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(fingers snap) (quirky classical music)
What's up, guys?
Michael here, and today,
we're looking at the hipster king of modern American cinema:
Wes Anderson.
Whether he's working with stop motion canines,
precocious high schoolers,
or melancholy oceanographers,
Wes Anderson's films are immediately recognizable
for their colorful style, deadpan humor, and whimsical tone.
- [Laura] Does it concern you
that your daughter's just run away from home?
- [Michael] And that's created
a pretty fierce divide in opinion
over whether he is a brilliant artist
with a singular vision
or a one-note cinematic poser.
So are his films just a pretentious assortment
of pastel colors and Bill Murray appearances,
or is there something more profound going on?
- Why would a review make the point
of saying someone's not a genius?
Do you think I'm especially not a genius?
(pen scratching) (merry whimsical music)
Why don't you...
You didn't even have to think about it, did you?
- Let's find out in this "Wisecrack Edition"
on "Wes Anderson: Deep or Dumb?"
And as always, spoilers ahead. (alarms blaring)
But before we get into it,
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And now, back to the show.
Now, before we can pass judgment on your favorite twee man,
we should look at some hallmarks of his style.
Visually speaking,
Wes Anderson is one of the most instantly
recognizable directors in the business.
His movies are comprised almost entirely of flattened images
shot via mostly flat camera movements,
allowing each scene to play out
like a series of pages from a picture book.
This aesthetic is enhanced
by a meticulous attention to production and costume design
that accounts for every detail on the screen,
with a big emphasis on symmetry.
He also tends to make use
of a limited, but vibrant color palette,
matching each character's wardrobe to their environment
in a way that removes any impression of realism.
This adds to the sense
that we're sort of watching a children's book come to life,
only filled with smoking, sex, and prescription drugs.
And sibling kissing.
- Did you say you're on mescaline?
- I did, indeed. (liquid splashing)
Very much so.
- [Michael] Between the handcrafted look of the sets
and the flatness of the composition,
Anderson's style works
to make the movie's whole world feel kinda staged,
and he often literalizes this idea
by framing his stories as books or plays.
Anderson's singular style has brought him plenty
of acclaim and adoration,
but for those who don't find it so charming,
it's easy to deride him as a classic case
of style over substance,
especially when taking into account his other trademarks.
The type of comedy found in Anderson's films
is uniformly deadpan,
with characters delivering ridiculous lines
in the most unaffected monotone-
- You're gonna steal his stuff?
- Nah, we'll get it back to him.
- [Michael] And juxtaposing their serious attitudes
with the most absurd settings.
- She was dynamite in the sack, by the way.
- She was 84, Monsieur Gustave.
- Mm, I've had older.
- [Michael] Between this brand of wry humor,
the constant fetishization of retro objects,
and the general sense of whimsy,
it's easy to call Anderson a hipster filmmaker.
And, you know, it doesn't exactly help
that the dude himself dresses like this.
It's not just about the individual stylistic choices
he makes, either, but their cumulative effect.
He uses all these signature elements
to create an emotional distance
between the audience and the film,
and some critics take this ironic detachment
as proof that there's nothing really going on
beneath the films' pretty surfaces.
But this disconnect is actually the whole point,
because beneath the bright tones and cheerful rock songs,
all of Anderson's films are connected
by an underlying thematic sense of loss and loneliness.
See, Anderson chooses to tell stories about outsiders.
- Why don't you like me?
- Why should I?
Nobody else does.
- [Michael] His collections of orphans
and oddballs are united in the fact
that they don't seem to fit in anywhere,
not at home, at school, or even within their own families.
And yet the world around them
is always so perfectly composed,
a place for everything and everything in its right place.
As a result,
these very out-of-place outcasts stick out even more.
What's more, Anderson uses his trademark deadpan comedy
strategically to further this sense of outsiderness-
- You filthy goddamn pock-marked fascist assholes!
- [Michael] Beyond just giving great actors
funny lines to read.
- Now I'm gonna go hunt down that shark,
or whatever it is, and hopefully kill it.
(crowd murmuring)
I don't know how yet.
Maybe dynamite.
- The actors' monotone delivery
and impassive facial expressions give the characters
a zoned-out air,
like they're walking through life in a fugue state,
often with the help of some Indian cough syrup
or other chemical enhancements.
Anderson's comedic style is sort of the inverse
of the MCU's trademark quippiness.
Rather than making lighthearted jokes
in the face of grave danger-
- Then you have seen Ragnarok, the fall of Asgard.
The great prophecy- - Hang on, hang on.
(chains squeaking)
I'll be back around shortly.
- [Michael] Anderson's heroes speak
with absolute seriousness,
no matter how absurd their situation gets.
- I notice you don't have a fencing team.
Well, I'm gonna try my hardest to start one up for you guys.
- [Michael] The scenario may be funny,
but the characters aren't in on the joke.
- [Richie] I wrote a suicide note.
- Is it dark?
- Of course it's dark.
It's a suicide note.
- Externally, most of Anderson's characters
enjoy lives of material comfort and success,
and this is complemented by their rich, vibrant costumes.
But beneath the fabulous attire,
these people are plagued by a shared sense of emptiness.
What's more, their emotional state is mirrored
by the world around them,
a world that is uniformly pretty,
but in an artificial, un-lived in way.
And that's true whether we're talking
about Mr. Fox's stop motion treehouse
or the Tenenbaums' primary-colored mansion.
They all seem more like luxurious dollhouses
rather than places containing the messy lives
and emotions of real people,
and so the characters invariably remain emotionally isolated
from the fairytale world around them.
And when you understand this sense of underlying melancholy
as the thematic throughline of Anderson's work,
his whimsical style becomes a lot more meaningful.
Take his trademark shots
in which the exterior of a building is lifted away
to reveal a cross section of the rooms inside,
literalizing the idea of the set as a living dollhouse.
It's more than a cute visual flourish.
Each of these shoebox dioramas,
as they have been called,
is curated with the utmost care and warmth,
with the camera calling attention
to specific objects and minor details.
It's the sort of loving display
you might get from a collector
or a person fondly examining the objects of their childhood.
Dollhouses, dioramas, and keepsakes all provide us
with a means to preserve the past,
paralyzing it so that we can put it on display.
And that is exactly the problem
that most of Anderson's protagonists face.
Each is trapped inside the paralyzed frames
of their own emotional past,
unable to move forward or accept their loss of innocence.
For example, the Tenenbaum siblings are all gifted kids
whose childhoods were cut short by their success
and whose lives stopped making sense
once they were no longer child prodigies.
So it makes sense that as adults,
Chas duplicates himself through his twin sons
while Margot maintains a teenage rebellion against parents
that have long since stopped caring.
Both are desperate attempts to return
to an idealized family life that, for them,
never really existed.
- I always wanted to be a Tenenbaum, you know.
- Me, too.
- [Michael] And similarly, in "The Darjeeling Limited,"
the Whitman brothers are struggling
with the loss of their father,
the disappearance of their mother-
- [Alice] I spoke to your mother.
She's not coming.
She didn't get on the plane.
- [Michael] And the general deterioration
of their brotherly bonds.
Their journey across India
is really about recapturing their childhood,
though it's also a great opportunity
to get laid in train bathrooms and buy snakes.
- Yes, the past happened,
but it's over, isn't it?
- Not for us.
- Even the slightly older and more settled protagonists,
like Mr. Fox and Steve Zissou, are tethered to the past.
Both of them are marooned in midlife crises,
trying to recapture their daring days as reckless young men
rather than respected patriarchs.
Mr. Fox's crisis even leads
to him getting his tail blown off,
an emasculation metaphor that would make Freud blush.
- Tails don't grow back.
I'm gonna be tailless for the rest of my life.
- [Michael] And "The Grand Budapest Hotel" ties this idea
into the arc of history at large.
It's framed as a storybook
in which Zero reminisces about the hotel's heyday
and its fall from grace.
Throughout, the concierge longs for a more civilized past,
as do those around him.
- You see?
There are still faint glimmers of civilization left
in this barbaric slaughterhouse
that was once known as humanity.
Indeed, that's what we provide
in our own modest, humble, insignificant...
Oh, (beep) it.
- The immediate contrast
between the luxurious colors of the hotel in its prime
and its drab present-day existence
visually communicates the backwards yearning
that plagues basically all of Anderson's heroes.
In each case,
this yearning is less for a specific time and place
and more for the sense of innocence, decency,
and adventure that it represents,
a world that feels the way that it looks,
a world that,
outside the confines of a Wes Anderson movie screen,
can never really exist.
But Anderson films don't allow us to simply bask
in nostalgic, color-coordinated scenes,
because his bright storybook tales
are unfailingly interrupted by moments of sudden violence.
Fingers are severed and tails are blown off.
Helicopters crash and hapless burglars are brutalized.
In these instances,
the nostalgic fairytale atmosphere is suddenly shattered,
interrupted by a violent blast of reality.
Sometimes, this leads to pure slapstick.
(fist thumps) (crowd gasps)
(fist thumps) (crowd gasps loudly)
(fist thumps) (crowd exclaims)
But often, these eruptions are played completely straight,
delivering some of the film's most affecting moments,
especially when the violence is self-inflicted.
When Francis Whitman removes his bandages
to reveal the scars from his suicide attempt
or Richie Tenenbaum slashes his wrists,
the whimsy suddenly goes out the window.
Untidy gouges and flowing red blood can't be woven
into the rest of Anderson's orderly aesthetic.
In these moments, the pain that's been submerged
beneath the deadpan demeanors and vibrant costumes
comes bursting to the surface.
Indeed, the violent moments
in "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou"
and "Fantastic Mr. Fox" reveal the full cost
of both protagonists' terminal nostalgia.
Each enjoy a picture-perfect present which they trade
in an attempt to reclaim part of their past,
and those around them pay the price.
The Tenenbaum family has remained externally frozen in time
with each member using a different method
to remain emotionally catatonic,
but the passing of years still takes its toll,
culminating in Richie's suicide attempt.
And in "The Grand Budapest Hotel," history marches on,
crushing the hotel beneath its jackboot.
Still, Gustave and Zero endure heavy casualties
in their battle to keep the building's spirit alive.
In Anderson's films,
it seems that no one is immune to the passage of time,
no matter how meticulously they try to preserve the past.
In fact, the only way Anderson's heroes can ever find peace
is by finally abandoning the past that they cling to
and the keepsakes they obsess over.
Take the Whitmans.
They spend their whole journey arguing over possessions,
especially those inherited from their father,
like the monogrammed suitcases they lug everywhere.
We learn via flashback
that they were even late for his funeral
because they were so determined to drive his car there.
- Tell them we'll be there in five minutes.
- [Michael] They instill all these objects
with a kind of totemic power,
taking them as a proof of their father's love,
their own sense of belonging,
and a connection to their younger selves.
But those days of yore are long gone,
and these characters have to accept that,
which they finally do at the end in a triumphant scene
where they literally let go of their baggage.
The metaphor is somehow as compelling as it is annoying.
- Dad's bags aren't gonna make it.
(adventurous music)
- No matter what ridiculous scenarios
their story takes them through,
pretty much all of Anderson's heroes
go through the same grieving process,
culminating with them finally learning to just let go.
Mr. Fox accepts the loss of his tail
and his youthful vitality,
embracing a new chapter in his family's life.
Sally and Sam return to real life,
with the warm memory of their days in the Moonrise Kingdom
to steady their resolve.
Each of the Tenenbaums manage to move on
from their frozen state,
with Chas letting his kids run a little freer,
Eli checking into rehab,
Richie finally confessing his love for Margot,
and Margot turning their whole crazy family story
into a new play.
And then there's Zero,
who initially seems like a ghost,
haunting the ruins of the once beautiful hotel,
clinging to the bricks and mortar
long after everyone that made it special has gone.
But in his final words,
he outlines exactly why each of Anderson's heroes
need to just chill out
and enjoy the gorgeous worlds they're in.
- The hotel, I keep for Agatha.
(tender music) We were happy here.
For a little while.
- There's a Japanese term which sometimes gets used
to describe the heart of Anderson's work.
Mono no aware.
It means an awareness of the impermanence of things
and the sense that this is both sad and sort of beautiful,
and it's this feeling that runs
through each of Anderson's movies.
Even the happier endings tend to be tinged with loss,
like the death of the titular Royal Tenenbaum,
the collapse of the Moonrise Kingdom,
or the decay of the Grand Budapest Hotel,
because ultimately,
no matter how much of ourselves we pour into something
or how diligently we work to preserve it,
nothing lasts forever.
But we can still be happy where we are,
at least for a little while.
- They say our tree may never grow back.
But one day, something will.
- It's easy to take a glance
at one of Wes Anderson's fussily arranged frames
and dismiss him out of hand as nothing but an aging hipster
with a solid visual flair.
But his vibrant worlds actually provide us
with vivid depictions of what it is like
to feel terminally out of place
with the sense of loneliness and loss
that comes with the simple passage of time,
and every one of his stylistic quirks is absolutely vital
in evoking this melancholy.
So our verdict is that Wes Anderson is, in fact, deep.
But what do you guys think?
Have we convinced you that there's more to Anderson
than meets the bespectacled eye,
or is he just making fairytales for drunk adults?
Let us know in the comments.
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And as always, thanks for watching.
Later.
We're good?
Okay. (sighs)
I'll see you guys.
(soft nostalgic music)
(door thuds)
(soft nostalgic music fades)