The start of every school year provides a great excuse to revisit one of the most enduring
films about high school: 1998’s Rushmore.
[I like your nurse’s uniform, guy.]
[These are OR scrubs.]
[Oh, are they?]
Now one of the most recognizable living filmmakers, Wes Anderson rose to prominence after the
success of his sophomore feature.
The film stands apart as the most realistic-feeling and autobiographical of his work, while revealing
the seeds of the filmmaker Anderson would become.
Rushmore has a rawness to it that isn’t as present in his later meticulously crafted,
fully formed filmography.
So the film can be read as a coming-of-age tale both for Max, and for Wes.
[I saved Latin.
What did you ever do?]
More than his debut feature, Bottle Rocket, Rushmore showcases Wes Anderson’s stylistic
and thematic interests in their infancy.
Now known for his ornate, intricate mise en scene and his balanced, wide center framing,
Anderson’s symmetrical aesthetic already exists in Rushmore but doesn’t overpower
the story.
The film's smaller budget compared to later Anderson films meant that it was shot on location, so in Rushmore
we see his charming, balanced compositions applied to a somewhat more realistic,
familiar setting.
Rushmore is divided up into months, and Anderson would replicate this chapter-like
structure in nearly all of his other films, most notably in The Royal Tenenbaums where
the story is literally divided up into chapters.
Visually Anderson also achieves a storybook aesthetic through his intricate, controlled
and fanciful shots that often feature bright pastels.
And his films since Rushmore have pushed this storybook feel to extremes.
Rushmore’s eclectic soundtrack features deep cuts from The Who, The Kinks, and John
Lennon, demonstrating Anderson's ability to bring slightly more obscure classics of the past
back into the public eye.
He also uses two songs by Cat Stevens, who did the entire soundtrack for the classic
coming-of-age film, Harold and Maude, a strong influence on Rushmore.
Like Harold and Maude, Rushmore uses music to create a whimsical, melancholy mood, foreshadowing
the way Anderson would use music to establish a memorable tone throughout his films.
Also, Anderson’s fondness for montage is already apparent, and these sequences work
because of the interplay between music and image.
Anderson’s visual flair often leads to accusations of style over substance, and many underrate
the deeper substance in his visual storytelling.
Martin Scorsese has said that he doesn’t see too many new films because “the images
don’t mean anything.”
But Anderson is a rare exception to that complaint --he uses precise visuals to express emotional
beats and externalize his characters’ inner feelings.
Take, for example, this scene in Rushmore of Max and Rosemary feeding fish in her classroom.
As the two characters walk and connect, the camera follows them dollying left,
and frames them in the same window.
But when Rosemary mentions her husband, Max is crushed, and as the camera dollies this time,
the two are framed in adjacent windows, visualizing the divide Max imagines between them.
When Max learns that her husband has died, the camera track this time places them back in the same frame,
as he now believes he still has a chance to be with Rosemary.
Rushmore is the most autobiographical of Anderson’s films, so it gives us a window into the director's early life.
Anderson co-wrote the screenplay with his friend and frequent collaborator, Owen
Wilson, and Max Fischer’s story parallels Anderson’s early education at St. John’s school
in Texas. The elite private school inspired Rushmore Academy so much that he decided to shoot
the film there.
Like Max, Anderson was an academic underachiever who slacked off in school, and he has stated that
he too fell in love with an older woman at that age.
Max and Wes share similar artistic pursuits, as Max spends much of Rushmore honing his
skills as a playwright and theatre director.
[Oh my God! I wrote a hit play!]
echoing, of course, Anderson’s development as a film director.
In Rushmore, Anderson compares the mentality of an artist to that of an angsty teen.
The film opens with a fantasy sequence of Max solving an impossible math problem before
getting cheered on and exalted by his fellow classmates.
Max dreams of being recognized by his peers, just as Anderson dreamed about finding an
audience for his films.
[I feel like I was never more confident in my life than when we made that film,
and never less confident than when we screened it.]
Max’s narcissism comes out of his need to please,
[I should probably try harder to score chicks. That's the only thing anybody really cares about.]
Likewise, a director must have a certain
hubris to make films at all - and this hubris comes out of a need to please and be recognized
by others, not unlike the way a high schooler aches to “fit in”.
Meanwhile, Max’s obsessive attention to detail in this scene almost certainly reflects
Anderson’s similar compulsiveness.
[What happened to the cannoli line? You're supposed to say forget about it Sanchez
The old man likes his cannolis]
[Look I made a mistake, alright. It didn't make any difference, anyway.]
[Hey. I'm letting it go, but don't say it doesn't matter. Every line matters.]
This interest in the life of the artist continues to fascinate Anderson, who frequently features
artist characters in his films, often to examine the impulses that drive people to create.
In The Royal Tenenbaums, Margot Tenenbaum isn’t writing plays to impress her peers,
like Max, but to seek the validation of her critical father.
[What'd you think Dad?]
[Hmm. It didn't seem believable to me.]
In The Life Aquatic, Steve Zissou, as an oceanographer who makes documentary films, embodies the
whimsical adventure of making art, but also shows how art can be used as a coping mechanism,
as Steve chases the jaguar shark who killed his best friend.
Anderson uses these characters to represent the range of creative output, as he reveals
his view of art and the artist: endearingly playful and bravely adventurous, yet also
often dissatisfied or insecure, yearning for recognition, driven by an earnest and sometimes
dark sense of purpose.
Making art, or doing what they love, offers these characters a way out of their pain.
Anderson’s attention to detail not only applies to his visuals, but also to his character work.
Viewers could miss these characterizations the first time they watch Rushmore,
because characters often fail to say what they’re really feeling.
Take Herman Blume, who is facing an existential crisis; he’s worth north of 10 million dollars,
but he hates his life.
His sons don’t respect him and his wife isn’t interested in him.
But rather than using clunky exposition, Anderson expresses all this beautifully in the scene at
the twins’ birthday party, when he cuts to a portrait of the Blume family - his wife
and sons have orange hair, while Herman is the outlier with grey hair.
Herman becomes fond of Max, and vice versa, because they see each other as successful.
Max is drawn to Herman's self-made fortune, while Herman is drawn to Max's confident ambition,
Rosemary’s characterization is the most subtle.
She seems to be presented as a voice of reason - calling out Max and Herman’s childish
actions and desires.
But in reality, she’s quite similar to both male leads.
The viewer learns more and more about how she was married to Edward Appleby, how he
died, how she now teaches at Rushmore because it was his alma mater, and how she is living
in his childhood home.
What emerges is a sad portrait of a woman who can't get over her husband’s death.
So the three leads are all isolated
people who yearn for a very specific kind of compassion.
The characters get along best when they function as a surrogate family, but things fall apart
when they place impossible burdens on one another.
And Rosemary’s relationship with Herman ends because he can’t compare to
Edward Appleby.
[Edward has more spark and character and imagination in one fingernail than Herman has in his entire body.]
Even though these characters fail to acknowledge their own shortcomings, Anderson sends us
some deeper messages through their interactions.
He helps us relate to their need to connect, belong and be appreciated, yet he shows the
dangers of putting our happiness into someone else’s hands, or expecting someone else’s
love and appreciation to fix us.
Ultimately, each of us is responsible for our own emotional well-being.
[And how long will you be staying with us Mr. Blume?]
[Indefinitely. I'm being sued for divorce.]
This is a key revelation of adolescence, when we unrealistically expect that falling in
love or being popular will be the answer to our woes.
Anderson has played with the coming of age tale throughout his career.
But for Wes, coming of age isn’t a one-time event that happens when we’re young. It's
an ongoing process that, perhaps, never ends.
In Rushmore, Herman and Rosemary must also grow up in certain ways, as they adjust to
new circumstances.
By the end of the Rushmore, everything isn’t resolved.
Herman and Rosemary are no longer together, and we don’t know if Max will thrive at
Grover Cleveland High School.
Rushmore succeeds because of this ambiguity, reflecting that life is often messy and not
everything works out in the end.
Early in the film, Herman asks:
[What's the secret Max?]
[I think you just got to find something you love and do it for the rest of your life. For me it's going to Rushmore]
Max’s answer is absurd and tragic, because his words of wisdom about doing what you love
sound pretty solid, but he obviously can’t spend his entire life in high school.
‘Rushmore’ essentially becomes shorthand for a pipe dream - an unrealistic aspiration or a love that got away
So in naming his film Rushmore Anderson is getting at how we deal with the things
we want and can’t have.
[She's my Rushmore, Max.]
[Yeah, I know. She was mine too]
We have to become aware of our limitations, and we have to accept that some things or
people we love get away from us, and not all good things can last.
Yet Rushmore still leaves us with hope that, by adjusting our expectations, we might be able to carve
out a little bit of happiness for ourselves.