Five films to see before a battle after another, according to PT Anderson

PTA recommends some cinema classics to better wait for the release of its new feature film with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Impatient to see One battle after anotherthe last Paul Thomas Anderson? The new film of the director of Boogie Nights et There Will Be Blood Go out in French theaters on Wednesday and criticism is rave (we first). What could be better to wait than (re) see some classics of the cinema recommended by PTA in person?

Invited this month by the American film channel TCM, the filmmaker has scheduled a cycle of five films related to One battle after another. No sources of inspiration strictly speaking, but films that share more or less direct thematic and/or aesthetic connections with your own film. Inspired by the novel Vineland de Thomas Pynchon, One battle after another Tells the odyssey of an ancient far-left activist leaving in search of his daughter kidnapped by a racist soldier.

And the five films in question are:

At the end of the race (Running on EmptySidney Lumet, 1988)

The portrait of a family of activists from the 1960s and 70s, on the run since exploded a Napalm factory to protest against the Vietnam War about fifteen years ago, and their relationships with their children condemned to a life of wandering. This Sidney Lumet film had gone rather unnoticed at the end of the 80s, but its reputation only growed over time. Its thematic links with One battle after another (The reflection on commitment, on the inheritance of political violence) are obvious, even if PTA preferred to play in its film the map of the Azimuted Action rather than that of elegance to the Lumet.

Midnight Run (Martin Brest, 1988)

An accountant and a bonus hunter are prosecuted by the FBI and the mafia. Buddy (and Road) Movie with Robert de Niro and Charles Grodin, very very cult (especially in the United States). “”A masterpiece “according to Leonardo DiCaprio. PTA said recently in Esquire Having it “Three or four times “ the week of its release in 1988 and dream since that time of “Make such a funny film “mixing action, adventure, chases, shootings and comedy. Mission accomplished – even if, without wanting to offend Martin Brest, One battle after another et Midnight Run Do not completely box in the same category.

French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971)

No doubt quoted by PTA for its legendary chase. Those ofOne battle after another Also are to drop your jaw.

The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)

Ultra-realistic chronicle of the Algerian national liberation war, and the bloody struggle between the French army and the FNL members for the control of the Algiers Casbah. So realistic that Pontecorvo’s film will be studied and dissected as much by the anti-imperialist movements of the 1960s and 70s as by the strategists of the Pentagon, when the army of George W. Bush was brought to Iraq. Cited directly in One battle after another As a bedside film by the former out-of-phase activist played by DiCaprio.

The prisoner of the desert (The SearchersJohn Ford, 1956)

Summary by IMDB of the Western masterpiece of John Ford: “A veteran of the Civil War is embarking on an expedition aimed at delivering his niece of the Comanches”. Replace “veteran of the Civil War” by “ex-revolutionary to the picking up”, “niece” by “girl”, and “comanches” by “white supremacist soldiers”, and you have roughly the pitch ofOne battle after another. Without forgetting that The prisoner of the desert is one of the glorious representatives of the Vistivision format, invented in the 1950s to compete with the Cinemascope, which then fell into disuse, but brought up to date by the new PTA, in the wake of the Brutalist de Brady Corbet and while waiting for Howl d’Emerald Fennell.