With 13 Academy Award nominations, One Battle After Another is the talk of Hollywood. But what is it actually trying to say?
鈥淚t has so many different elements that director Paul Thomas Anderson juggles really well,鈥 said Jeff Jackson, assistant professor of the practice in English. 鈥淚t hearkens back to a time when you could make big movies that were really smart for adults and that dealt with contemporary issues in a way that wasn鈥檛 an insult to intelligence.鈥
However, one detail from the movie鈥檚 broad canvas caught Jackson鈥檚 eye.
About an hour into the movie, the protagonist played by Leonardo DiCaprio leans back on his sofa to watch a movie. He chooses the black and white 1966 classic, The Battle of Algiers. A scene from the film flashes across the screen before Sgt. Lockjaw, the villain of One Battle, blows open the front door and kicks off the film鈥檚 90-minute sprint to the finish.
According to Jackson, the brief appearance by Algiers fits perfectly in One Battle, adding one more layer to the movie鈥檚 revolutionary politics.
Jackson shared his thoughts on the two movies below:
How would you describe One Battle After Another to someone who hasn鈥檛 seen it?
It鈥檚 a timely political thriller and father-daughter drama, full of remarkable action scenes. Stealthily, it鈥檚 also a startlingly radical movie. Director Paul Thomas Anderson drops you alongside the revolutionaries in the French 75 from moment one of the movie, as they free prisoners of the U.S. government and plant bombs around California.
You don鈥檛 get an origin story or why they are so fervent. The movie just assumes that you鈥檙e going to be on their side through this story. That鈥檚 a really subtle, radical move to make that I don鈥檛 think I鈥檝e seen almost any other Hollywood film make, especially not one with a budget this big.
And that鈥檚 why it makes so much sense for Bob Ferguson to relax by watching The Battle of Algiers, right?
Yes, Algiers is a true classic that has been embraced by both hardcore leftist and right leaders around the world. It has basically become a manual or a textbook. It was used by the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1970s. It was used by the Irish Republican Army. During 鈥淭he Troubles,鈥 it was seen as a film of insurgency.
But it works for both sides. The governments in Chile and Argentina used it as a reference for how to effectively suppress their populations.
What makes The Battle of Algiers so powerful?
There are a couple things: First, the Algerian government, which had recently won its independence from France, wanted to make a movie that showed the world the atrocities committed by the French during the battle for independence. They gave the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo incredible resources. They let him shoot in Algiers 鈥 blowing up real buildings 鈥 and provided countless extras so the film looks incredibly realistic. It鈥檚 sometimes mistaken for a documentary.
Most crucially, they gave Pontecorvo artistic freedom 鈥 and he responded with a movie of incredible moral complexity. He showed the Algerians killing French civilians in cafes as part of the liberation struggle. He also shows the brutal methods of French colonialism, which involved widespread repression, including mass killings and torture of Algerian civilians.
I screened Algiers for students in the fall and the movie still hits hard. The scenes that show dead children being carried out of rubble is shocking in its frankness and its timelessness.
But One Battle is a different kind of movie, right? Its tone is much more varied.
Absolutely. One Battle has more humor, sentiment and genre tropes. But Algiers is morally complicated in a way that Hollywood does not allow Paul Thomas Anderson to be. If you make a $130 million movie, you鈥檝e gotta have a happy ending.
The surprisingly saccharine ending of One Battle is almost a denial of everything that came before it. Somehow the daughter going to a protest is gonna solve these problems? And you鈥檙e adding a Tom Petty needle drop to feel good about that?
It鈥檚 tempting to read the ending like a 1950s Hollywood film directed by Douglas Sirk, where he wasn鈥檛 allowed to give the ending he wanted, so he went way over the top, winking at the audience.
