The World of Wes Anderson
T-minus 13 days until The French Dispatch is released
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Vogue UK: “What Makes Margot Tenenbaum’s Style So Good, Even 20 Years Later“
“Margot’s refined style remains one of the movie’s calling cards two decades later. A gifted playwright who has been adopted into the Tenenbaum family, Margot is an outsider. That’s only underscored by her fashion sense. She’s decidedly more fashion-forward than the rest of the Tenenbaums. But her looks, while distinctive, are never over-styled. In one scene, she’s smoking in the bathroom while painting her toes and wearing a tight, nude slip dress. You get the sense that she does this very thing – in the same exact outfit – every single day.”
W: “On the Scene of the French Dispatch“
“[Owen] Wilson’s mother, Laura, a photographer, is another set regular, snapping the action between takes. Here, she shares her photographs of the French Dispatch set, in Angoulême, a town in southwestern France, and, along with Anderson and Stockhausen, gives us firsthand details about the making of the film.”
New Yorker: “The New Yorker Writers and Editors Who Inspired ‘The French Dispatch‘
“Next month, Anderson’s latest film, “The French Dispatch,” about a magazine in mid-century France that bears a striking resemblance to The New Yorker, will première in theatres across the country. With a star-filled cast that includes Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Timothée Chalamet, the film traces the compilation of an issue of the magazine during a series of chapters, four devoted to the creation of individual articles. There are many things that the filmmaker gets right, as well as a few that slightly miss the mark (perhaps deliberately so). “
The Life Aquatic vs. The Jacques Cousteau Odyssey
I’m not into tats (the misses is), but these are marvelous. If you have or see one, send it along to edwardappleby@yankeeracers.org!
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“Unfortunately, [those who booed as the credits rolled at the press screening] led into the dark before I could debate them on the essential role imagination plays in Anderson’s filmography, which would surely have been an exciting time for us both.”
“What’s more interesting, I think, are the increasingly dark tones at the edges of Anderson’s Technicolor dream. This is a director whose last live-action film ended with fascism descending on Central Europe, so it’s not exactly new, but still, it’s striking how much of The French Dispatch, which began shooting way back in the fall of 2018, turns out to mirror the cultural flash points of the past 14 months — somehow, Hollywood’s least-contemporary filmmaker has made a movie all about prison, protests, police. Perhaps all those boos were merely an expression of dismay: If even Wes Anderson is picking up on this stuff, we’re fucked.”
Hannah Strong, Little White Lies
“This is also arguably the director’s his most detail-oriented work; the runtime flies by as we become immersed in the meticulously constructed world. Anderson isn’t just a filmmaker, he’s an architect, crafting intricate worlds for viewers to get lost in. This one requires a little concentration to follow all the dialogue and storylines, but it’s a pleasure to be in the hands of a storyteller who cares so deeply about every aspect of his work.”
Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph UK 5/5
The film “is the cinematic equivalent of a brakeless freewheel through a teeming bazaar – if said bazaar was stacked with beautiful vintage artefacts, all meticulously arranged.”
“The film is a hymn to human curiosity and compulsions – Anderson is clearly besotted with the style of journalism that hammers away at niche pet topics over thousands of words. But it’s also about the necessary incompleteness of a curious life.”
“Like his latest menagerie of rovers, visionaries and outsiders, Anderson does nothing by halves.”
‘It’s a significant breakthrough to see the director engaging with sexuality and violence as aspects of real life. Yes, there’s still an ironic distance between such elements and the audience, but ‘The French Dispatch’ feels less safe than Anderson’s earlier work, and that’s a good thing.”
“Apart from Ernst Lubitsch or Jacques Tati, it’s hard to imagine another director who has put this level of effort into crafting a comedy, where every costume, prop and casting choice has been made with such a reverential sense of absurdity. If that sounds airless or exhausting, think again: Sure, it takes work to unpack, but the ensemble ensures that Anderson’s humorous creations feel human.”
Credit: Photos de Laura
** no spoilers here ** If you click through, you are on your own.
Peter Bradshaw, Guardian 4/5 stars
“To which I can only say … sure, yes, more fun, more buoyancy, more elegance, more marvellously eccentric invention, more originality. It might not be at the very zenith of what he can achieve but for sheer moment-by-moment pleasure, and for laughs, this is a treat.”
Nicholas Barber, BBC 4/5 stars
“The French Dispatch has to be one of the most labour-intensive films in existence. It makes The Grand Budapest Hotel look as if it was improvised over a weekend and shot with a smartphone. “
“There is something delightfully perverse about Anderson’s hyper-industrious treatment of such flimsy material. His craftsmanship is so overwhelming that unless you’re already allergic to his tics and trademarks, you should get a buzz from the film’s many, many incidental pleasures. One thing’s for sure: there is nothing quite like The French Dispatch – except Anderson’s other films, of course.”
David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
“While The French Dispatch might seem like an anthology of vignettes without a strong overarching theme, every moment is graced by Anderson’s love for the written word and the oddball characters who dedicate their professional lives to it. There’s a wistful sense of time passing and a lovely ode to the pleasures of travel embedded in the material, along with an appreciation for the history of American foreign correspondents who bring their perceptive outsider gaze to other cultures. “
“Anderson’s movies may be pretty, whimsical flights of fancy, but they also express genuine curiosity about the strange nature of human relations.”
“On a certain level, the fate of the paper suggests that this kind of handmade approach to distinctive human experiences died long ago, and Anderson’s salute to an earlier era may also be his version of an elegy. Certainly, the precise, discursive storytelling of “The French Dispatch” is in constant peril, but the very existence of this delightful movie is proof that it hasn’t gone away yet.”
The French Dispatch made its debut today at the Festival de Cannes 2021!
More photos over on the Rushmore Academy Facebook page.
The film received a nine-minute standing ovation: