Planning on seeing Paul Thomas Anderson‘s “One Battle After Another” in theaters multiple times? You’re in good company, as it appears that fellow filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola is already planning his second trip to the cinema to see PTA’s latest. Can we get this icon of filmmaking his very own punch card, too?
Coppola’s reasons for wanting to see the film again extend far beyond an eagerness to check it out in different formats, and instead are rooted in his interest in digging deeper into the storyline, the film’s many excellent performances, and just maybe getting to take it in with different set of subtitles. Coppola, of course, covers all the angles on this one.
Over on his Instagram, Coppola shared a bit about his recent experience seeing Anderson’s film in Rome, which he purposely sought out in a theater to see it “with a big audience.” He wrote: “The fact that my hearing’s not so good, and the subtitles were in Italian, made the experience challenging. I am a fan of PTA’s unique films, beginning of course with BOOGIE NIGHTS, and one of my all-time favorites, PUNCH DRUNK LOVE, along with PHANTOM THREAD, THE MASTER, and recently LICORICE PIZZA. Something I love about his films is that he allows you to form your own opinions without diminishing his own.”
He continued, “Much like a Kubrick film, I would like to see this a second time… I love the fact that it was an action story set in what’s really going on in America today, a fictional thriller with a setting that is the real thing. I think one of my misunderstandings came from Sean Penn’s character ‘Lockjaw’ and not being sure exactly who he was. His weird name made me link him immediately to Kubrick’s General Buck Turdgidson as played by George C. Scott, a military type but lower level so he could rise through up the ranks, making Colonel and not the big chief of all military matters.”
Coppola also noted that he was a little surprised by the film’s time jump: “For me, after one audience viewing, I felt that just as things were getting going, there came a 16-year pause. Although now that I know that, for subsequent viewings, I will be able to enjoy focusing on the characters and all the memorable performances of Leo, Sean, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Tony Goldwyn and Chase Infiniti.”
He added, “It’s a film I want to see a second time: the problem with my hearing no doubt played a part in my confusion on certain things, but then the film emerged into the love story that it is; father and his one daughter, and as you can imagine, very moving to me.”
Coppola has long been an admirer of the fellow filmmaker. On his Letterboxd list “Movies That I Highly Recommend,” Coppola includes Anderson’s 2002 Adam Sandler-starring “Punch Drunk Love,” which is the newest film on a list mostly populated by older classics.
A Warner Bros. release, “One Battle After Another” is now in theaters.