FORMAL FILM STUDY: FINAL POST: Wes Anderson

SYNTHESIZING THE THREE MOST HIGHLY RATED FILMS DIRECTED BY WES ANDERSON (THAT I HAVEN'T SEEN) PER ROTTEN TOMATOES

Bottle Rocket (85%), Isle of Dogs (90%), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (91%)

As I mentioned in my FFS introductory post, there are a few core characteristics/themes that seem to make their way into every Wes Anderson movie and, whether they are intended to or not, define both the movie and his directorial and writing style. These include themes of childhood/maturity/their tricky intersections, subtle humor, characters intensely committed to a strange obsession of theirs, an elaborate, impractical, risky plan proposed by the obsessed character and supported by the others, vibrant color palettes, careful composition of each frame, and subdivisions of the story into chapters or "parts." 

It's funny, but when I sat down to watch The Grand Budapest Hotel with my dad the other night, the first scene had hardly begun before he said, "you can already tell this is one of his movies!" It was true. The way the scene opened with a long shot positioning two characters at either far side of the screen, and then when one of the characters became the central focus as she sat on a bench to read, just seemed so deliberately balanced. Everyone who has seen a Wes Anderson movie and has paid at least a little bit of attention to it can recognize his distinct style, and I watched a clip of an interview with him in which he acknowledged this. But, he said, he doesn't like to think too hard about those comments because then he'll get in his own head, thinking, "what is my style?" I just find that so funny, because obviously his movies are so painstakingly story-boarded and well-thought-out ahead of time that the stylistic choices he makes for his movies couldn't possibly be left up to happenstance. 

The subdivisions of the storyline (give an example from one or more of the movies) making it even more storybook-like and emphasizing the 

The discovery that I find the most interesting is that the little worlds within the scope of his films seem to exist exist outside of space and time. 
In exists outside normal space because the settings, even when provided with a location, are fake. In Isle of Dogs, Anderson created an entire fictitious city (Megasaki City) and an island (Trash Island), and in The Grand Budapest Hotel is located in Zubrowka, a fictional European country. Even though there is nothing radically out of the ordinary about these towns/cities/islands/countries (after all, they're meant to seem like they could exist in the real world), they feel like they're in a magical world of their own. A big part of this, I believe, is the way his characters behave and how "just so" their surroundings are. The characters unfold these plans that take them from location to location (In Grand Budapest, from Zubrowka to the frozen tudra; in Isle of Dogs, from Megasaki to Trash Island and back; in Bottle Rocket, from Texas to Mexico) and put them in such great peril. They never seem to think of rationality or danger. Perhaps, though, the world they live in is otherworldly precisely because they think differently than us in the real world, and their adventurous lives lived on the edge without concern for consequences or practicality are why they feel so far removed from us. 

The lens through which they view their surroundings and their lives is one of the possibility to follow through on whatever they set their mind on. Hatching the perfect heist, like Dignan's and Anthony's and Robert's in Bottle Rocket; stealing government equipment to escape to an abandoned and quarantined island to rescue his dog, like Atari in Isle of Dogs; fleeing from the police and murderous family of his dead lover because he's a suspect for her murder and he's on the run with a priceless painting, like Gustave in The Grand Budapest Hotel; these are all real scenarios that they can each imagine having success in, and they don't get bogged down in the "what if"s. They just go-go-go until they hit a metaphorical wall. Perhaps because they live in a world that is so perfectly tailored to the nearly impossible, the composition of the films reflects that. The colors are striking, and the space between all the characters and their environments are so precise and pleasing that it's almost as if they were intentionally placed there like dolls in a dollhouse. 

In fact, they were! There's actually a clip in this video (the same one I linked to before) of him asking an actor in The Grand Budapest Hotel, I believe it was, to not lean back quite so far in his chair so that the frame is balanced nicely. This can be seen in the photo above. I did notice that there were multiple instances in which the characters walked in diagonal lines across the frame; here, they are stationary. In all of Anderson's movies, it's almost like they live in a parallel universe where their locations are unassuming but their behaviors and the way that they fill the locations is what makes them so unique and strange. 

There's nothing particularly special about the colors, but the
nature of the shot, centering three characters in a very large
frame without closing the empty space, adds to the tone
of the movie. For the most part, these characters are loners
 conflicting desires and insecurities tend to drive
them apart and leave them with no one else to turn to.
Swallowing them up in the empty space all
around them further emphasizes the little control they have.

Bottle Rocket is the exception, because it is both shot and set entirely in Texas, and you can tell. Bottle Rocket was an interesting case because it was almost like the Wes Anderson prototype; all the parts (listed above) of what make his movies so trademarked were there, but there was more realism to the setting and the situation. The colors were less saturated, with barren gray roads, grayish brown dirt and gravel along the roads, sometimes grayish blue skies, and almost brownish green grass. In some frames, like the shooting range scene, the grass, the sky, and the 
characters' skin tones and clothing were more saturated and, in all honesty, I have no idea why this would be. At first I thought it was to emphasize the comical nature of the scene because these archetypal dinguses of characters are firing dangerous handguns, but there are goofy moments like this throughout the movie that aren't saturated in color, like when Anthony's doctor in the "nuthouse" lets him leave through the multi-story window to trick Dignan, who's sitting behind a bush out front watching him with binoculars. While the tone of the movie matches the rest of his later movies, the visuals feel much less intentional. The frames aren't quite so meticulously positioned as in other movies. 

In addition to existing outside of real space, they also seem to exist outside of definite time. Even when dates are assigned to the setting, there are no striking aspects of the era that clue us into that time period and immerse us in their microcosm. For example, The Grand Budapest Hotel is mostly set in 1932, as that is the year that Zero chooses to relay back to the writer (Jude Law) about how he came to own the hotel. However, there are no cultural references to provide tells: they speak in their own vernacular that doesn't align with any particular decade or country, they wear their own clothing (no brand names), and they don't mention any real historical moments.

The fact that his movies can exist outside of relatable space and time matters because this allows them to stand on their own. There are no historical contexts that I should pick up on or that bog me down if I don't totally understand their connections to the movie, and there are no locations that can be learned about on the internet. They're his creations in his own made-up places with his own characters in their own timeline just dropped on the Earth and ready to live out their quirky lives for our viewing pleasure.

Despite existing outside of time, all of these movies have an air of nostalgia and antiquity.  A big part of this feeling, I think, is the absence of cheap technology that permeates all movies set in today's time. There are no cellphones, of course, so communication is done in person. I believe another more important part of this feeling that we're viewing something of another time, though, is because of the relationships established in the movies that are then forced apart. At the heart of his stories, beneath the insane plots and adventures, there lie real bonds formed between characters that end in melancholy. While they may not be so overtly set in a past time period, this view into these character's lives reveals to us a better, more exciting or hopeful time that the characters can't go back to. The characters aren't necessarily wallowing in sorrow or anything, but the audience can still feel the shift at the end.

 In Bottle Rocket, Dignan's final heist with Anthony and Bob ends with him in jail, and as he casts a final slo-mo look over his shoulder and waves to his friends on the other side of the fence, the viewer can feel this sort of weight finality to it. Later, they get to eat lunch together on a bench when Bob and Anthony come back to visit, so not all is lost; still, the days of plotting and planning between them are over. 

In Isle of Dogs, Atari finds Spot, but Spot has a family now and doesn't want to come home with him. Spot and his family still live out a nice life where Atari can go visit him, but Atari has essentially replaced Spot with Chief. It's not sad, but it's different; after a whole movie of Atari searching for Spot, Spot isn't waiting to be rescued. 


In the Grand Budapest Hotel, Zero is relaying to the writer the whole history of how he came to own the hotel. In it, he describes the dear friendship that blossoms between him and Gustave and the romance that comes to be between him and Agatha. But, flashing back to the present day at the hotel when he's old and alone, he notes that Gustave never got to grow old, and Agatha and their unborn child died of grippe. The richness of the movie is really made by the bonds we get to see flourish in the movie, but it's not a satisfying "the end" kind of story. 




A peculiar sort of dichotomy exists between the surface appearance of his characters and what these appearances/behaviors truly reflect. On the surface, they appear immature, selfish, apathetic to the feelings of the people around them, and basically daft -- they rarely seem to have any self-awareness about the things they say. However, on a deeper level, his characters' lives are laced with tragedy -- grief, loneliness, isolation, and rejection follow them around wherever they go and influence every decision they make, usually unconsciously. In Bottle Rocket, Bob just can't seem to find a way back into the family that he wants to connect with. He stirs fights with Anthony and Dignan and won't cooperate with the group. But, however brutish his older brother is, he still steals the car he shares with Dignan and Anthony in the night to go and get his brother out of jail. Dignan is leading what he thinks is a badass life to try and wash out the feelings of being a loner -- one of the most revealing moments of this was when he pulled up next to Anthony in a motorcycle to show it off but was cut down by Bob's older brother who pulled up beside him in a truck and tirelessly belittled him. 




Anthony was pretty aimless in life, and could be what one describes as a deadbeat. But, like he said to his little sister at one point, couldn't come home because he was a grown up; still, he didn't know his place in the world outside of the "nuthouse." Every decision he made reflected this low self image. In Isle of Dogs, Atari's parents died in a plane crash that only he barely survived, and for the rest of his childhood he had to live with the corrupt and tyrannical mayor who lacked all semblance of affection. Then his dog, his one friend who "can hear [him]," as his dog whispered into their shared earpiece, was taken from him and left to die. However belligerent Atari was when it came to listening to others and following orders, he was trying to reconnect himself with the connections he was losing. In The Grand Budapest Hotel, Zero was pretty emotionless and expressionless as a young man. I don't know whether this was intended or not, but I sometimes found it a little frustrating. However, in a new country that he was forced to flee to after his family was brutally murdered in a war back home, it's very understandable why he would be a character that has trouble opening up. 

For the next time I "seriously" watch a movie and analyze it,  I won't spend quite as much time scribbling down lines that I like or that I think tell something about the characters.  In Anderson's movies, normally if a character says a fantastic line, there's something really important happening on-scree that correlates to it and adds to the humor; I miss that visual component when I'm looking at my page and scribbling furiously. For example, in The Grand Budapest Hotel, there's a moment where it looks like Gustave is going to be killed. He's hanging from a cliff, trapped by the murderous relative of his dead lover who's stomping on the cliff and fracturing the ice all around Gustave's grip. While this is happening, Gustave starts reciting a sort of soliloquy, very eloquent and sad as the tension builds and it really looks like he's about to plunge to his death at any moment. I was looking at my paper and didn't see the moment when the murderer is suddenly pushed off the cliff from behind by Zero and plunges into the abyss -- I just heard the sudden shouting and Gustave's cry, "HOLY SHIT YOU GOT HIM HAHAHAHAHA." Suffice it to say it was jarring. I had to frantically rewind to rewatch it, but that kind of spoiled the surprise. I still replayed it about three more times because it was hilarious once I could watch it fully, but I'll be sure not to write so much that I actually miss the movie next time. 

Overall, I have really enjoyed this project. In watching movies that I know I'll enjoy, I also really enjoy analyzing them and understanding them better once I'm done. This was fun!