In honouring One Battle After Another, Academy voters finally welcomed Hollywood’s prodigal son into the fold
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scar night climaxed with a metaphorical whiff of gunpowder and a defiant rebel yell as One Battle After Another broke late to claim the crowning best picture and director awards at the Dolby theatre in downtown Los Angeles. If it is true that Americans get the presidents they deserve, it follows that they should get the appropriate Academy Award winner as well.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s rambunctious counter-culture thriller is the perfect film for an imperfect USA, brilliantly reading the tea-leaves of Donald Trump’s second term with its tale of leftist activists in a proto-fascist California. One Battle After Another was the most overtly political of this year’s best picture nominees and that might have made the difference. But it was arguably the most ambitious, rousing and lip-smackingly satisfying too.
In honouring One Battle After Another, Academy voters were belatedly anointing its 55-year-old writer-director, who had previously suffered through 11 nominations without a single win. While Anderson – creator of the electrifying Boogie Nights, Magnolia and There Will Be Blood – has long been hailed as the finest American film-maker of his generation, his pictures proved too jagged and exotic for mainstream Oscar tastes. It is only now, in bespectacled, grey-haired middle-age, that Hollywood’s prodigal son has been fully welcomed into the fold.
