Wes Anderson discussion

[doctorsteve]

It is definitely an acquired taste. I saw bits of Rushmore - thought it was dumb. You're totally right that it feels scripted... if only it were a movie But!!! After a second viewing, I fell in love with it.

Next I saw Tennenbaums and Bottle Rocket (not sure which order) Loved 'em both. Yes, the quirky characters seem unreal - these people just couldn't exist outside of Hollywood.

Next was The Life Aquatic. I still hate this one - I'll tell you why later. Seen it twice - it does nothing for me.

Darjeeling Limited - having become accustomed to the character interplay that seems to be Anderson's hallmark, Darjeeling is right up my alley. And now - I shall explain why:

Anderson's comedic sense seems to come from the dialogue being beyond the character's capabilities. Incredibly flawed people delivering minimalistic, very dry, nearly stoic - emotional observations. It's through those emotionally based statements that the real stories are delivered to the viewer.

Anderson's creative twist is the opposite of what happens in typical movies - where ordinary, 'normal' people are trying to give us extraordinary life lessons. We truly have to suspend our disbelief, and be taken along for the ride and believe that two people can find true love or happiness amongst all the chaos and hard times life has to deliver. A hard task - and why so many movies fail... they just aren't believable.

Anderson takes people we KNOW just don't exist, dialogue that just doesn't happen - and tries to convince us to 'just play along' with a nod and a wink. When he DOES get us to accept these bizarre characters the way they are, he can get down to the emotional interplay that he wants to address. It's like shadow puppets - or Kabuki theatre for that matter... He wants you to get past what these people look like, and get to the feelings and emotion behind it all.

I believe several of his movies are good at this (Tennenbaums being the best example, I believe), and I believe The Life Aquatic completely missed the mark at this, for me. Aquatic was SO esoteric that it may as well have been in French and filmed in B&W in a single shot... like some Calvin Klein parfum commercial.

Love him or hate him, he has an interesting approach to story telling that, seems to me, is more about emotional stories rather than beginning-middle-end stories.

Liked Darjeeling, and am looking forward to the Criterion release. Try Bottle Rocket if you haven't yet...

Cheers,

Doc