Category: Wes Anderson

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.

Continue reading “NYT: “Animal Wrangling in Miniature””

The last time I saw Wes Anderson, seven years ago, he was wearing a tight, beige corduroy suit. He’s still wearing it today. On the previous occasion, though – a Q&A for his film The Royal Tenenbaums – it was accessorised with plastic-framed glasses and a preppy scarf. Now the glasses have gone, there’s a stripey tie, and the hair is longer and more luxuriant. He looks less geeky, as if he’s been spending more time outdoors. Does he go hiking in his corduroy suit, perhaps? “I rely on corduroy,” Anderson admits. “I’ve been here in London a week – this is all I’ve got.” It’s not the same suit, though, he stresses. “They last a couple of years. I have a guy who makes them specially for me. They’re very inexpensive and I can just call him up and say, ‘Can I have another one please?'”

More at Guardian.co.uk

From The Guardian:

The vision of rural England in the new animated Fantastic Mr Fox may be Buckinghamshire channelling Berkeley, but its sensibility is unmistakably British.

In Wes Anderson‘s reimagining of Roald Dahl‘s Fantastic Mr Fox, Badger – Fox’s closest friend and confidante – is as loyal and steadfast as he was in Dahl’s book. He’s also a fast-talking lawyer who specialises in property sales, able to advise Foxy when not to move den (“not with the rate at 9%”). Fox’s sidekick, Rickity the vole, waves around a titanium card and boasts about his good credit rating, while Fox’s nephew, Kristofferson, uses his downtime to meditate and do yoga.

That Anderson has left his paw print on Dahl’s work is undeniable. Rural England through his eyes is paradoxically urbane – Buckinghamshire channelling Berkeley. His animals check their mobiles for a signal and their wild nature at the door. His Fox is a showboater and fundamentally flawed father figure (just like Royal Tenenbaum or Steve Zissou), whose relationships with his wife and son are marred by incomprehension and frustration. What Dahl hinted at, Anderson has made plain.

Continue reading “Guardian Film Blog: “Wes Anderson’s urbane Mr Fox is truer to Roald Dahl than most””