Why Do Wes Anderson Movies Look Like That?

[Music] if you watch the 1933 film king kong closely you might notice a slight rippling effect across the puppet's fur you'll notice the same effect if you watch wes anderson's stop motion films fantastic mr fox and isle of dogs the rippling is a side effect of using real animal fur something anderson wanted because he liked the aesthetic of the 1933 king kong film anderson's crew pushed back against the idea because when animators hands adjust the puppets for each frame they leave impressions in the fur creating a rippling almost windswept effect something that can be avoided by using synthetic fur but when it came to having a visible artifact of the crew's hands in the film itself this didn't bother anderson film critic madzilla seitz recounts talking to wes anderson about the decision to use animal fur here he just wanted animal fur you know he couldn't even explain why really he just wanted it and but it was partly that uh the idea of a personal touch i said well you can sort of see the fingerprints on the creation he said well in this case literally this video is brought to you by movie go to movie.com thomasflight for your extended 30 day free trial all the criterion collection commentary tracks even since the days of the laserdiscs i think begin with the standard setup so we'll do we should probably do that this is the director's commentary for the darjeeling limited featuring wes anderson roman coppola and jason schwartzman right in the middle of the commentary there's a funny little moment where the recording is interrupted by a phone call hang on one second hello oh you know can i call call him back because we're just recording something right now okay thank you bye sorry this moment somehow strikes me as one of the most wes anderson sorts of things the analog sound of the telephone and the response itself feels like something out of a wes anderson film but it's also the desire to leave that moment in the director's commentary instead of just cutting it out that feels very characteristically wes anderson but what makes something characteristically wes anderson let me tell you about my boat what is that wes anderson style we all know it when we see it and it's been broken down into countless pieces and examined by countless video essayists according to those essays it's symmetry it's long lateral tracking shots it's immaculately arranged flat lace slow motion whip pans or countless other visual quirks but what is at the core of those individual stylistic decisions why does anderson choose those things and why do all those things seem to form a very specific unified whole and what function if any do they serve in telling the kinds of stories wes wants to tell to work some of these things out let's focus on one aspect of wes's visual style one that i think encompasses many other elements of his style this element critic david bordwell has identified and called planometric composition planometric composition is the orientation of elements of a scene especially the background as flat planes relative to the camera planometric composition wasn't invented by wes anderson it's used by a lot of other filmmakers but wes adheres to it and uses it probably more than anyone else in film in this scene from the darjeeling limited pay attention to what all these shots have in common compositionally [Music] oh you don't love me they all keep the background of the shot as a relatively flat plane these kinds of shots existed in anderson's filmography from the very beginning but as his career has progressed he's used planometric composition with greater precision and for a larger portion of his films in addition to the background being a flat plane characters usually occupy and move through flat planes within the scene that run parallel to the background in the grand budapest we can see wes usually orients his characters along these planes either facing directly towards or away from the camera or perpendicular to the camera in the profile view to maintain this planimetric composition as he moves the camera around and through scenes and as he edits between different shots within a scene wes employs something bordwell calls compass point editing in compass point editing and camera work the camera only really faces in four directions whenever the camera pans it pans in 90 degree increments in order to keep the walls of the environment flat when he cuts he usually cuts in 90 or 180 degrees if you think about it this isn't really a technique so much as a necessity to maintain planometric composition in a standard environment with four walls wes maintains this rule when he moves the camera on a dolly the camera moves directly forward backward or sideways along these specific axes these two rules define many aspects of anderson's styling especially in his more recent films within them he has some flexibility he allows the camera to tilt up and down as long as it remains perpendicular to the background to understand the why behind wes anderson's use of this style of composition and its effect it helps us to ask why most filmmakers avoid this type of composition it's because flat compositions usually look and feel constructed a flat composition feels self-conscious naturalism is the prevailing approach to film form at least in most films americans watch even for outrageous unbelievable stories the approach to filmmaking in most films is one that attempts to hide the filmmaking itself from the audience take for example the rotating hallway scene in inception if you compare this scene to this chase down a hallway from the grand budapest hotel which is more realistic of the two the scene from inception is the one presenting a reality that is technically impossible it's a fantasy but everything about how christopher nolan chooses to shoot this scene is meant to disguise its unreality and present it as a reality the situation in anderson's scene is realistic and totally possible but everything about how he presents that situation makes it feel like a fantasy one has unrealistic content and realistic form and the other has realistic content and fanciful form instead of attempting to hide itself it draws attention to itself this composition from bong joon-ho's parasite is no less precise and intentional than this one from grand budapest we know because we can see how precisely bong joon-ho planned things out in his storyboards but it's the flatness and center framing of this shot from grand budapest that draws our attention to its precision [Music] this is the wes anderson collection a book of essays and interviews by critic matt solar sites who has done extensive work cataloging and championing wes's films and style here wes recounts a story to matt about an argument he had with his agent over the curtains in rushmore in rushmore we had these curtains with the months projected on them and my agent who i love was like yeah you don't need that that's just a show-off thing it doesn't help it takes you out of the story and the reality of the movie and i can tell there's a curtain on a movie set there because it looks like a real thing it's supposed to look like a real thing i know but i can tell there's a curtain where you're shooting it i know yeah but there's not supposed to be it's supposed to be people real people well i know that yes but i do want the curtain there for me often what might take somebody else out of it is what i think is just the most beautiful thing the curtains in rushmore along with planometric compositions are examples of the fingerprints of the filmmaker being visible in the work itself the fingerprints of the director and his crew have been all over west's movies long before they showed up literally and fantastic mr fox i think this is the defining aspect of many of the elements that make up what we recognize as wes anderson's style to an extent wes is just following his personal taste but it's the way that taste works together with his disregard for naturalism that defines his style as a whole wes doesn't care if you know there's a director making the movie that there's somebody pulling back the curtain and telling you a story in fact he's happy to highlight that this reveals itself sometimes in incredibly subtle ways like the slight shaky imperfections in many of the pans and dolly shots in some of his films it's not that these shots couldn't be smooth and precise the film equipment and crew needed to do these moves almost flawlessly exist and are within anderson's budget but anderson prefers these shots to have these subtle human imperfections anderson's use of varying aspect ratios in the grand budapest hotel also reflects this idea it's a narrative device that works it delineates clearly between the time periods in the story but it's also a device that explicitly draws your attention to the moviness of the movie it's impossible to see the aspect ratio switch and not be subtly reminded you're watching a movie made by somebody not enough smoke and the snow was too loud we'll go again right away i've blown up buildings hunted sharks crashed airplanes and anyway american express commercial here we go can i get my snack what are you doing critic david bordwell identifies wes anderson the director as a brand and while wes himself certainly has a brand and an image my best friend sounds fake there are stories of how he curates his public persona and personal style and there are moments like the telephone call in the darjeeling limited commentary but i think it goes deeper than this i think wes anderson as a director becomes a character in his films his films are often shrouded in layers of artificial authorial framing that seem to point back to a creator the grand budapest is a story being told by zero to the author well it begins as it must with our mutual friend's predecessor but wes doesn't start the film there instead we see the author telling the story of how he came across the story to the audience him who has often told the tales of others many tales will be told but wes also doesn't start the film here it's not zero or even the author who acts as the authorial framing of the film he starts the film on a young girl who's read the book this outward expansion almost draws our attention to the next unnamed outer layer of the question who's telling the story we're looking at now the royal tenon bombs is presented as a book rushmore with curtains like a play the life aquatic with steve zisu is a sort of film within a film the darjeeling limited has a character that seems to be writing the story where inside of moonrise kingdom has a narrator that speaks to the camera these films relieve themselves of naturalism presenting themselves as stories and every story has a storyteller in the life aquatic we find the story of a filmmaker who endlessly tries to control and craft the world around him we see stories of characters that are meticulous and quirky in their approach to life we see family-like teams that travel and work together on projects would you like to join my crew i want you on team zuzu an approach wes has used often in making his own films for example while making the darjeeling limited not only was the film written by three guys as they traveled around india by train it was also shot on a train while the crew traveled around the country and i think it's this aspect of director as character that makes wes's films so appealing to anyone interested in filmmaking his films are meticulously constructed but so are the films of many other filmmakers so it's not that meticulousness of his direction so much as it's the visibility of his meticulousness that draws filmmakers and those who love filmmaking to his work and if inserting yourself as a character into your films feels very self-interested to you i suppose you could read it that way but i think something more interesting is going on interviews with wes and the extensive references in his movies to varied and sometimes obscure cinema reveal his genuine love for filmmaking and storytelling i think wes having a love not just of stories themselves but the act of storytelling just isn't shy about pulling back the curtain just a little in a certain way and showcasing the act of storytelling alongside the stories themselves some people flat out reject the idea of being reminded they're being told a story it takes them out of things completely this may explain at least why some people have a viscerally negative reaction to wes anderson's films it's not that i don't like it i am physically repulsed others might have concerned that a sort of meta-awareness of a story's own narrative construct will rob the story of dramatic impact and true sentimentality and it's true that meta-narrative awareness in an ironic sense has been used to casually dismantle sentiment and notions of the value of narratives as a whole but i don't think it has to be and i think we often overestimate how much it detracts from a story's ability to convey emotion [Music] hey buddy buddy david lowry the director of ghost story and the upcoming film the green knight has a short film that i really like called pioneer this 15-minute short film is just a father telling an epic bedtime story to his son one day i was out planting food for us to eat and i heard the sound of thunder at no point during this short film can you forget that the father is just telling a story and yet it can be exciting and emotionally engaging all the same it reflects what is likely our earliest experience with narrative one where we can see the storyteller i think this might be part of why wes's films even though they deal with rather harsh realities and for the most part aren't for children have a sense of childish playfulness to them because there's a sense of childlike innocence in this mode of storytelling in acknowledging that you're being told a story we all suspend disbelief to some degree when we consume a story we aren't really tricked into thinking it's a real thing that is happening good compelling stories feel real to us even when we know they're just stories and i think one of the things that wes anderson's work can show us is that you can place genuine emotion and sentiment within a very constructed and artificial world and it can still be effective we don't have any trouble feeling emotion in other kinds of stories that have layers of ridiculous and fanciful elements it's just that wes's artificial world takes on a different aesthetic not that of fantasy or science fiction but of authorial presence there's a moment in almost every one of wes's films that i love i still wish i could breathe underwater me too it's for these most intimate emotionally resonant moments that wes pulls back from his style into something more conventional where he hides his filmmaking in a more naturalistic approach temporarily and just allows the story performance and emotion to shine through when this artificiality falls away to reveal a very raw emotion underneath it always kind of takes me by surprise it's a unique effect and it wouldn't really be possible if wes weren't building up so many layers of stylized artificiality to begin with in the wes anderson collection for the grand budapest hotel metzler seitz ends his interview with wes on a unique question and what's his filmic universe when the creator intervenes i wonder if he leaves his fingerprints on his creations i said earlier that naturalism is the prevailing approach to the filmmaking of most american mainstream cinema but wes anderson is far from the first filmmaker to break this convention and make more stylized films you can find a lot more of this kind of thing in the world of art house independent and foreign films and if you want to explore that world i recommend you check out movie hooby is an online streaming platform with a curated library that they add to every day this year i've been working on a feature script and one of my key inspirations has been the filmmaker joanna hogg and right now on mubi they have two of her films if you're interested in watching those movies or just checking out what else mubi has to offer you can do that for free right now if you sign up for an extended free trial by going to mubi.com thomasflight click the link in the description or go to mubi.com thomasflight for your extended 30-day free trial thank you so much for watching i appreciate all of your views and support if you want to support my channel directly you can go to patreon.com thomasflight that's not a safe house dude

Channel: Thomas Flight

Views: 3,356,023

Keywords: Video Essay, Thomas Flight, Wes Anderson, Wes Anderson Style, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson Video Essay, Wes anderson Before Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Darjeeling Limited, Director's Commentary, Behind The Scenes, Wes Anderson Commercial, Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, Isle of Dogs, The Royal Tenebaums, The Life Aquatic, Bill Murray, wes anderson french dispatch, Wes anderson Interview, The French Dispatch Trailer

Id: ba3c9KEuQ4A

Length: 19min 15sec (1155 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 09 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/hunnyb33_]

i’ll have to watch this later B) so cool