Mr. Anderson, would you consider yourself a politically-minded filmmaker?
It’s funny, Inherent Vice is very, very politically-minded, maybe even more so than One Battle After Another. It really, really deals much more in that; it’s as much about politics as Boogie Nights is about porn. But for me, politics ultimately gets a little bit boring. I don’t connect to films that are too political, generally.
What does interest you, storytelling-wise?
I mean, I’m part of this world, and I think about things the same way we all do. The way to approach a story is to ask the question: What is the highest priority? The highest priority for me is the people and how they’re engaging with each other, why they love each other, why they hate each other, the ridiculousness of their human nature. These are the things that everybody can understand. Those are the things that are timeless. You know what movie I love? I love the movie Reds, and I don’t want to say a bad word about it, because I know Warren Beatty and I love him. I love that film, however, I get lost when they start talking so much about the Russian Revolution. I can’t understand it! It happens for 20 minutes in the movie, and I check out.
“I put everything of what I felt as a father into this story.”
I’m guilty of that too…
But what I do understand is when Warren is trying to find Diane Keaton, and they find each other at that train station. That’s what I remember of that film. Those are the things that I can understand, that are meaningful to me. It’s a philosophy that I have going into the film, like, let’s try to not get preoccupied with too much stuff that is too complicated.
Your philosophy has paid off — your explorations of those kind of human connections have all been really beautiful: complex romances in Punch Drunk Love and Phantom Thread, and the quintessential parent-child-like relationships in Hard Eight, The Master and now One Battle After Another.
It’s impossible to get away from, isn’t it? I put everything of what I felt as a father into this story. I think any parent, whether you’re a father or mother, anybody, you don’t have to sit around on the couch all day getting stoned or never get out of your bathrobe to feel like Bob, to feel like you’re blowing it. All you want to do is give them independence, but at the same time, you do not want them to leave. You do not want want them walking out the door. Obviously, what’s inevitable in every generation is that they kind of look back to the generation behind them, and they’re they’re baffled. They’re baffled and confused. This is the natural, special order of events for all of us. So I think I’ve applied every single thing I felt into the into the story.
You chose a perfect father figure in Leonardo DiCaprio.
He’s Leonardo DiCaprio, so he’s perfect to lead any film! Leo portrays confusion better than anybody. He can do, lost, baffled, angry, better than just about anybody, and he has such a wide range of emotions. You know, it’s one thing to to be able to run around and be hilarious. But it’s another thing to be able to have the skill level and the talent to sit at the table with his daughter at the end and have that beautiful conversation with her. In his quiet moments, he really is very moving to me, and he’s so soulful, and I love the way he’s aging as one of our great film stars. I’m lucky to have him, really.
Did you write the film with him in mind?
It was in my mind for so long I’ve wanted to work with with him, and we’ve talked about it for so long. I think that at a certain point, we both realized that we’re not getting any younger, so we better get on with it. And this film and this role seemed like a terrific place to start.
Is that typically how you find your collaborators, just from being a fan? You’ve worked with composer Johnny Greenwood on six features now, for example, how did that come about?
Yeah, at this point it there’s no end to our collaboration. We continue to move forward. If I have an idea, he reads the script. The first time was maybe eight or nine years ago, and the relationship has developed since then; he gets dailies as we go along so he knows what we’re shooting as we go and he sends music based on that. Then we have the music to play with while we’re watching dailies at night after we’ve been shooting. He’s sort of first in line for everything. And I hope that tells you just how intimate the collaboration is. He’s the first and most consistent and constant collaborator through my entire process.
“When you’re filming something with actors, you’re seeing it in front of you and you’re walking away knowing you’ve got something good.”
Where Greenwood really thrived in One Battle, I think, was the chase scenes. They were so gripping — particularly the now-famous “River of Hills” sequence.
Filming those action scenes was challenging. It’s always challenging to shoot in the desert. It’s very, very hot, it’s very dusty. There’s a lot of elements that are very challenging. However, I was working with the most incredible and talented crew led by our assistant director, Adam Sumner. Adam was a protector of everyone, and he made sure that everyone was safe and that you could get the things that you needed to get, while still being quite daring. We had Brian Machleit, our stunt coordinator, who really helped make all these things happen. Because it’s one thing to come up with an idea and tell it, but these people have to execute it. We have to put very heavy cameras onto cars and drive dangerously fast and do these extreme kinds of things. So the execution of it is in the hands of some very talented people.
Is it tough on you as a filmmaker coping under that pressure?
As a rule of thumb, it’s quite un-dramatic and unsatisfying to film this stuff. And you don’t ever leave at the end of the day feeling completely satisfied, because you just get a piece, then you get another piece, then you get another piece. And it goes over days and weeks! But when you cut it all together, it’s the most exciting thing in the film.
Is it, again, those moments of human connection that are the most interesting to film?
When you’re filming something with actors, you’re seeing it in front of you and you’re walking away knowing you’ve got something good or not. You’re not putting it together piece by piece like a chase scene. So it’s much more foundational building. But either way, it’s a lot of fun to be out in the desert with with a great cast and crew.