For about 99% of the world's people staring at the screen, Wes Anderson's name doesn't mean anything. You never know the Andersons. Moreover, some Paul Thomas Anderson, Lindsay Anderson, Brad Anderson and even actress Pamela Anderson are hanging out. But. As soon as the first frames of his paintings appear, it becomes clear that they belong to the same author. And he is not like everyone else.
On the basis of admiration for Wes Anderson's films, kidals of all countries and some of the older film fans have united. And this is understandable. Outwardly, every Anderson film is a celebration of autism (calmly - no stigmatization): an incredible addiction to detail turns him into the creator of a toy world, even when he seems to be telling an almost real story. His signature picture is a joy for the lover of collecting models of cities, houses, railways, collectors of vintage posters and lovers of quizzes and charades. Only there are no crosswords. For crossword puzzles, he respects himself too much. And always - hard work with color in order to make it warmer and softer. There are no contrasts. Let's build a miniature model of a European classic grand hotel (part set # 297867, Amazon price $ 2,000), put tiny mannequins in there and seewhat they will do.
Well, in short, you have already found out who we are talking about.
"Puppetry", "infantilism" was not always attributed to Anderson.
His first film, Bottle Rocket (1996), which is translated as "Bottle Rocket", did not carry exactly such future "Anderson" features.
Three friends make a plan for the next 75 years of life.
The plan consists mainly of robberies.
And since they are utter infantiles, they do not get anything in general.
Before watching a movie, you should not watch Godard's “On the Last Breath” - the visual cinematic influence of the French classic of the new wave will be too obvious.
Well, don't look at Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" - they still crawl out of all the cracks here.
The only thing that surprises me is how this movie ended up on Martin Scorsese's list of Best Films of the 90s.
The master noticed something in this tape.
Perhaps the hope for a change in the American film industry.
Well, yes, and the MTV Movie Awards were noticed too - and gave the "New Generation" award.
Although, of course, where is MTV, and where is cinema in general?
Answer: about the same as MTV and music.
And the film flopped at the box office.
Probably, the audience was not ready to perceive Owen Wilson as an actor.
This was his debut.
The most interesting thing is that for many years Owen has been filming and filming everything, smiles with the same smile in all roles and, in fact, has one single acting paint.
Thanks to Wes Anderson - missed us all.
Judging by the first film, Anderson decided that he was an independent - an indie director.
Yes, the passion for European "independent" cinema like Godard is a serious trauma.
But Anderson managed to turn this injury into success.
Not without producer Barry Mendel, who somehow sold the young talent to the monsters with Walt Disney.
Although it is clear how - they put the rights to the script up for auction and sold it to Joe Roth, who later became chairman of Walt Disney Studios.
Actually, this is a real miracle.
And even more wonderful is the fact that under the roller of such a machine, Wes Anderson did not turn into a cake and a cog, but kept all stages and aspects of his second film under control.
That makes him, by American standards, not so much a director as the author of "auteur cinema".
There should be a long passage that in modern American filmmaking, the personality of the director literally comes to naught - this is a producer's film, not a director's.
Therefore, Anderson is a typical independent.
And he will be an eternal client of the Sundance or SXSW festival - it is there that the most trending (which is not equivalent to "good") cinema looks and the most trending rock bands are listened to.
But he got into another time gap.
In a cycle that has been repeating in the United States for more than a decade, when a movie from large studios becomes unbearable for an ordinary person who has read at least a couple of books in his life.
In the 1998 film "Academy" Rushmore, all of Anderson's signature techniques have already been declared: strictly controlled color palette - blue, green and red; sharp assembly joints in the style of the same Godard and the transformation of interiors into a kind of miniature models captured by a macro lens. This will only develop further. And of course, he was lucky with the arrival of the megastar Bill Murray. Murray is generally an amazing person - he is unusually friendly, simple and funny in communication, he subscribes to any things that can bring joy not only to him, but also to those around him (in the city where he lives, he can, walking down the street, run into someone - to a stranger for a wedding, for example). These human features of his, by the way, made him the star of "independent cinema" - he absolutely enjoys filming with some young talent.And in the case of Anderson - when Disney refused to pay 75 thousand for filming one scene, Murray simply offered his personal money to the young director, handing a blank check. With regards to music - here Anderson shows himself to be a fan of the English rock of the 60s, because the songs of The Kinks sound in the film. Why is it important? Well, this American knows a thing or two about priorities.
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The fact is that only in Russia it is believed that English rock is divided into two big camps - The Beatles and The Rolling Stones - and they cannot come together.
In fact, The Kinks not only stood apart from the aforementioned gentlemen, but also had a much greater influence on the development of music.
Actually, all post-punk and Brit-pop is precisely the influence of The Kinks.
After paying 10 million, Disney still managed to earn twice as much.
And this drew the attention of producers not only to Anderson, but in general to the new independent wave of American cinema, which was just beginning to rustle with pebbles in the Venice Beach area.
And the "Rushmore Academy" itself was taken in the special depository of the US Library of Congress as a cultural and historical value.
For a semi-autobiographical film about the friendship of a strange schoolboy with a 50-year-old uncle, it is more than a success.
Anderson is growing surprisingly fast.
True, he does it introvertedly, but not expansively.
He simply deepens his own principles and brings them to such intensity that it becomes noticeable even to consumers of the Pacific Rim.
The story of a mega-strange family that would make a luxurious social drama stigmatizing the vices of society - “The Tenenbaum Family” nevertheless looks entirely painted on a piece of plexiglass, and the director does everything so that any drama, right up to death, is perceived with optimism and hope.
This approach is common to all fairy tales.
"Everyone died, but everything will be fine."
Although only Daddy (Gene Hackman) died in Tenenbaums, he was a goat.
Of course, which is characteristic of people with some mental disabilities, Anderson keeps everything in the picture in plain sight in strict order.
Even if this picture most resembles a postcard from the 50s.
This is his style - clear symmetry and order in the frame.
This is how people lay out the tools on the table so that everything can be seen and everything is at hand.
The artist Tom Sachs once called it knolling, he himself worked in this style: just look at his Hardware or Clock art objects and everything will be clear with Anderson.
And that's what - the complete absence of cynicism and banter.
Which suddenly pits Anderson, and the other filmmakers who make up "American eccentric cinema," against all previous postmodernism.
Because postmodernity is the reaction of cowards in the face of social problems and especially physical violence (these are most afraid of getting hit in the face), and it poisons everything around him with cynicism, whining and malicious irony.
Judging by the emergence of a new wave, to which Wes Anderson certainly belongs, cynicism and banter have already gotten smart people.
A very curious film with Bill Murray in the title role, "The Aquatic Life of Steve Zissou" (2004) failed at the box office.
Anderson and Noah Baumbach wrote the funny story of the "alternative Jacques Yves Cousteau."
It is even dedicated to him.
It is picturesque and fabulously cozy at the same time, even the moment of being devoured by a giant shark of the protagonist's best friend - the pseudo-Cousteau is not made very tragically.
The director quite clearly copies-parodies the style of Cousteau's films.
And of course, much was filmed in the most detailed section of the ship's model.
He immediately wants to disassemble and reassemble, armed with glue, under the supervision of the Pope.
Critics praised the film, fans elevated him to cult status, but he raised 20 million less money at the box office than he spent.
After that, Anderson shot a short film at the Raphael Hotel in Paris and called it Hotel Chevalier (2007). Of course, the passion of the "independent" for European culture is inescapable. To that same “atmosphere of Paris” that has set the teeth on edge even in Russia. But here is a short story about an emerging, impossible love (Natalie Portman and Jason Schwartzman), significantly embellished with the song of the British author of the 60s Peter Sarstedt "Where are you going, dear?" ("You sound like Marlene Dietrich, you dance like Zizi Jeanmer, your clothes are strictly from Balmain, you live in a chic apartment on Boulevard Saint-Michel, the Rolling Stones records are kept there. And you are friends with Sasha Distel").
Then this line of love and Sarstedt's song will be transferred to the full-length “Train to Darjeeling.
Desperate Travelers "(2007).
For me personally, real India does not cause anything but disgust, but Wes Anderson made a very pleasant picture.
It is difficult to come up with another word than “pleasant”.
And the soundtrack is full of music from Indian films, and for a snack The Kinks and The Rolling Stones.
And Owen starring Schwartzman, watered down by Adrian Brody.
The audience seemed to like it.
Was nominated for the Golden Lion in Venice.
Meanwhile, a "wave" has already formed in what is called "American eccentric cinema" - here "eccentric" means that it is "off-center."
And it differs dramatically from the big studio cinema.
Once upon a time with the arrival of such authors as Michael Cimino, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, John Carpenter, Stanley Kubrick, Sam Peckinpah, Mike Nichols, etc. never (all these 60-80s), but then everything became as usual. "American eccentric cinema", merged into independent cinema, which, in fact, internally opposes that very Hollywood.
Already filmed such films as "Donnie Darko" (2001), "Tales of the South" (2006) by Richard Kelly (quote: "And the New York Times says that God is dead"), "Lost in Translation" (2003) Sofia Coppola , which is generally considered an example of "independent cinema", Paul Thomas Anderson directed Magnolia (1999), Love knocking down (2002), he will later shoot the picture Congenital vice (2014) with the punchline Freedom to every freak ".
Richard Linklater directed Slacker (1991) and Blurred (2006) based on Philip K. Dick.
Being John Malkovich (1999) Spike Jonze, Happiness (1998) Todd Solondz.
"I'm Not There" (2006) by Todd Haynes came out ...
... and Wes Anderson found a literary basis for himself - the Welshman Roald Dahl, the man who removed the veil of sentimentality from children's fairy tales, adding black humor to them.
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009). A puppet film is a delight to the eyes from the first frame to the last. In this picture, Anderson finds for himself the opportunity to embody all his fabulous images. Wanted a fairy tale - get a fairy tale. The soundtrack features the old band The Bobby Fuller Four (Let Her Dance), The Rolling Stones and Georges Delerue, about whom Ken Russell was filming. One thing is not clear whether the fox robbing local farmers is a positive character or not. Judging by Anderson, yes. And in general, it is completely unlike anything American. Still, Anderson gravitates towards Europe. The French magazine, in which Godard and Truffaut also worked, Cahiers du cinéma named the film among the best five films of the year. The award has found a fan of Godard.
Moonrise Kingdom (2012). The story of unbearable childhood love seems quite simple at first glance. The basic colors of the picture are brown, mustard, in principle, autumn, warm. Children, deprived of parental love, are looking for a way out in feeling for each other. And, of course, a riot, flight and the acquisition of a brief freedom.
But the music of Benjamin Britten, which is everywhere here (in particular, "Noah's Flood" staged by the local theater), in the style of Britten, writes the track and composer of the film Alexander Desplat. There are also Saint-Saens and Mozart, and - for a snack - Hank Williams. And then it becomes clear that not everything is so simple with this story. For example, the scene of the canoe trip (under Hank Williams) looks like a quote from Jarmusch's "Dead Man" (Williams is better than the unbearably boring Neil Young, honestly). And the scene of the cleansing by the flood is, in principle, biblical. For example, the discussion of the film in The Washington Post can tell about the cretinism of modern American newspaper criticism: "Does Anderson Hate Dogs?" (from killing a dog with an arrow). What?
And The Huffington Post is horrified by the touch of the hero to the girl's chest.
"And in general, they are dancing almost naked by the tent to the song of Françoise Hardy, and this is the sexualization of minors."
These are about the same people who began to resent the "Island of Dogs" (2018): "a distorted view of Japan", "cultural appropriation!", "White savior complex" and other Facebook-leftist rubbish.
God, where are you, the great critic Pauline Cale, who stood in line to see Deep Throat in 1972?
It is no wonder that all those who were not engaged in hard physical labor in the entire First World were waiting for the Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).
So you don't have to talk a lot about him.
All the best and classic sides of Anderson are right there: a tragic story in a tragic era for Europe - a wonderful set of old postcards, a prefabricated dollhouse, cozy sadness for the hotel chic of Austria-Hungary, and so on.
At this point, it was customary for Anderson to admire and give him prizes.
But he is still a difficult guy, even if he is an American.
"Isle of Dogs" (2018) - surprisingly complex material from keel to klotik, hiding behind the screen of a puppet cartoon. In the days of covid madness, the film looks very different, revisit. “You threw infected fleas into the metropolis, causing an unprecedented outbreak of canine flu, you took control of the deportation of dogs, you developed an artificial form of life, you destroyed all opposition with bribery and violence, you did everything right - you“ greased ”someone, sowed panic, now - the final solution to the canine question. " Separate work with voice acting - part of the text is in Japanese without translation. And the one with the translation, prompts the idea of the ambiguity of such a thing as translation, in principle. The author casually destroys the "tyranny of language". Well, and tyranny as such. Every inch of the frame is a visual masterpiece. But definitely not a postcard.
This is probably why now the employees of the lifestyle channels are waiting with such an erotic shudder for the release of the film The French Dispatch, which in Russia has already been called “French Bulletin.
Supplement to the newspaper "Liberty.
Kansas Evening Sun ".
He must put them all back into a wonderful dream of something greater.
To the music of Iggy Pop and Françoise Hardy.
And us, of course, too.
Anderson will heal everyone.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.