Sally forth and tally-ho with Wes Anderson
March 21, 2018 9:49 AM   Subscribe

 
is it just a gif of Bill Murray looking depressed while wearing an outrageous costume and surrounded by objects and architecture that signified wealth and whiteness between the years of 1920 and 1970
posted by runt at 9:59 AM on March 21, 2018 [59 favorites]


I enjoy this because I do not personally care for Wes Anderson movies.

(In before the 'I enjoy this because I like Wes Anderson movies' comment.)
posted by phunniemee at 10:00 AM on March 21, 2018 [11 favorites]


9/10. Had to dock a point for not including an Owen Wilson "wow" as an Easter Egg.
posted by explosion at 10:00 AM on March 21, 2018 [19 favorites]


Additionally Honest Trailers Commentary for Every Wes Anderson Movie.
posted by zinon at 10:05 AM on March 21, 2018


I wonder how Tony Revelori feels getting erased as the protagonist of The Grand Budapest Hotel (a movie that is very much about scapegoating immigrants) and reduced to evidence of a stereotype in a super low effort video.
posted by cyphill at 10:11 AM on March 21, 2018 [20 favorites]


Just to hold serve, phunniemee, "I enjoy this because I like Wes Anderson movies."
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:19 AM on March 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


Runt, it's Bill Murray in a uniform, on a small motorcycle, with an exotic animal, smoking, in a profile shot of a Wilson brother....surrounded by objects and architecture that signified wealth and whiteness between the years of 1920 and 1970.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:23 AM on March 21, 2018 [6 favorites]


I know his films center whiteness and maleness, and he can do better at that, but I don't think we can ignore the fact that the main characters are coded as Jewish in Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited, and Moonrise Kingdom, that his ensemble pieces tend to have really significant roles for women, that non-white actors often get significant and showy supporting roles without being horrible cliches, and that LGBTQ characters are frequently present in his films, especially bisexual characters, who otherwise are almost entirely invisible to Hollywood.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is about the friendship between a bisexual man and a refugee, clearly coded as Arab. It includes a scene in which the former discovers the latter is a refuge after being mildly rude to him and instantaneously becomes mortified and profoundly apologies, and we need more scenes like that.
posted by maxsparber at 10:29 AM on March 21, 2018 [88 favorites]


I like Wes. I haven't seen all the movies, but I like the ones I've seen just fine and I don't begrudge him his style.

Plus, I now know the term "whip pan."
posted by rhizome at 10:34 AM on March 21, 2018 [6 favorites]


oops, sorry, I forgot that he was one of the 'good' powerful white men in Hollywood who must be celebrated for deigning to feature the oppressed in his otherwise mostly straight white people'd projects
posted by runt at 10:41 AM on March 21, 2018 [5 favorites]


What that in response to me?

I'm Jewish. I like seeing Jewish people represented in unusual and complicated ways, which they often aren't, which he does. If you don't want to celebrate that, don't, but you're sort of fucking failing the intersectionality thing here.

It's for Jews too.
posted by maxsparber at 10:49 AM on March 21, 2018 [23 favorites]


I have soured a bit on Wes Anderson movies over the last few years, for all the reasons people sour on his films, but damn, if this video didn't remind me of how much I love his aesthetic and his commitment to it. Yes, I'm tired of all the white-male-centering, and it all just starts to feel a little to twee, but dammit, I like a bit of twee. And most the things he lists starting at 3:43 (like "overhead shots of objects," "stage plays," "shots of writing," "characters explaining elaborate plans," "futura font," "whimsical names") are things I really enjoy in films.

So mainly, this just made me want to rewatch The Royal Tanenbaums, which I still think is the apex of his filmmaking and one of the most perfect films ever made.
posted by lunasol at 10:49 AM on March 21, 2018 [9 favorites]


Though seriously, a lot of the names cited here are not fucking whimsical, they're fucking Jewish. Jeez. And not even "exotic" Jewish names.
posted by lunasol at 10:51 AM on March 21, 2018 [16 favorites]


Folks, for context, Honest Trailers does this sort of stuff for any and all movies, including ones they love. It's just their shtick.

This isn't a "Wes Anderson and his movies suck" video.
posted by explosion at 10:53 AM on March 21, 2018 [12 favorites]


Me and Mrs. Mason Dixon love us some Wes Anderson, but I feel that she might be breaking up with him soon, because she had to tap out on The Darjeeling Limited and The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Me, I think Wes and I might be taking a break because The Island of Dogs strikes me as so very, very meh. Or is it twee? I forget.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 10:54 AM on March 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


Well, meh and twee are different things, and I think that difference is worth noting, because criticisms of the latter often seem to come bundled with all sorts of toxic assumptions about how men should represent themselves, even in the arts.
posted by maxsparber at 10:55 AM on March 21, 2018 [6 favorites]


The consensus is there's no consensus.
posted by rhizome at 11:02 AM on March 21, 2018 [4 favorites]


Now I'm thinking about why I love Royal Tanenbaums so much more than most of his other films, and I think it's because he struck such a happy medium between so many things. His "Wes Anderson" aesthetic is really strong, but but it doesn't constrain the film - it feels like it's in service of the storytelling: it's there to tell you something about the characters, their world, and the story he's telling. The film is tightly plotted, but he also allows the reins to loosen at key points and for these oddball, delightful characters to be oddly delightful and bounce off each other. Like the scene where Eli Cash loses the plot on the Charlie Rose show, or really any of the scenes between Royal and his children. And finally, it's really character-driven. Every single main character (except maybe the mother) has an arc, some sort of growth they are doing, and all the arcs fit together.

And finally, despite all the antics, the drama at the heart of it (reconciling with family members, growing up and coming to terms with who one is as an adult) is really super-relatable. It makes for a really satisfying movie-watching experience.
posted by lunasol at 11:04 AM on March 21, 2018 [9 favorites]


"more nostalgia than you can cram into a quirky indoor tent"
posted by eustatic at 11:05 AM on March 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


Mod note: Couple deleted. runt, you've made your point; beyond that if you don't want to actually engage with people here, that's fine, but don't come here just to say how you're totally not engaging.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:05 AM on March 21, 2018 [13 favorites]


I just can't stand how precious his movies feel. There's an alien sense to everything, too (except for Bottle Rocket which is genuine and terrific) - But most of his movies feel like the work of a manipulative sociopath. It's too much cake and no vegetables, as they say.
posted by Peter H at 11:05 AM on March 21, 2018 [4 favorites]


All else aside, I don't know how you can make TWO animated films, both with Bill Murray voice acting...

and yet...

Somehow, despite Bill Murray's own brother, Brian Doyle-Murray, being a fairly prolific voice actor somehow Anderson has never seen fit to pair them side-by-side in an animated feature.

I mean, how can you pass on the voice of the Flying Dutchman? On the owner of Handsome Boy Modeling School?

I can't be the only one who wants to see those Murray boys side by side.
posted by deadaluspark at 11:06 AM on March 21, 2018 [4 favorites]


I mean, how can you pass on the voice of the Flying Dutchman? On the owner of Handsome Boy Modeling School?

HOW DARE YOU FORGET CAPTAIN K'NUCKLES
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:11 AM on March 21, 2018 [4 favorites]


I'd definitely watch a Wes Anderson movie about the drama club at Hogwart's.
posted by Nelson at 11:12 AM on March 21, 2018 [17 favorites]


Shit my bad, I've never actually seen Flapjack. I know that's a real bad thing, being a cartoon fan.
posted by deadaluspark at 11:12 AM on March 21, 2018


I've watched the Honest Trailer twice now, and I really, really love it.
It doesn't strike me as mean, it's just a gentle taking the mickey out of Anderson and pointing out his (already) obvious tropes.
And I also love that his movies DO seem like aliens among the general film populace.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 11:13 AM on March 21, 2018 [14 favorites]


But most of his movies feel like the work of a manipulative sociopath. It's too much cake and no vegetables, as they say.

If you listen to his commentaries, it becomes pretty clear Anderson's not a sociopath, but a solipsist. The objects and design work are all seething with meaning for him, but little or no effort is made to convey any of it through the scripts in a way that would make it less opaque for people who don't know Wes Anderson.

That's why they feel so alien - it's like being immersed in the fantasy or dream world of a stranger with no guide to what you're seeing or why. It's doubly so, I think, if you don't come from the world of educated, suburban 70s/80s WASP privilege that, as other folks have noted above, so much of the set-dressing is intended to evoke.

They're not terrible movies, but they consistently remind me of what would happen if a very talented set designer found himself in the director's chair. Movies are primarily about story-telling to an audience, and that's secondary to whatever is going on in them.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:15 AM on March 21, 2018 [15 favorites]


I don't think we can ignore the fact that the main characters are coded as Jewish in Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited, and Moonrise Kingdom

They’re “coded” (whatever the heck that means) as affluent. If you’re conflating that with Jewish, that’s all you. Even if the characters were Jewish, it might be worth asking why the gentile writer-director would choose to cast mostly gentiles to play them.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:17 AM on March 21, 2018 [5 favorites]


I've only see two Anderson films (Rushmore, Grand Hotel), yet I enjoyed how this Honest Trailer had fun imitating the formal style with its own.
posted by doctornemo at 11:17 AM on March 21, 2018


I wasn't a fan of his early stuff at all; I can't stand Royal Tenenbaums or Rushmore but I've really come around in the last decade. I love Mr Fox, Moonrise Kingdom and Budapest Hotel and am looking forward to Isle of Dogs.
posted by octothorpe at 11:18 AM on March 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


They’re “coded” (whatever the heck that means) as affluent.

Coded means its not stated outright. It's not an uncommon film term.

They are not coded as affluent. Many of the characters are affluent, and that's not hidden or subtext. It's weird that you're conflating the two, because Sam Shakusky in Moonrise Kingdom is not affluent and Max Fischer in Rushmore is not affluent. In fact, those two films make a pretty big point of watching the two characters interact with wealth and privilege, and those interactions aren't generally all that healthy for them.
posted by maxsparber at 11:21 AM on March 21, 2018 [34 favorites]


a filmmaker with a unique vision that he manages to get on the screen in such a way that we can't help but choke on our preconceptions about what cinemas is and/or should be. How dare he?

not intended as a dismissal of the Honest Trailer, more a rebuttal to the way too many folks I know who don't "get" Wes Anderson and seem to hate him for it.
posted by philip-random at 11:21 AM on March 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


I find The Life Aquatic to be his best film for much the same reason that I prefer Adaptation over other Charlie Kaufmann films and The Wrestler over other Aranofsky films - it is true to form but finds a balance of style and pathos that makes it resonate in a way that the other's don't.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:22 AM on March 21, 2018 [6 favorites]


I'd definitely watch a Wes Anderson movie about the drama club at Hogwart's.

That's the worst part of the Honest Trailer for me, because now I want this but it'll never happen.

More generally, I love Wes Anderson movies, and watch about one a year, for reasons Peter H's cake/vegetables analogy covers. And there's stuff in his work the word "problematic" was basically invented to describe, but then that word was invented to be less judgmental and more mindful of the sea of problems the world surrounds us with, that we internalize, and can work on but never fully escape.
posted by traveler_ at 11:23 AM on March 21, 2018 [6 favorites]


It seems like he has two camps of fans. Those who like his early work, and those who prefer the later. I guess I'm in the early group. There's a class consciousness in his early films which appeals to me, whereas some of his later films appear to romanticize the wealthy and privileged.
posted by cazoo at 11:26 AM on March 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


There's a class consciousness in his early films which appeals to me, whereas some of his later films appear to romanticize the wealthy and privileged.

Haha, yeah. From 'aspirational' to 'ass, per rationale'
posted by Peter H at 11:28 AM on March 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


Okay, Wes Anderson definitely has an aesthetic. But aesthetic is not all there is to films. If he has a good story and good acting withthat aesthetic, you end up with a decent film nonetheless. If his story and the acting are a little meh, then the aesthetic ends up getting on your nerves. But the aesthetic does not necessarily make a film universally good or bad all on its own.

This falls kind of in the same category for me as a comedy celebrity impersonator or a caricature artist - any person may be good, bad, or indifferent, but any person also has some very recognizeable habits and quirks, and the impersonator or caricature artist will shine a light directly on those quirks and spoof them a little. (Take a look at Jordan Peele's Obama - he plays up some definite speech mannerisms that Obama has, and even though Obama's great, it's still funny.)

Spoofing quirks doesn't always mean you're slagging off the entity as a whole. You're just spoofing the quirks. And Wes Anderson's got some dillies.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:29 AM on March 21, 2018 [6 favorites]


Anderson's done an X-Men movie, so it's not like he couldn't take on Harry Potter as well.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 11:35 AM on March 21, 2018 [7 favorites]


The objects and design work are all seething with meaning for him

Very fair point - and interesting to consider. I'd argue Kubrick, in the control and delivery, of that kind of devotional attention, though, right?

I suppose there's a kid in the candy shop vibe to Anderson's films that just feels like a brat who gets everything he asks for and has tons of help doing it. I know that describes most directors, but it rises to the top of the bowl for me whenever I see his films.

I'm sure people who slave and labor on these films to visualize his ideas hate hearing it as his singular vision, too. This is just my reaction to his movies.

That said, Moonlight whatever felt good to watch. I just dislike the sense that Anderson does as much for his films as people give him credit. I think he gets a huge amount of help and covers it in icing to make it seems like he cobbled it together himself. (see 'unique vision' comment, above)
posted by Peter H at 11:35 AM on March 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


That's why they feel so alien - it's like being immersed in the fantasy or dream world of a stranger with no guide to what you're seeing or why. It's doubly so, I think, if you don't come from the world of educated, suburban 70s/80s WASP privilege that, as other folks have noted above, so much of the set-dressing is intended to evoke.

My mom's (white) New Englander family never had much money but they did have a lot of pride. My mom married a broke Mexican guy two months after meeting him when she was in college as her big act of rebellion only to find out that her parents actually were basically okay with it, and my dad by a few years later was clearly nursing a serious crush on her sister, and they stayed married for nearly twenty years out of what seems to have been 95% spite. It's not often that films have family dynamics that feel like my experience of family, and I love them for that even when I do see that they have their faults. Throw in some combination of my being a weird bookish child and a drama club kid and a few other things and yeah--Wes Anderson movies don't feel alien to everybody, not even to people who didn't grow up rich white kids.

(I was also a weird bookish drama club kid, which helps with some of the rest of the aesthetic.)
posted by Sequence at 11:40 AM on March 21, 2018 [21 favorites]


Royal Tenenbaum explicitly states that his kids are half Jewish. It isn't even coded.
posted by Smearcase at 11:42 AM on March 21, 2018 [5 favorites]


I'm sure people who slave and labor on these films to visualize his ideas hate hearing it as his singular vision, too.

It's always been my understanding that the artistic crew on movies are generally paid for their time and hard work, and have their names shown during the credits, and that this applies to Wes Anderson's films too.

Just because a director has their name on the poster doesn't mean they're stealing credit from everyone else that worked on it. People talk about Wes Anderson having a signature "look" because he as the director has chosen to deliberately foreground the handiwork of the artists and craftspersons that he hires to work on his movies.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:42 AM on March 21, 2018 [12 favorites]


There’s nothing like a Metafilter thread on one of your favorite artists to trigger depression. Goodbye forever Metafilter.
posted by cyphill at 11:50 AM on March 21, 2018 [9 favorites]


very, very meh. Or is it twee?

Mais oui.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:51 AM on March 21, 2018


It's always been my understanding that the artistic crew on movies are generally paid for their time and hard work, and have their names shown during the credits, and that this applies to Wes Anderson's films too.

Ha - Funny. I wasn't referring to lack of credit. I'm referring to cult of personality, in that people think of these things as one person's movie. It just is especially jarring to me with his films over other films (I don't feel the same way about Spike Jonze, for example, which is an easy parallel) - there's something in the end product that I perceive as unfair credit with Wes Anderson's films.

You're not incorrect that everyone working on a film is given credit and cash for their contributions. But saying 'you got paid' is a funny reply to creative people. Oddly the only film that Anderson did largely by himself, Bottle Rocket (and to some extent Rushmore) is excellent. I'm not anti-Anderson, just wonder about the help he gets that's shadowed.

I think Sequence's comment about parallels with real life experience is very interesting, though. I hadn't considered that.
posted by Peter H at 11:52 AM on March 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


There’s nothing like a Metafilter thread on one of your favorite artists to trigger depression

You know what always cheers me up? That scene in Bottle Rocket where James Caan is practicing karate against a guy wearing only tighty-whities.
posted by thelonius at 11:54 AM on March 21, 2018 [9 favorites]


Royal Tenenbaum explicitly states that his kids are half Jewish. It isn't even coded.

Came here to say this. The exact line from Royal is, "Well I'm half-Hebrew, but the kids are three-quarters Mick Catholic." Also, Etheline Tenenbaum's arc is her falling in love with Henry and allowing herself to face that future instead of living in the crystalized past. It's arguably the spine of the movie.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:55 AM on March 21, 2018 [6 favorites]


Good point about Etheline, Navelgazer! And that is such a lovely relationship, too.
posted by lunasol at 11:57 AM on March 21, 2018


Also, as you can tell, I got distracted by work halfway through writing that comment and missed the edit window for having repeated myself, but you get the gist.

And yeah, I do think that there's a lot of what makes a Wes Anderson movie that isn't actually Anderson himself but the fact that he works with a lot of other people who also put a lot into making them the movies they are and I know there's the credits but like--I do wish that we lived in a world where the set designers and such were names I actually knew, on not just these but a lot of films with really strong design sensibilities. I should know more about those people than I do.
posted by Sequence at 11:58 AM on March 21, 2018


I wasn't referring to lack of credit. I'm referring to cult of personality, in that people think of these things as one person's movie. It just is especially jarring to me with his films over other films (I don't feel the same way about Spike Jonze, for example, which is an easy parallel) - there's something in the end product that I perceive as unfair credit with Wes Anderson's films.

To be honest, I think that perception is all on you then. If it bothers you that people associate directors with specific strong visual styles, that are in reality the work of lots of faceless artisans working under them, that's pretty much how movies are made in general.

Like, I'll watch a Studio Ghibli film because I like Hayao Miyazaki's aesthetic as a director, but it doesn't make me mad that most of it was drawn by other animators whose names I don't know off the top of my head.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:04 PM on March 21, 2018 [11 favorites]


I just dislike the sense that Anderson does as much for his films as people give him credit. I think he gets a huge amount of help and covers it in icing to make it seems like he cobbled it together himself. (see 'unique vision' comment, above)

Brian Eno calls it "Scenius." Because many of the talented people who worked on such films will likely create their own thoughtful, unique art that was influenced by the art of people like Anderson as well as influencing Anderson's work because they added their own flourishes to the designs that were put in their charge.

I was an art student and, like all art students, I was encouraged to believe that there were a few great figures like Picasso and Kandinsky, Rembrandt and Giotto and so on who sort-of appeared out of nowhere and produced artistic revolution.

As I looked at art more and more, I discovered that that wasn’t really a true picture.

What really happened was that there was sometimes very fertile scenes involving lots and lots of people – some of them artists, some of them collectors, some of them curators, thinkers, theorists, people who were fashionable and knew what the hip things were – all sorts of people who created a kind of ecology of talent. And out of that ecology arose some wonderful work.

The period that I was particularly interested in, ’round about the Russian revolution, shows this extremely well. So I thought that originally those few individuals who’d survived in history – in the sort-of “Great Man” theory of history – they were called “geniuses”. But what I thought was interesting was the fact that they all came out of a scene that was very fertile and very intelligent.

So I came up with this word “scenius” – and scenius is the intelligence of a whole… operation or group of people. And I think that’s a more useful way to think about culture, actually. I think that – let’s forget the idea of “genius” for a little while, let’s think about the whole ecology of ideas that give rise to good new thoughts and good new work.


---

Just because a director has their name on the poster doesn't mean they're stealing credit from everyone else that worked on it.

Indeed a funny reply, because I'm fairly sure that's not what he was trying to say. Rather, since Anderson hasn't built the entire sets himself, he might have a "vision" that he describes to his team, but his team will still put themselves into each portion they create, because while they must make things "fit" the aesthetic, they still have the ability to be creative within that aesthetic. We don't know which flourishes are Anderson's and which are from the myriad of talented behind-the-scenes laborers who worked with him.

However, when we talk about this, we discuss it as though Wes Anderson himself had the final word on every single thing in every single scene. Which, while that's true, I somehow can't imagine him literally nitpicking on even the tiniest little items in every scene. It seems more likely you would have teams of artists who already know the aesthetic and can work in it to take the base ideas from the script and turn them into what you might call Anderson's "vision," or as close as they can approximate, based on working with him.

And of course they get credit, they just don't necessarily get specific credit, for one specific item, in a specific place, that they put together with care and thought for the scene in question. When we talk about it in the larger context, that stuff is almost all attributed to the director, which I just really doubt is 100% the case.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:04 PM on March 21, 2018 [10 favorites]


99 percent invisible had an interview with one of the propmakers for Grand Budapest, which seems like a good place to start.
posted by dinty_moore at 12:05 PM on March 21, 2018 [11 favorites]


I do wish that we lived in a world where the set designers and such were names I actually knew

I don't know how you would do this within the movie, but there is considerable supplemental material out there about the artists involved with making the movie. Here's a featurette about the animators on Isle of Dogs. I've read several article about the fellow who made the lesbian panting in Grand Budapest, Rich Pellegrino: here's one. There were also articles about the painter of the men in facepaint from Tenenbaums, Miguel Calderon. And Wes Anderson's brother, Eric, sort of famously did a lot of illustrations and art design for his films.

You do have to dig a little, but there is info out there.
posted by maxsparber at 12:07 PM on March 21, 2018 [8 favorites]


Anderson is maybe the most polarizing director working today. Discussions about his movies are always fraught with a lot of anger, on both sides of the argument. Full disclosure, I'm on waaaaaay out on the "huge fan" side of the see saw.

The only debate regarding his work that seems to justify that amount of heat and noise is the one about representation, because I can definitely understand people being disinclined to watch movies that they read as being about the hardships of wealthy people. And while I disagree with that reading, I don't think it's totally unfair, and wouldn't presume to argue the point with anyone who subscribes to it.

On the other hand, criticisms about his movies being "twee", or having a very distinctive design sense...that's just foolish. I mean, nobody's obliged to like that stuff, but it's not an interesting critique to say you don't. Those are the things that make Wes Anderson Wes Anderson. And every year there are literally dozens upon dozens of movies made that look nothing at all like his, so it isn't as though we're all being forced to choke it down.

I also have to shrug at people resenting that the set designers (or whoever) don't get their credits in the same size font as the director. That's true of every film, and therefore not a valid critique of any particular film.

And while I'm at it, I also don't think that his focus on framing and design comes at the expense of characterization or theme. His characters always seem pretty vividly realized to me.
posted by Ipsifendus at 12:10 PM on March 21, 2018 [12 favorites]


His characters always seem pretty vividly realized to me.
Absolutely!
As someone who watches too many movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I must say I'm getting TIRED of origin stories.
Anderson's characters seem to have sprung from his forehead and onto the film fully formed.
You are catching them in the middle of their life, and something is happening, be it crazy or sad or funny or whatever. There may be a small flashback as to why they are the way they are, but it's small and it's a flashback and it's over with in minutes, and you're back to the Something That Is Happening in their life.
Nice.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 12:27 PM on March 21, 2018 [12 favorites]


That's why they feel so alien - it's like being immersed in the fantasy or dream world of a stranger with no guide to what you're seeing or why.

Thank you for this formulation, which gets me a bit closer to understanding what I love about Wes Anderson films.
posted by sock_slink_slink at 12:49 PM on March 21, 2018 [4 favorites]


I thought this was stupid, but in a way I really enjoyed.
1. I think Anderson’s movies are generally two notches above the rest. Some, three.
2. I’ll further confess to having seen all of them more than three times.
3. The thing is, the don’t stop being interesting after that fourth or fifth viewing, at least not for me. And this is important. I think a lot of Royal Tenenbaums is maybe a touch facile. But the scene in the ambulance at the end has unvarnished emotional heft. It is not in any way ‘twee.’ (And the rendezvous of Ritchie and Margot at the pier gets me every time even though I find Gweneth Paltrow ... ‘Goop-y’) Similar but different the two kids dancing on the waterside in’Moonrise Kingdom’ is a really intense kind of complicated image that refuses to be any one simple thing: they’re too young for ‘love’ but still feel some deep thing for each other despite being barely formed as individuals themselves. And how are we as viewers supposed to ‘see’ them? Because they kind of are just kids - not super photogenic Weber models - kids. Dancing to corny music on a rocky beach. It’s quite an image and he pulls it off. I don’t want much more. Actually I would like him to get a different/better writing partner because sometimes the dialog seems a little threadbare but that’s about it.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:51 PM on March 21, 2018 [5 favorites]


I loved this and I love a lot of his movies and I'm okay with loving a filmmaker with obvious flaws. And my heart sank when I saw the trailer for the new dog film because how dare anyone, even Wes Anderson, make a kids movie with so few female characters in this day and age? The ratio's so low I don't even want to take my son to it. And I consider myself a fan.

Anyhow, just to round out my ambivalence, here's his insanely good AmEx commercial, complete with profile shots, uniforms, whip pans, Futura, Jason Schwartzbaum....
posted by Mchelly at 12:56 PM on March 21, 2018 [11 favorites]


The Grand Budapest Hotel is about the friendship between a bisexual man and a refugee, clearly coded as Arab. It includes a scene in which the former discovers the latter is a refuge after being mildly rude to him and instantaneously becomes mortified and profoundly apologies, and we need more scenes like that.

While agreeing with your general point, and finding the scene marvelously cathartic, I don't think 'mildly rude' describes Gustave's racist/xenophobic rant:

"I suppose this is to be expected back in Aq Salim al-Jabat where one's prized possessions are a stack of filthy carpets and a starving goat, and one sleeps behind a tent flap and survives on wild dates and scarabs. .... What on God's earth possessed you to leave the homeland where you obviously belong and travel unspeakable distances to become a penniless immigrant in a refined, highly-cultivated society that, quite frankly, could've gotten along very well without you?"
posted by sock_slink_slink at 12:56 PM on March 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


Put me in the Wes Anderson fan camp who finds this amusing and entertaining. Wes Anderson has his specific set of tropes, and they're very easy to spoof. One thing I've noticed in Wes's later work is a self-awareness and a bit of lampshade hanging on those tropes. From that alone, I'd think he'd be amused by this.
posted by SansPoint at 1:06 PM on March 21, 2018


Anderson does kind of make a joke of his (two that I can think of) non-straight characters' sexuality, but I can't get too bent out of shape about it. We're not what he knows or writes about. I love other things about his films, and look elsewhere for queerness onscreen. In theory I'd love to see what he did with a queer relationship but I can well imagine him not wanting to try and be excoriated for any misstep.

Wait, three. Jeff Goldblum in Steve Zissou, Ralph Fiennes in Hotel, and there's a blink-and-you-missed-it reference to Margot Tenenbaum having an affair with a woman.
posted by Smearcase at 1:07 PM on March 21, 2018


I don't think 'mildly rude' describes Gustave's racist/xenophobic rant:

No, that's true. I haven't seen it for a while and that's worst that mildly rude.
posted by maxsparber at 1:20 PM on March 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


I don't think the film endorses Gustave's weakness and pettiness in that moment, though. The whole point of the scene is that Zero has gone to a massive amount of trouble to engineer Gustave's escape, and all the man can do is make a fuss over his stupid high-class fripperies. It's Gustave's lowest moment in the film, and he spends the entire rest of the story making it up to Zero.
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:29 PM on March 21, 2018 [11 favorites]


Royal Tenenbaum explicitly states that his kids are half Jewish. It isn't even coded.

Came here to say this. The exact line from Royal is, "Well I'm half-Hebrew, but the kids are three-quarters Mick Catholic."


Also the kids in the film are called Ari and Uzi (and Ben Stiller's parents in real life are Polish Jewish and Irish Catholic).

And there's stuff in his work the word "problematic" was basically invented to describe, but then that word was invented to be less judgmental and more mindful of the sea of problems the world surrounds us with, that we internalize, and can work on but never fully escape.

This is a really good point, and something I hadn't thought about before. By the time I came across the word 'problematic', it had gone full euphemism treadmill to "your music is bad and you should feel bad".

Re: Wes Anderson, I think he's done a fair bit of fluff I don't care for, but also plenty of films that are some of my absolute favourites.

The Royal Tenenbaums works as a world-building exercise - I can lose myself picturing all the rooms and nooks and crannies of their amazing fantasy house and it doesn't matter that it's nothing like the tiny two bed terraced house I grew up in, or the equally tiny terraced house my mother and 8 siblings grew up in.

I think his stuff works because it's clearly fantastical, more like a fairy tale than a movie plot - nobody in real life talks like that, and in some films there's a switch to animation where clearly unrealistic things are happening. Part of liking his stuff is being comfortable with artifice.

One thing I noticed too on rewatching Moonrise Kingdom is a real economy - there's no dead time or diversionary scenes and it just build and builds until the climax - I think there's no scene you could take out without taking something away.
posted by kersplunk at 1:51 PM on March 21, 2018 [8 favorites]


Oh he's got a look, and it's EVERYWHERE.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 1:56 PM on March 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


Don't care. Still love The Fantastic Mr. Fox...

"CANIS LUPIS..."
posted by Windopaene at 3:01 PM on March 21, 2018


MetaFilter: dammit, I like a bit of twee
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:13 PM on March 21, 2018


There’s nothing like a Metafilter thread on one of your favorite artists to trigger depression. Goodbye forever Metafilter.

I'm teetering on this too, haha. Maybe time for a break.
posted by Sebmojo at 4:29 PM on March 21, 2018


I just dislike the sense that Anderson does as much for his films as people give him credit. I think he gets a huge amount of help and covers it in icing to make it seems like he cobbled it together himself. (see 'unique vision' comment, above)

Flip through either of the Matt Zoller Seitz books on Wes Anderson and you'll find Anderson with plenty to say about his collaborators. The book on The Grand Budapest Hotel is glorious with detail about the ingenuity of the location scouts and set designers who worked on that film.
posted by chimpsonfilm at 5:07 PM on March 21, 2018 [5 favorites]


Wes Anderson movies don't feel alien to everybody, not even to people who didn't grow up rich white kids.

seconded. poor kids who inexplicably (or not so inexplicably) fail to live up to their potential can also have weird relationships with their siblings that are significantly altered in the wake of a parent's untimely death.

more like a fairy tale than a movie plot - nobody in real life talks like that,

uh oh
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 5:12 PM on March 21, 2018 [10 favorites]


I find it interesting that many people are so very aware of his prop and setting aesthetic with its correspondence stock and vintage suitcases, but there is much less discussion of his 70s independent director film style aesthetic with its Scorsese steadicam oners and slow motion scenes. With Tarantino people spent a lot of time talking about the violence and swearing, but there was also a lot of discussion of what he was doing as a filmmaker and how it fit into the history of film. Both directors do a lot of homage, but both have their own style as well. If I were the arguing type, I might argue that Anderson's is more developed and refined.
posted by snofoam at 7:19 PM on March 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


> "whose style is so specific, he's basically his own genre"

Is there any higher praise you can give an artist? Oh, do one for Dickens next. Or Daniel Johnston.

I love Wes Anderson films and I love this trailer and I love this thread and I love that Wes Anderson provokes so much moot rancor and I still want to believe that Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson are estranged siblings like the estranged siblings that this trailer points out are a leitmotif in his films and that they each secretly long to make films in the style of one another and will some day.
posted by bunbury at 7:20 PM on March 21, 2018 [7 favorites]


On the subject of "basically his own genre":

https://www.reddit.com/r/AccidentalWesAnderson/
posted by bunbury at 7:22 PM on March 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


Looking at the shots excerpted in Honest Trailer, I can't help but think that the Instagram aesthetic owes a hell of a lot to Anderson.
posted by xigxag at 7:32 PM on March 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


But most of his movies feel like the work of a manipulative sociopath.

Eh, but couldn't you say that about any good director? Most of the job is based on creating an artificial world to manipulate the audience's emotions. Wes Anderson just wants to make it pretty, too.

FWIW, I've always been enthralled by how empathetic and generous Moonrise Kingdom is to all of its characters. The scene between Suzy and her mother ("Why is everything so hard for you?") -- well, I don't know how much of that was Frances McDormand and how much of it was Wes Anderson, but for me it's the best family scene of all time.
posted by grandiloquiet at 9:27 PM on March 21, 2018 [10 favorites]


Come for the face punch, stay for Angelica Houston on an old timey telephone.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:45 PM on March 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


Also, Etheline Tenenbaum's arc is her falling in love with Henry and allowing herself to face that future instead of living in the crystalized past. It's arguably the spine of the movie.

One of the little details I loved about this romance was that it wasn’t just Etheline and her children who were trapped in the past, living in a museum of the relics of the past — Henry’s published book has a cover illustration that was clearly done in the 1970s or 80s of himself, his late wife, and their son when he was a child. It’s true that we don’t get to see any of the drama in Henry and his sons life the way we do for the Tenenbaum children, but it’s very clear that he is also struggling with being trapped in the amber of nostalgia and that he has made the same choice as Etheline, to move forward into the future, which I think is really what that movie is actually about. Henry is probably the most sane and stable person in that movie, but he isn’t just there as a prop.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 10:53 PM on March 21, 2018 [13 favorites]


I read the AV Club's glowing review of Isle of Dogs this morning, and the comments included What if Wes Anderson Directed X-Men and it is just delightful honestly.
posted by emjaybee at 7:00 AM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


I like some of his movies very very much, despite the fact that I am extremely racist against rich white people.

Some of his other movies I don't like so much.

I thought this video was charming.
posted by 256 at 10:40 AM on March 22, 2018


(Dear white people, here's your daily reminder that you can be prejudiced or biased against rich white people, but not racist)
posted by TwoStride at 11:07 AM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


well, I don't know how much of that was Frances McDormand and how much of it was Wes Anderson, but for me it's the best family scene of all time.

Similar, for me, to "I've had a rough year, dad." An extremely brief scene I cannot watch without crying.
posted by Smearcase at 11:07 AM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


This out today, from Vulture, Every Wes Anderson Film, Ranked.
Isle of Dogs does suspiciously well for a film that hardly anyone, beyond critics, has seen yet.
Also, I would probably flip their #1 and #2 films, but that's just me.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 11:10 AM on March 22, 2018


anem0ne, ugh. That’s really disappointing to hear. Anderson has gone down that ugly path of using non-white, non-English-speaking people as a cipher for his characters alienation and I had really hoped that grand Budapest hotel meant he’d finally learned better. If Isle Of Dogs is populated with a bunch of white actor dog characters and a bunch of non-translated Japanese humans in the background who basically function as Charlie Brown grownups, that’s a level of racism Anderson hasn’t hit yet, and yes, grotesquely uncomfortable describes that pretty well. :(
posted by moonlight on vermont at 3:58 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]


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