u2019s 12 now. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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