UPDATE: Here’s The Film Stage reporting on the post-Q&A conversation which covered everything from adapting Thomas Pynchon to shooting on VistaVision, wrangling Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Benicio del Toro, and even Kubrick comparisons.
Spielberg opened with unabashed praise, he’s seen “One Battle After Another” three times already: “What an insane movie, oh my God. There is more action in the first hour of this than every other film you’ve ever directed put together … This is such a concoction of things that are so bizarre and at the same time so relevant.” He even went as far as comparing Anderson’s latest to “Dr. Strangelove,” calling it a razor-sharp absurdist comedy that feels frighteningly contemporary: “If you don’t laugh, you’re going to start screaming.”
Anderson admitted the process of adapting Pynchon’s novel wasn’t easy. “The problem with loving a book so much when you go to adapt it is that you have to be rougher on it … I struggled for years, but I kept the father-daughter story, that was always the emotional core.”
Spielberg, who was clearly taken with the film, said he nervously laughed his way through it, much like ‘Strangelove’: “You allow us to laugh, and then you shut it down.”
EARLIER: Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” had a DGA screening last night in Los Angeles moderated by Steven Spielberg, and reactions are ecstatic. The social media embargo lifts at 1PM ET, but that hasn’t stopped a few.
I’ve been saying for months now that, no matter the quality of this film, critics will be in the bag for PTA. This is such an expensive and risky swing from him that you can’t help but root for him to succeed. With that said, things are looking very good so far for “One Battle After Another.”
Here are some of the reactions that leaked:
Is “The Exorcist” truly the greatest horror film ever made, or has time crowned a new champion of fear? Maybe it’s “The Shining,” ‘Texas Chainsaw,’ “Psycho,” or something entirely unexpected that still keeps you up at night.