Hollywood Confronts Forgotten American Militancy in “One Battle After Another”
los Angeles, CA – A new wave of cinematic interest is surfacing around the radical political movements that once gripped the United States, as exemplified by Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, One Battle after Another. The movie, a fictionalized account of a hunt for 1970s activists by a figure within the white supremacist army, arrives at a moment when anxieties about American democracy echo historical tensions – a period not unlike the nation’s original Civil War, which claimed approximately 700,000 lives in 1865.
While largely confined to the realm of American fiction cinema, the era’s armed struggles, though swiftly suppressed by the FBI, represent a complex chapter in the nation’s history. The film draws attention to the various Marxist-Leninist and Internationalist-inspired groups that engaged in armed resistance.
The Black Panther Party,founded in 1966 in Oakland,California,stands as a central example. Emerging in response to the waning momentum of the Civil Rights Movement and ongoing segregation, the Party advocated for a shift towards violent action within the African-American community.
Less widely recognized is the Weathermen movement, originating in Chicago, Illinois, in 1969. Initially conceived as a presentation of solidarity from the white community with the struggles of Black and Native American movements, and opposition to the Vietnam War, the group evolved into the Party of Clandestinity, LSD and Urban Guerrillas in 1970. They were linked to roughly twenty bombings, intentionally designed to avoid casualties. This contrasts sharply with the Symbionese Liberation Army, which resorted to both assassination and kidnapping.
