Imperfection, loneliness, redemption. If there is something that strikes in observing the artistic path of Paul Thomas Anderson, director of the film A battle after the other (One Battle After Another), these three words return insistently.
Someone might think that the themes related to victimism, loneliness and suffering have always come to the world of Hollywood – and not only – because they are fruitful and certainly functional. If on the one hand the purpose of the film – adaptation of the novel Vineland – seems to recall a critical reflection on contemporary American society typical of the Oscars, and on the cultural reasons that have crossed it from the end of the 20th century to today, on the other it suggests an existential path that could not be more ferociously current, nor more intergenerational.
Therefore, A battle after the other, a film that incorporates an exceptional cast (Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Teyana Taylor), can be observed – through his triumph with six statuettes in the night of the stars – already starting from his title, with different eyes.
Leaving out of the fascinating perimeters of the cinematographic set, and focusing on the most rational and immense spaces of historical reality, the Western society – which ended the wave of post-war productive drive – has for decades now tended to reflect in what is suffered, sacrificed, incomprehensive: an unexpected mirror where models of consumption, appearance and constant search for success feed on our energies without apparent possibility.
A western crisis started in the early 2000s with the bubble of subprime mortgages, accentuated following a global pandemic and then amplified by recent geopolitical tensions, and finally a technocratic model that sees in artificial intelligence the emblem of an instrument at the moment not yet regulated on the humanistic plane, are only the last warnings of a constantly evolving world. Society, relationships, work, cannot at the moment, find a balance that can guarantee the proper coexistence between human beings and computing systems: a battle that the academic worlds of psychology, philosophy and religious, must continue to undertake in order to provide such a contribution to humanize the state of things.
In this context, day after day, challenges of a different nature but united by the need to fight happen with a disarming speed. And if the title of the film sounds like a universal exhortation, returning to the perimeters of the film set, one cannot avoid further reflection, closer to us: the battle that Italian cinema perpetually fights to avoid fading on the margins of the global imagination. In years when actresses with international recognition such as Sabrina Impacciatore – applauded and nominated for the Emmys for The White Lotus – or Matilda De Angelis, also established in the American serial scene, have demonstrated talent and versatility, the Paese system still seems unable to transform these appearances into a real cultural revival.
It is an almost allegorical condition: talents that shine beyond the end but that, in the night of the Hollywood stars, struggle to make a breach as a collective symbol of a national movement. It advances, attempts, resists – but often branculating in the dark, as if there was a vision capable of accompanying the individual success towards a structural affirmation. This is also a battle after another.
So, if for Anderson’s appearance and for the not always lucky protagonist of the Oscar DiCaprio’s candidacy the success will be amplified by the sociopolitical intent of the work that seems to aim at the White House, it is desirable that the movie’s warning – or at least its title – also serves as encouragement to contemporary social models: nothing is due, everything is to be conquered through the three S (strength, feeling and above all study).
On the other hand, Bob Ferguson – interpreted by Leonardo DiCaprio – reminds us in the film: “Freedom is a funny thing, isn’t it? When you have it, you don’t appreciate it. When you lose it, it is already too late”. How much more necessary to live in a better world is to be able to watch the sunset while still feeling free.
Congratulations to Anderson’s partner, who after so many battles is for the first time winner in a dream Oscar night, and good battle for all of us’s dreams.
L’articolo A battle after another: from the Oscars a life warning comes from IlNewyorkese.
