Wes, Alexandre Desplat, Jarvis Cocker, and the London Oratory School Schola
New Yorker Commentary on “The Darjeeling Limited”
Richard Brody profiled Wes a few weeks ago for the New Yorker. On Brody’s excellent film blog for the New Yorker, Front Row, he added some additional commentary (and praise) for “The Darjeeling Limited”:
I’ve seen it many, many times since that press screening two years ago. It has not only held up but gotten richer; each viewing yields fresh wonders.
He also posted a short video commentary about TDL that is worth viewing:
Behind Mr. Fox: Who Am I? (video)
Listen to audio and watch video from Wes and Noah at the NYPL
Wes and Noah Baumbach appeared at the New York Public Library last evening. You can now listen to the audio of the conversation over at their website, and watch video.
HBO First Look: Fantastic Mr. Fox
The HBO “First Look” of Fantastic Mr. Fox is now playing on Home Box Office. Fox Searchlight has a complete schedule on its website.
Waris: “To India, with Love”
Waris Ahluwalia, with co-editors Mortimer Singer and Tina Bhojwani, have put together a beautiful and interesting scrapbook called To India with Love: From New York to Mumbai.
Ask people who have been there, and they will all tell you India is like no other place in the world, a land that stirs every one of the five senses and stays in your heart forever. It is this India that brought together three friends, Waris Ahluwalia, Mortimer Singer and Tina Bhojwani to raise funds, spirits, and awareness for the victims of the attacks in Mumbai in November, 2008. The editors set out to create a scrapbook collecting personal photos, stories, and memories from people who, like themselves, love India. The contributors include Wes Anderson, Adrien Brody, Francesco Clemente, Anthony Edwards, Jeanine Lobell, Natalie Portman, Yves Carcelle, Jean Touitou, Owen Wilson, Laura Wilson, Cynthia Rowley, James Ivory, Matthew Williamson, Rachel Roy, Tory Burch, Padma Lakshmi and Shobhaa De. This book declares to Mumbai and the whole country that we are all thinking of them and support them: hence To India, with Love: New York to Mumbai. Profits from the sales of the book will go to support families affected by the attacks. This book can truly make a difference, by opening eyes to the wonders of India and by once again letting the pen or a camera dominate the sword.
It is featured in the New York Times “The Moment” blog.
Photo by Wes Anderson
New behind-the-scenes videos
“Behind Mr. Fox: Bill Murray as Badger”
“Behind Mr. Fox: George Clooney as Mr. Fox”
More after the break… Continue reading “New behind-the-scenes videos”
Wes and Noah at the New York Public Library
LIVE from the NYPL: Wes Anderson & Noah Baumbach
Monday, 9 November 2009
7:00 p.m.
Celeste Bartos Forum
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
$25 general admission
LIVE from the NYPL presents an evening with director WES ANDERSON (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) in conversation with screenplay co-writer NOAH BAUMBACH (The Squid and the Whale) about Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson’s first animated film. In Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson utilizes classic handmade stop-motion techniques to tell the story of the classic children’s book by ROALD DAHL. Mr. and Mrs. Fox (George Clooney and Meryl Streep) live an idyllic home life with their son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) and visiting young nephew Kristofferson (Eric Anderson). But after twelve years of quiet domesticity, the bucolic existence proves too much for Mr. Fox’s wild animal instincts. Soon he slips back into his old ways as a sneaky chicken thief and in doing so, endangers not only his beloved family, but the whole animal community… The film is produced by Allison Abbate, Scott Rudin, Wes Anderson and Jeremy Dawson.
Remember to enter the Halloween costume contest
Happy Halloween! Remember to document your Halloween costume for the Third Annual Rushmore Academy Halloween Costume Contest (details). We are giving away three fantastic Fantastic Mr. Fox prize packages and great new music from Noah and the Whale. Remember that your costume must be inspired by the films of Wes Anderson or Wes Anderson himself.
From previous years:
NYT: “Animal Wrangling in Miniature”
From tomorrow’s New York Times (article | slideshow):
FROM a young age Wes Anderson has felt proprietary about Roald Dahl’s classic children’s novel “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” “It was the first book at our household that was considered to be mine,” he said. “I was obsessed with anything involving hidden passageways or underground tunnels.”
Mr. Anderson’s live-action films have always existed in parallel realities — elaborately storyboarded, art-directed parallel realities, no less — and so it is not too great a leap for him to be conjuring a world from scratch for his stop-motion animated version of “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (opening Nov. 13).
Controversy flared recently when some crew members grumbled to The Los Angeles Times about Mr. Anderson’s absence from the film’s London set during the shoot. He has acknowledged that he did much of his work from Paris, where he has an apartment, sending detailed instructions, photos and videos to the animators. In any case, the finished film, which he wrote with the filmmaker Noah Baumbach, suggests that Mr. Anderson was anything but hands-off. This may be his first animated film, but his fingerprints are everywhere, from the dollhouse cross sections to the funny-sad family dynamics to the belief that production design is intimately linked with character.