The World of Wes Anderson
Derek Hill’s great new book, Charlie Kaufman and Hollywood’s Merry Band of Pranksters, Fabulists and Dreamers: An Excursion Into the American New Wave, is out in the U.K. and coming soon to North America. More soon…
(Click to pre-order: for Americanos)
(Britishers, Little Englanders, and other UK residents, order: Amazon | Waterstone’s | Blackwell)
(sorry for the lack of updates as of late… more soon!)
GOOD Magazine has a great set of mini-essays/interviews on one of my favorite directors, Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude).
Jason on Harold and Maude:
He was the first actor that I ever felt close to. And I also think that I had never seen a film that was happy and sad and funny all at once. I was used to clear-cut genres. This is a Comedy. This is Drama. Harold and Maude, to my 17-year-old mind, was a whole new place. Anything could happen. I guess my life just kind of made sense to me in a single moment. I felt not so bad. And I watched it over and over while making Rushmore (thank you, Mom).
Wes on The Last Detail:
Whenever I am getting ready to make a movie I look at other movies I love in order to answer the same recurring question: How is this done, again? I can never seem to remember, and I don’t mean that to be glib. I also hope people don’t throw it back in my face. Making a movie is very complicated, and it seems like kind of a miracle when it actually works out. Hal Ashby made five or six great movies in a row, and that seems to be practically unheard of.
Thanks to reader j. for this link.
From SF0:
NOTE: Rushmore Academy thinks fake fan mail silly. Instead we support sending REAL fan mail to your favorite directors, gaffers, and Best Boys.
On this glorious day (May 1), 39 years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson of Houston, Texas celebrated the birth of their baby boy, Wes.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WES!
Leave a birthday message for Wes!
Nice post by Justin over at Tengumaster Chronicles:
Hi everyone,
So I’m late. In more than one way, actually. First and foremost, if you’ve been checking my movie log (and I know you have), then you will notice that I just recently saw The Darjeeling Limited. Forgive me, I know I have sinned, but it was earnest- I was at school, away from limited release theaters, when it came out and by the time I returned for Christmas it was out of theaters. When the DVD came out, they were all gone in the Blockbuster in San Diego, so I finally saw it while at home for spring break. Anyways- amazing movie. Every time Wes Anderson makes a film, it becomes impossible to rank it among the others. This film was absolutely amazing, but was it better than Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums? It’s hard to say, really, they are all just so great. His visual style as well as his use of deadpan humor, minimalist dialog and a number of common themes tie his films together, and sitting next to each other on a shelf, they certainly feel related. I will not go on and on about the movies, as Rushmore Academy (The net’s biggest and best Anderson fan site) has done that well enough. I will say though, that each of his movies has certainly impacted me personally, and the way I look at family, friendship and the human condition. The idiosyncrasies of his characters and the perfection and detail of his sets, wardrobes, and soundtracks certainly convey his own little beautiful world, utterly separate from our own, but it would be hard to call his work fantasy. In the case of his most recent work, I felt so connected to all three of the Whitman brothers, in different ways. I certainly feel that my obsessive compulsive nature can be similar to Francis, but I definitely feel that my attachment to women is conveyed in Jack. Strangely enough, as hard as it is to say (as always with Anderson), my favorite of the three is probably Adrien Brody as Peter. I am in total anticipation for 2009’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox (I loved Roald Dahl as a child.) It is a shame that this film, along with his previous four, didn’t win the oscar.
Thanks, Justin!
A few years back, some of the Yankee Racers organized a Wes Anderson Film Festival.
We want to try it again. We would put up a chat room, meet at a designated time, and press play simultaneously. What do you think? What film should we watch together first?
IGN U.K. interviews Mr. Wes Anderson (hulu.com):
French photographer Pierre Wetzel lives and works in Bordeaux. He specializes in portrait and music photography.
Photos republished with permission from the author. Please visit his online galleries. Reproduction of these photographs without the consent of Mr. Wetzel is a copyright violation.
www.e-photographie.net
www.aufildesjours.info (photoblog)
Continue reading “Mini-exhibition: The Photography of Pierre Wetzel”
