ST ch 19 French 75s, Greasy Thumb Guzik

[Laura Kelber]

I'm just not a fan of PTA, other than Boogie Nights, and I find nothing in
his movies that echos or resonates about America or the world the way
Pynchon does, or even, for that matter, the old doc The World at War (which
I'm currently rewatching) does. In an interview, he said that Benicio del
Toro actually helped craft the plot of the latter part of the movie, which
is "inspired by," not an adaptation of Vineland. So I don't see PTA as
anything approaching the deliberate craftsmanship of Pynchon.

On Mon, May 11, 2026 at 11:53 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Anderson’s movies’ tones are not  literally the decade they are set, imo.
> Look at the Master, Magnolia, others. They are thematic thematic tones
> resonating beyond their present.
>
> In OBAA it is the eternal present of America from the sixties to Tiffany,
> imo.
>
> I think one reason Anderson is a fan and has had his artistic vision
> shaped by TRP is to try to emulate that poised both sides/times now.
>
> See Lawrence and H Rap Brown among others on violence and America.
>
> On Mon, May 11, 2026 at 11:37 AM Robin Landseadel via Pynchon-l <
> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
>
>> I understand what you are saying about the initial setting of the movie
>> in the Obama era. Of course, no names are named. However, the historical
>> POV of most of the movie is in the present tense, or at least a present
>> tense. Thank you for mentioning Assata Shakur and Fred Hampton. That would
>> be more on-point, in that regard you are right as regards French 75. The
>> point of 24fps was to document police actions against protesters, something
>> that was happening a lot at Earth First and associated rallies in the
>> Emerald Triangle in the late 1980s/early 1990s, lots of folks circling the
>> scene with handheld videocams.
>>
>> > On 05/11/2026 8:17 AM PDT Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Saw One Battle After Another a couple of days ago. "French 75" appears
>> to be a group modeled after the SDS or Black Panthers but set in the
>> present tense rather than the late 1960s/early 1970s like 24fps.
>> >
>> > French 75 appears to me to be modeled after more violent groups like
>> The Weathermen and BLA, and Perfidia clearly referenced Assata Shakur, who
>> died about a week (if I remember) before OBAA had its theatrical release.
>> The violence of these groups was a response to the FBI's assassination of
>> Fred Hampton and the excesses of the Nixon administration and COINTELPRO.
>> To set a similar group ahistorically in the tepid years of the late Obama
>> period seems politically tone deaf to me. It's not something that Pynchon
>> would ever do, and certainly didn't do in Vineland. That's one of my many
>> objections to the movie.
>> >
>> > Laura
>> >
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>