The World of Wes Anderson
Our pals at the Dayton Dirt Collective are hosting part 2 of their Wes Anderson Film Festival this Sunday, April 19 at 6:00 p.m. Eastern.
The show is free. Please bring a soft drink (and one to share!) and something to sit on! Popcorn will be provided. The DDC hopes to provide live music. Dress as your favorite Rushmore character (If someone takes pictures, I will post them here! I expect to see a Dart Boy!).
DDC is located at 144 East Third Street, Dayton, Ohio (Google Map).
We knew from the Criterion Collection that Wes was involved in a Jacques Tati (Mon Oncle) retrospective at the Cinémathèque française in Paris, “Jacques Tati, deux temps, trois movements.” (2 April – 8 August).
The Independent (U.K.) reports that Wes wrote a short essay for the exhibition catalogue:
In a short essay for the catalogue to the Paris exhibition on Tati’s life and career, Anderson (The Darjeeling Limited; The Royal Tenenbaums) says that Tati, as actor and comedian, stands comparison with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. “He has a silhouette that you can make into a cartoon; just his walk is a great creation,” he says.
As for Jacques Tati’s importance as a film-maker, both Anderson and David Lynch (Twin Peaks; The Elephant Man) point to his unconventional and pioneering use of sound. This may seem surprising. There is hardly any dialogue in Tati movies. Much of his humour seems to be visual, based on elaborately devised gags developed from his early days as a stage comedian and mime artist. (Tati was also, as a young man, a talented professional rugby player, a second row forward for Racing Club de Paris in the French first division.)
Anderson says Tati’s elusive use of snatches of half-heard conversation and the repetition of strange or suggestive noises were decades ahead of their time. Lynch points out that a large part of the humour and oddly melancholy atmosphere of Monsieur Hulot or Mon Oncle are created by soundtracks that audiences scarcely notice. Jacques Tatischeff was born into a Franco-Russian family in Paris in 1907. His mother was of Dutch origin, something which, he claimed, shaped his meticulous approach to comedy. “It is almost impossible to make the Dutch laugh,” he once said.
The catalogue is available on amazon.fr. If you have additional information about this event, please contact edwardappleby @ yankeeracers.org.
The next installment of Matt Zoller Seitz’s video essay at the Museum of the Moving Image has been posted. This one focuses on director Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude, Being There). Seitz concludes:
There’s nothing inherently wrong with Anderson’s selective adoration. But when you look at the totality of what Ashby accomplished—the social and political dimensions that all his films explored, the blunt honesty of their expression—Anderson’s work can’t help but come up short, just as the work of Anderson’s imitators is overshadowed by the genuine article.
Our pal Gerry Caravan responds:
Tell Matt Seitz he just made my list of things to do today. In all seriousness, I guess I can see Seitz’s point, but you can only conclude “Anderson’s work can’t help but come up short” when you demand of Anderson’s work the things it is quite pointedly refusing to do.
Another video essay from Matt Zoller Seitz at the Museum of the Moving Image. This time, Martin Scorsese, Richard Lester, and Mike Nichols.
Here is Part I, “Introduction.”
from Hollywood.blog (Netherlands):
These are said to be the press notes and credits for Fantastic Mr. Fox. I cannot absolutely confirm their authenticity at this point but have no reason to believe that they are are a fabrication.
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Based on the beloved story by Roald Dahl, the film tells the tale of the noble, charming and fantastic Mr. Fox, who uses his wits and cunning to outfox three dimwitted farmers who tire of sharing their chickens with the crafty creature.
“Boggis and Bunce and Bean. One short, one fat, one lean. These horrible crooks, so different in looks, were nonetheless equally mean.”
Wes Anderson (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited) directs the stop-motion animation of Roald Dahl’s much loved children’s book. Fantastic Mr. Fox is voiced by George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray and Michael Gambon, and scheduled for release in the fall of 2009.
Continue reading “Press notes and credits for Fantastic Mr. Fox”
A very cool discussion at The Auteurs.
A few of my favorites:
Jules and Jim
Amelie
Pierrot Le Fou
Ok, so I have a thing for French films. What are your favorite Wes frames?
A debate has emerged over at Hollywood Elsewhere in response to Matt Zoller Seitz’s video essay, part I, on Wes Anderson’s cinematic infuences. The issue, an old one: the alleged decline of Wes Anderson.
My favorite response is from lonniechung:
I think it says more about Wes Anderson as a filmmaker that each of his films are measured against each other. If any of his last three had been his first, he’d still be seen as visionary. I thought Aquatic and Darjeeling were his two most personal and heartbreaking films. It just seems like he’s penalized for having a particular style to how he shoots and writes. All of the “quirky” shit is lazy journalism. The father-son story of Aquatic, the brothers story of Darjeeling, the family story of Tennenbaums, the friendship story of Bottle Rocket are all unique to themselves. Just because the characters he puts on screen tend to show their flaws more than their strengths, it doesn’t mean he’s repeating himself.
For the record, The Darjeeling Limited is my second favorite Wes film, so the “decline” of Wes Anderson is a non-issue for me.
Thoughts? Read on for the discussion that has developed here at the Academy.
The New York Magazine entertainment blog, on the heels of The Playlist, wonders if Wes has changed the ending to Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. For one thing, we should consider the source: an anonymous message board post (see the post in question here). And, a correction: these observations are not from the Sunday screening in New Jersey but an earlier one (check the date on the message!).
Wes Anderson’s hugely anticipated stop-motion film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox screened for a New Jersey test audience yesterday. How was it? “Very good,” says an anonymous message-board critic with a devil-may-care attitude about signed nondisclosure agreements. There is something slightly troubling, though. From the review:
“The plot itself doesn’t deviate from the book that much. At the moment they’ve changed the ending slightly from the book, but from the feedback we gave in the discussion at the end, it wasn’t particularly popular (although I personally thought it was quite good), so they may do something completely different with it.”
What could Anderson have possibly changed? And what makes his new ending so odious? Did he shoehorn in an Anderson-esque scene in which the three farmers are all simultaneously reunited with their fathers? Is there an egregious use of sixties Britpop? We’re getting worried!
