In his recent Vanity Fair interview for One Battle After Another Sean Penn says this beautiful insight that caught my heart:
I’ve quoted this a lot over the years. E.L. Doctorow had a line: The responsibility of the artist is to know the time within which he lived. So somebody can make a period film, but in doing that, the good ones reflect something very current. Not modernizing it, but there’s something that is rhyming in history. I think that this became exponentially more timely after production finished and we watched, kind of shaking our heads. It’s also a great thing that because he doesn’t have a conventional dependence on what satire is, the movie is malleable. It’s not dependent on being a far-fetched idea that makes us laugh. And now that some of it is not at all far-fetched it takes on a more full quality.
I don’t have to tell you how incredible Sean Penn was in this role, well he always is, but… I will say, I was completely blown away at his nuanced, unexpected, and very original performance. His facial expressions and level of urgency are insane. Wow! If you haven’t seen One Battle After Another – please watch it now. The entire cast is truly amazing. The satire is super entertaining. I hate spoilers, if you can’t tell :)
