1. The Family Unit in Wes
Anderson’s films
The Royal Tenembaums, The
Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox
2. Intro
“the wiz kid director
manages to pass
himself off as a
precociously gifted
child, curious to see
what he can do with
his fancy toy theater
and all the funny
figures that go with it.”
(9)
3. Background
“That's the kind of movie that I like to make, where
there is an invented reality and the audience is
going to go someplace where hopefully they've
never been before. The details, that's what the
world is made of.” – Wes Anderson
4. Auteur
“An artist *Anderson+ who imprints his
personality and preoccupations on his work so
strongly that whatever the contributions of his
collaborators, he deserves to be considered
the primary author of the film” (10)
5. Links between life/film
“underlying strength of representation in this
film [The Royal Tenenbaums] is the
vulnerability exposed through the way the
characters cling onto the past” (17)
6. Anderson’s own style
"I want to try not to repeat myself.
But then I seem to do it
continuously in my films. It's not
something I make any effort to
do. I just want to make films that
are personal, but interesting to
an audience. I feel I get criticized
for style over substance, and for
details that get in the way of the
characters. But every decision I
make is how to bring those
characters forward.“ -- Wes
Anderson
7. “ultimate premise of the auteur theory is
concerned with interior meaning, the
ultimate glory of the cinema as an art.” (16)
8. The Royal Tenenbaums
“While this isn’t a world you would like to inhabit,
it’s one that you find hard to leave” (8)
9. The Darjeeling Limited
“This movie, for instance, is
a very personal movie;
everything comes from
my experiences, or
Jason's or Roman's
experiences. That was
really our goal and it's
always been important to
us that's it's both
personal to us and
hopefully personal for
other people. That's the
idea!” – Wes Anderson
10. Fantastic Mr. Fox
“My only effort was
one, to try to make
it seem to me like
Roald Dahl and then
to make it as fun and
energetic and
interesting as it
could be”(8)
11. “so rich and charming,
that straight out
laughter seems
beside the point” (9)
Editor's Notes
Wes Anderson is an American film director from Houston, Texas. Anderson has a very unique style of bright colours, eccentric characters and attention to detail. The droll existential comedies that he is famous for often present the same recurrent themes of sibling rivalry (Bottle Rocket), Forbidden Love (Moonrise Kingdom) and parental abandonment, which tends to crop up in most of his films. His films also show similarities in the way they present Family units. The films The Royal Tenenbaums and The Darjeeling Limitedboth share similar connotations of family life, and massively parental abandonment, displaying family as a broken social norm’. Fantastic Mr. Fox however, is slightly different as it shows slight parental abandonment but overall they come over their differences as a community and work together.
Born May 1st 1969, Wes Anderson was brought up Houston, by both his parents and his two brothers. When he was 8, Anderson’s parents divorced, an event he was often described as “The most crucial event of my brothers and my growing up” (5). This lead the young boy to acting up in school. Anderson attended St John’s school in Houston, where he became known for his large and complex play production based on well know stories. After graduation, Anderson went on to studying Philosophy at the University of Texas where he met Owen Wilson. The pair began making films together, starting with Bottle Rocket. To this day Anderson still uses the same cast and crew members for his films.
Is Wes Anderson an auteur? To answer this you need to look at what an auteur is. An auteur is a filmmaker who makes films with meaning, opposed to films for commercial value, with a unique, recognizable style. They also need to have technical capability and be the principle creator of their own films (12). In my opinion, Anderson fits in all of these categories.
A lot of Anderson’s life is reflected in the films he makes, sometimes consciously, others unconsciously. A reason for this, he says “everything gets run through the same operating system” (10). For example Rushmore was filmed at St John’s school and the fact that he wrote plays is very similar to the character Max Fischer in the film. His childhood tendency to make is favorite stories come alive is reflected in his decision to make Fantastic Mr. Fox. The character of Ethel in The Royal Tenenbaums is also very similar to his mother. They were both archaeologists and Anderson says that they both had the same approach to raising children, prioritising their education and then pretty much letting them get on with it “Chas: ‘I need a hundred and eighty seven dollars’ Ethel: write yourself a cheque’ ” (1). What's more Ethel wears Anderson’s own mother’s glasses in the film.Anderson has always admitted to using his own experiences in his films. He says that when writing a story they are “a big part of what you’ve got to work with” (14). I feel that his films reflect his family life as he was growing up in this way. His films (1) (2) show broken families had themes of loss and neglect. Growing up, his parents’ divorce hit him hard and seeing as they both had busy jobs, neither of them could be there for him the way he expected them to, as you do when you’re young. The prologue in The Royal Tenenbaums shows his feelings well, in the scene where royal is telling his children that their parents are breaking up. There are 3 children (like Anderson and his two brothers) sitting at one end of a long empty dining table in a formation of three, like a triangle showing unity. Royal is at the other end of the table, reminiscent of the marriage break up scene in citizen Kane, mirroring the children’s feelings, they were blank and quiet like Charlie and Emily. The table shows the divide between them, Royal a rational adult, and the children, in blank innocence, learning what adults are like.
Anderson also has a very unique style of filmmaking. His films are very ‘unpredictable’ and ‘exaggerated’ (9). Sight and Sound stated that the characters of The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic were “so over freighted with quirks that cartoonish whimsy replaced any kind of three dimensional characterizations” (9). His films all share running themes for example they are fictional, like a book. You cans see this from repeated chapter image in The Royal Tenenbaums. And his frequent use of frames in his shots suggests a cartoony vibe, like the whole thing is a puppet show. Anderson also tends to ‘stretch [his charters] to the extreme’ by furnishing them to the point of exaggeration. An example of this is the picture on Richie’s wall that he had painted of Margo, this told the audience that he was in love with her through his childhood, not just in adulthood.There is also a lack of father figures in Anderson’s films and a running theme of trying to find a new one. For example the missing father in The Darjeeling Limited, Ned trying to find a father in Steve in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou or Ash’s parental abandonment in Fantastic Mr. Fox. However Anderson admits that this is the opposite of what he grew up with “I’m drawn to those father-figure characters that are larger-than-life people, and I’ve sought out mentors who are like that, so I relate to them. But they’re not my father” (5).Anderson’s films contemplate on prosaic adult versions of childish discontents. The realization that your parents aren’t quite who you want them to be or you never grows up to fulfill your dreams. The “cartoonish whimsy” (9) is his way of showing adult messages but in a light way, this mix of adult feelings to a child is something that the audience can relate to, and links very heavily to Andersons own childhood.You could suggest that through his own style, Anderson has created a genre of melancholic comedies with a bitter nostalgia, this unique style is part of what makes him an auteur.
it is not just his style or meanings however that makes Wes Anderson an auteur. You can see from watching the making of his films (13) that he is very hands on with his directing. He films some shots, helps build the set – he certainly designs the whole thing and chooses every item in, he writes all of his films, helps to draw up story boards and prop decorations and though he doesn’t edit his own films he works very closely with the editors as they do it.Looking at Andrew Sarris’s theory of auteurism (15), Anderson makes it through the first circle for his technical competence. He’s in the second circle for the way that he expresses himself through his films and the third is for his films “interior meaning”, the fact that his films are made for artistic merit rather than commercial value.
The Royal Tenenbaums (1) is about a family of child genius who experienced failure after their father left in their adolescents, and about how they come together after Royal, their father, comes back claiming to only have 6 weeks to live. One of the major events in the film which brings the Tenenbaum family together, literally and physically, is when the family find out about Richie’s attempted suicide. The music starts with a shot of Richie on a bed being wheeled by Margo’s husband in the middle of the shot and surgeons either side, in a chevron formation, highlighting both Richie and Raleigh. The next is a shot of Etheline, framed in a door way, she puts the phone down and runs to grab her coat. Next is a road, a car wipes into the shot which a screech and we see buckley, then chaz in the windows. You can see the fear in his face. The last shot is of the back of Margo’s head as she runs to the recovery room. All this was to illustrate the urgency of the situation, unlike the montage when the family found out Royal was dying, it is very fast paced. It shows how the family love each other and how fast they react when they find out one of them is in trouble, other than Royal that is, who wasn’t even in the montage since by this point, they don’t really count him as part of the family. The music mirrored the song that was playing when Richie cut himself only without the lyrics and faster. It adds to the urgency and allows the scenes to slide seamlessly together. This scene shows that though the family unit is breaking they still love each other and they are there for each other when they need to be. It also tells the audience that Royal wasn’t there for the one person that actually believed in him and that the family unit, though dysfunctional get on just as well without a father figure around.
The Darjeeling Limited (2) is a film about 3 brothers traveling India a year after their father’s death in a bid to reconnect with each other. The film shares many of Anderson’s recurrent themes, such as parental abandonment and a broken family unit. One of the ways he does this is through the setting. The three American brothers spend the majority of the film on a train in India. This it shows how out of their depth they are, not only in this new place that none of them know but with the task of rekindling their relationship. The fact that they are on train is also an important element. The train is on a journey and no matter what will reach a destination, much like the brothers, yet, unlike the train they don’t know yet where it will lead. However the train gets lost ‘Jack “How can a train be lost? It’s on rails’ ”. This shows again how out of their depth they are, and how lost they are since their father’s death. It suggests, like The Royal Tenenbaums that a broken family cannot be put back together and puts emphasis on the father role that without it that family unit is broken and lost. The funeral scene also emphasizes this. The Indian funeral is very light; everyone there is dressed in white to show innocence and community. When someone dies here they celebrate their life, and rather than get broken down, the family grows as the community comes together. The music in this scene is Strangers by the Kinks. The lyrics ‘We are not two we are one’ also builds on the sense of community. This is contrasted in two mid shots of the brothers sitting together in vehicles. The first is in India, and they are moving in slow motion. There is a cut to the same shot but in America, the brothers are in black and are on the way to their father’s funeral. The speed goes back to normal and the music stops. This shows the contrast between the two funerals.
Fantastic Mr. Fox (3) is a stop motion adaptation of the book byRoald Dahl about a mischievous fox and how his love of stealing from farmers gets him, his family and community into trouble and how he has to keep scheming so he can outwit the humans and save everyone. This film, though sharing similar themes of parental neglect – Ash feeling that his father favours his cousin Kristofferson – and dysfunction – Mr. Fox’s existential crisis, is the odd one out in Wes Anderson’s portfolio. First of all, it was his first ever animated film (if you forget brief bits of stop motion in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou). Wes wanted to make an old fashioned animation with thousands of handmade puppets and props. Wes says that he’s “always loved stop motion animation and I particularly wanted to do stop motion with puppets that have fur... for whatever reason”. This shows Anderson’s childish nature, Sight and Sound called him a “precociously gifted child, curious to see what he can do with his fancy toy theater and all the funny figures that go with it” (9) which in my opinion relates perfectly. He made this film to be like the films he used to watch as a kid, another example of the directors nostalgia and how he makes his films personal with experiences from his past. His portrayal of the family unit is also quite different in this film. The reason I feel for this is that it is for a different audience. Fantastic Mr. Fox is certainly more of a family film; however some of it will go right over the children’s heads, for example his jokes about mortgages and pregnancies. Anderson admits that though the team never particularly thought of their audience as they went along, they knew from the start it was a children’s film and tried to make it seem like Roald Dahl (8). This explains why he didn’t include his usual mix of angst and disappointment but he still couldn’t help but make changes to the book slightly, add some much needed flaws to the character of Mr. Fox. Anderson states that “in the book he was not ideal because he was the one who got them in trouble in the first place” and that he needed to be a flawed character to almost justify his actions (8). Leaving us again with another dysfunctional father figure in the Wes Anderson family unit.
Despite his dark themes and massages, Anderson always ends his films with the coming together of his families in some bizarre situation. Take for example the wedding scene in The Royal Tenenbaums in which almost the whole cast of the film are arranged around a red fire truck (a single shot which took 8 hours to set up), the montage at the end of The Darjeeling Limited or the scene in the sewers in Fantastic Mr. Fox. This shows that though Anderson may suggest negative connotations with the family unit, he feels that it will always come together, with the community and thrive, regardless of the way it seems. Not every family has to function exactly according to plan.
