“One Battle After Another” offers up another imaginary world, though one that, despite all the nonsense names and flights of fancy, looks and feels more like life than not. Not everything fits together seamlessly in the film, which only strengthens its realism; after watching it twice, I am still sifting through its ideas and its images, still thinking about power and race and sex, and whether Perfidia really gets her due, as I continue savoring the high that the movie produces. There are few filmmakers working today who are as skilled as Anderson, and fewer still who could — with the image of a heavily pregnant Black revolutionary firing a machine gun — create a cry from the heart that’s also a crystallizing image of resistance. It’s one for the ages, wild and thrilling, and every bit as American as the red, white and blue.
‘One Battle After Another’ Review: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Rallying Cry
The director, at the height of his powers, delivers a startling, present-day American epic, with Leonardo DiCaprio as a washed-up radical and doting dad.
Leonardo DiCaprio rises to the buffoonish occasion in “One Battle After Another” as the glorious fool Bob Ferguson. Credit...Warner Bros.
Many years later, Bob is living under an assumed name in the sleepy town of Baktan Cross, raising a now teenage Willa (Chase Infiniti, in her film debut). Paranoid and often stoned, Bob warns a skeptical Willa to stay alert in case of attack, and he’s right to worry: Lockjaw is still hunting them, convinced that their capture could gain him entry into a secretive, well-heeled group of white supremacists who improbably call themselves the Christmas Adventurers. When the colonel does eventually bring all his firepower to bear on Baktan Cross, Bob must save Willa with the help of her resourceful karate instructor (Benicio Del Toro) as well as the reappeared Deandra.
In mid-August, the six primary cast members gathered on a video call to discuss the film with me. (Taylor, who was on vocal rest for a noncancerous growth on her vocal cord, sat in but sent responses via email.)
Penn said that even at the script stage, “One Battle After Another” caught him by surprise for Anderson’s willingness to push more than a few societal hot buttons.
“When I read it, I read it blind — Paul hadn’t told me anything about what it was about,” Penn said. “I had just come out of a shower and I was going to just grab a couple of page views before I got dressed and I ended up slinking to the floor naked and dripping, laughing, because he went there.”
有些人會堅稱是本世紀的《瘋狂麥斯：憤怒道》（Mad Max: Fury Road），有些人則以為上世紀1970年代的《警網鐵金剛》（Bullitt）或是《霹靂神探》（The French Connection）才是後世難以無法的汽車追逐經典。我自己則私心以為《007：量子危機》（Quantum of Solace) 的開場至少應該是本世紀最偉大的汽車追逐場景。
該片拍攝於2007年好萊塢編劇大罷工期間。男主角 Daniel Craig 和導演 Marc Forster 是罷工規定下唯一有資格在拍攝現場修改台詞或劇本的人。但兩人都沒有這種編劇才華，只能以製片身份拼命加碼壯觀的特效場面，來填補行不通又改不得的劇本。比如高難度的高速汽車追逐。
三台攝影機、三台放映機的昂貴難題在1年後被好萊塢片廠 20th Century Fox 推出的 CinemaScope 克服，直接改用變形鏡頭壓縮影像，再於放映時拉伸到超寬銀幕之上。不過沒能解決的是電影院仍然必須購置昂貴的新放映設備，而且許多導演和攝影師對於變形鏡頭導致畫面邊緣出現失真和模糊的缺失非常不滿意。
半年或者一年前，業界仍在猜測為何導演 Paul Thomas Anderson 要堅持採用這種古老格式拍片。大家可能還能理解去年底的《粗獷派建築師》（The Brutalist） 選用 VistaVision 是因為它的鏡頭和構圖特色更適合用來描繪建築場景。但像《一戰再戰》 這樣場景不斷變化的電影為什麼偏要選用被淘汰60多年的過時格式，所有人幾乎都毫無頭緒。純粹的膠卷文藝復興動機似乎不足以回答這個問題。
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