[deleted]I also came upon an article from the Winter 2007 ed. of Cinema Journal: “La Camera-Crayola: Authorship Comes of Age in the Cinema of Wes Anderson” by Devin Orgeron (NC State Univ.).
Like the semicultish but relatively short-lived electronic frenzy to recreate and sell the Team Zissou Adidas sneaker, the clip [the American Express commercial] has taken on a life of its own on the Internet, become another potentially coveted and collectible Anderson product, a part of the Anderson lifestyle [author’s italics], characterized by the director’s simultaneous self-deprecation and self-aggrandizement. Critical for us, indeed, is the centrality of Anderson himself within the Andersonian mise-en-scène. Directed by Anderson or not, the spot, claiming to advertise the recognizable credit card, ends up as an advertisement for Anderson himself, his cinematic form, his thematic fascination with the individual, and his network of support… Anderson’s installment is particularly interesting, perhaps, because of its fit within a body of work similarly concerned with the delicate production of personal identity, here reduced to an array of identifiable, imitable, and, as a consequence, even laughable stylistic and thematic characteristics (61-62).
URL: Orgeron article