One Classic After Another

Chase Infiniti steals the show, in ‘One Battle After Another’.

Somewhere on this blog I’ve confessed I don’t talk nearly enough about the genius of Steven Soderbergh. I was about to iterate the confession, ‘cause I’m a lazy ass, by adding maybe I don’t talk nearly enough about Paul Thomas Anderson either – but actually I’ve never had to. What I will try to do today is re-position Thomas Anderson, who it felt like for the entire 90s was “only 26!”, against his peers and predecessors.

Anyone I’ve ambushed into small talk, by way of the movies, is familiar with my staples. There’s my unfortunate description of Marty Scorsese as the godfather and/or God. You may have encountered my assertion that Quentin Tarantino, for melding the sugary highs of the blockbuster with the crunchy greens of cinematic craft, is perhaps the ultimate director for the ultimate audience – one that contains both casual and purist movie-goers. Don’t let me get started on North by Northwest, or you won’t interact with anyone else at the dinner party.

So I guess … Wait, maybe it’s just hard to talk about PTA movies because they contain so many different things. Or they contain this one particular thing, a shining reward, a dazzling ass Labubu, for allowing yourself to fall under the long spell of a very particular visual lyricism. I struggle to discuss Boogie Nights with the considerable number of people in the world who haven’t seen it, because it might well be the easiest movie in the world to spoil, and spoiling Boogie Nights (to me) borders on hate crime. I’m not keen on Magnolia, but I have skips in the Strokes’ discography too, and I had to turn off There Will Be Blood – despite its sheer scale – at some allusion to a child losing their sight in one eye. (Behind the veneer of barely searchable essay content, yes, there is a sentimental softie.)

But there are barely two movies I think about more often than I do The Master, which is anything and everything I’ve ever wanted from a work of art (cults, an outward portrait of the sprawl of psychosis, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman saying magnanimous things); and Licorice Pizza, which isn’t even necessarily a classic classic, but discusses one’s early teens and the advent of sexual instinct in a way that rekindles the sparkles of teen-hood. What it was like to rehearse a personality for someone’s private and distinguished audience, at least the first time, or to negotiate hostilely with your own conniving body, or to have the moment of truth itself sneak up on you and realise mid-air you were already flying. Inherent Vice is one of my favourite movies of all time because Thomas Anderson resolves via visual logic what he isn’t interested in sharing via scripted narrative; because it captures a mythical Los Angeles I’ve only really heard about in Bret Easton Ellis novels or Randy Newman songs; because it’s so emblematic of this director’s key superpower – his ability to make you feel all over again that you’re finally allowed to watch the movies.

In a world where 55% of everything I’m marketed seems to come from the house of A24, God bless ‘em, this stood far apart from any cinematic experience I’ve had in maybe the last five, maybe seven, maybe 10 years. I know that particular studio is purposeful and realistic about the need to fund auteur-driven vehicles by also executive-producing commercial horror, and that they have to play the algorithm game to have any shot at long-term survival – to continue to take creative risks. But somewhere amidst all the repetition and system it feels like modern film-makers are gamed, or game us, into feeding a tired and redundant beast. Where ‘risk’ is all the horseshit provocations of Saltburn, or Emma Stone being exploited in a Yorgos Lanthimos movie, or Emma Stone cutting her finger off in a Yorgos Lanthimos movie, or Emma Stone getting the rest of her body subjected to stuff in a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. ‘Risk’ nowadays is the base conversion of aesthetic perfection (and, all over again, white aesthetic perfection) into sexual deviance, and sexual deviance into gratuitous violence. Do I get to yawn the 1,000th time, and if it doesn’t actually have any rooting in emotions and misdemeanors I (a mere mortal watching a movie) am actually capable of? I’m not moralising in the slightest … I’m just saying when PTA slaps you awake, with scenes that literally don’t stop blitzing, it becomes crystal-clear to me we’ve been running on cheap thrills for years now.

I did my fair share of the chores and worked hard to situate myself in One Battle After Another, half an hour in. PTA blows stuff up, and politely asks a bunch of black people to throw up their fists, but it’s not apparent what it’s all for until you hear the wholehearted, dead-serious absurdism of the bad guys. A nation burns in the background of several miscreants going underground, or broadcasting the resistance from re-purposed living rooms, or yelling passcodes into pay-phones. Having paused for exactly one breath, this film somehow develops its characters, its plot, and its commentary on modern society whilst masquerading as something you can’t even call an action flick out loud. I can’t remember the last time I sat through anything asking an endless stream of questions, and then had every last query addressed by cinematography that achieves both acute sobriety and sweet nostalgia.

There is a scene, which by now you’ve seen friends or Letterboxd patrons make some kind of gobsmacked reference(s) to. It’s exactly what separates PTA from every other active film-maker in America: his ability to uncork story with a camera. To culminate all of that kinetic energy and sideways dialogue into a setpiece you literally didn’t see coming. My response in the theatre was guttural and barely voluntary; as if Anderson had physically unlocked a new field of vision, a dimensional plane where superior dreams are immediately plausible.

I’m going to see it again this Friday. I can’t guarantee I won’t shamelessly piggy-back onto the excursions of others, every time someone at dinner brings it up. I’m sure I’ll be exhausted from work. I’ll buy a sweet and salty popcorn because I am nothing if not capable of seeing both sides. Later, long before my first stiff drink, I’m going to tell you and all your friends from hot yoga that Paul Thomas Anderson has now undoubtedly surpassed his peers – Tarantino, the Coens, Soderbergh, everybody – and even his predecessors. Even Marty. You’re not going to invite me to stuff anymore and honestly I get it, I really do.

“Have fun, homie!”