Jaguar Shark
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“Poseidon god of the earthquake smashed my ship, he drove it against the rocks at your island’s far cape.” ~The Odyssey (Book IX, 319-320) Klaus: “Is that him?” Hennessey: “That’s him, Klaus.” ~The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou Episode 12: The Jaguar Shark Let me tell you about my favorite filmmaker. I am sure I’m not the only one who feels this way, but there is something so extraordinary about the movies of Wes Anderson. Each one is unique, artistic, quirky and suffused with thoughtful detail; and although they have such a clear presence, it’s entirely possible to imagine a world where none of his movies existed. That is to say: without Wes Anderson, we wouldn’t have any Wes Anderson movies. One other thing which makes his movies great is the fantastic music he uses to soundtrack them. There is so much 60s and 70s rock and roll, while each song is used in its right place. Besides his particular style of nostalgic pleasantness and comedic-yet-moving drama, there is an underlying theme in each of Wes Anderson’s first four films involving the vision and worldview of his main characters as they see something which exists for them but not for others. With this observation in mind, one can see how each of Wes Anderson’s first four movies—Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou—follows a similar course to that of Odysseus on his approach home to Ithaca. There are traits exhibited by Odysseus which make a first-and-lasting impression on the listeners and readers of The Odyssey. Truly, his is a presence which transcends the page he’s printed on. Among these traits, two are his most famous: his intelligence and his willingness to deceive. But two others stand out to me as equally crucial for his successful voyage home: his persistence and his willingness to engage with and accept the world around him. He doesn’t just control and manipulate people, instead he builds consensus and leads people towards his vision of the world. As a director, Wes Anderson needs to have these abilities as well. He needs to convey his concept of the story and how it translates from the scene and summary on the page to the eventual product on the screen. The key to seeing the Odysseus-like traits in Wes Anderson’s protagonists is to recognize the richness of meaning and detail within his movies; and the way these details, in turn, motivate and convince the films’ characters. Yes: Anderson works to convince his characters, not just his audience, through his protagonists. Once the characters are convinced, we as the audience will have an eager, vicarious motivation to be convinced as well. There is a very important term which you’ll need to know if you ever find yourself in a film class or in the middle of an essay about movies. It is: “mise-en-scène.” This is a concept which serves to describe every object in a movie which is either consciously or incidentally included on screen. Many filmmakers take great care to control and develop the mise-en-scène of their films. Mise-en-scène is an opportunity for a film-maker to assert the reality of their film- world by transforming the film’s backdrop into a world of their specific fictional idea. This step in film-making is subtle, yet it’s so powerful. Small details are usually convincing elements of a real setting: because they just happen to be elements of a real-life setting! These insignificant and inconsequential details are observed by casual observers at all times, and most of the time we don’t notice them since they fit in with what we expect to see. Their consistency serves to convince us. Consider the simple example of watching a modern movie which is supposedly set in the year 1981. Assume we’re watching a scene which take place on a city sidewalk. As we obviously expect the cars in the background to be makes and models which were on the road in 1981 (and we are ready to pounce and point it out if we catch a mistake!), we are simultaneously convinced we are looking at a scene from 1981 if they got all of those details correct. For Wes Anderson, mise-en-scène goes beyond continuity and consistency of the setting. His attention to detail extends as far if not further than the psychological makeup of each individual character: to see the surroundings of a Wes Anderson character is to see the character better than the they can see themselves. I’m convinced this is why Cate Blanchett (who plays “Jane,” the reporter in The Life Aquatic) describes Anderson’s movies as “The Wonderful World of Wes.” In the Criterion (collector’s) Edition of The Royal Tenenbaums, there is a highly-detailed schematics drawn up of every single detail comprising the Tenenbaum home. They were drawn by Eric Anderson, Wes’s brother who is also an illustrator. For the movie, Wes picked out a house in the Hamilton Heights section of Harlem, and his team tracked down the actual blueprints for the house. From there, they planned out the entire set before filming. Eric was so meticulous that these drawings were kept by set designers like a handbook and were carried side- by-side with the script. Here is a brief glance at it. Pretend you see a colored drawing of a taxi cab. Beneath the cab, it reads: “ *All taxis are old (1975-1985) and derelict. They are not colorful. They rarely have hubcaps.” Then he goes on to describe the front license plate of a particular cab. This is The Wonderful World of Wes. And by the way, this taxi cab works its way into our Odysseus theme: A taxi is a mode of travel away from the Tenenbaum house. The reason Wes wants these cabs to look awful is because he wants the characters (and us, the viewers) to find them to be an unwelcome contrast to their home. Outside the house, everything is silver, iron and bronze; the only place one can find gold is in the house. There is also a great deal of gold coloring within the house. And according to Eric Anderson’s illustrations, even the radiators were stipulated to be painted gold (except in the bathrooms, where they were to be painted silver). Beyond the attention to detail paid by Wes and Eric Anderson, there is also a sense that the settings matter greatly to the characters as well.1 1 Consider the interior of Richie Tenenbaum’s tent. Also, the part in his back-story where he and Margot camp out in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is a direct homage to a book by E.L. Konigsburg called From The Mixed- up Files of Basil E. Frankwieler. This book was an inspiration to a young Wes Anderson. Note: to get a brief, comic glimpse at the aesthetic of Wes Anderson’s movies, track down an SNL skit called “The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders.” The host was Edward Norton (who was in Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom), and he plays Owen Wilson in the skit. To top it off, the skit is narrated by Alec Baldwin, who also narrates The Royal Tenenbaums. It’s fantastic! Inside these thoughtful worlds live and breathe the complex, subtle and flawed characters of his stories. And, as I am trying to suggest, Mr. Anderson often invokes the Odysseus archetype. I will focus in on his first four movies because, although the Odysseus archetype is present in each of his movies (especially Fantastic Mr. Fox, who is voiced by none other than George Clooney), I believe these first four movies do so most directly. The four characters I have in mind are: Dignan (played by Owen Wilson in Bottle Rocket), Max Fischer (played by Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore), Royal Tenenbaum (played by Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums) and Steve Zissou (played by Bill Murray in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou). Each of these characters is funny, melancholic, eccentric and flawed. Also, each character takes a step further than the previous instantiation in accomplishing their ultimate goal (which is also the goal of Odysseus). For instance, all four begin with a selfish and quixotic plan. Here is where we lose Dignan (his “75-year Plan” didn’t survive contact with the enemy: reality). The next three face failure and loss while yearning to one day recover some crucially important piece of their past. Here is where we lose Max Fischer (he never truly returns to Rushmore in any real sense). The next two regain their lost experience, but only through the tremendous grace and help of others. Here is where we lose Royal, because it is only Steve Zissou who takes the final step and brings us along to experience this moment for ourselves. And the one thing these characters all have in common (other than being endearing, which is often paradoxical or untrue) is that the goal they are pursuing is equally as significant as their entire personal identity. This is to say: either these characters are small people or they are seeking some deep form of redemption.2 If I’ve said something about the wonderful world of Wes Anderson and briefly introduced his characters, I should also touch briefly on Odysseus. There is one person in the world who understands him best, so I will let her be the one who says this about him: “How I long for my husband—alive in memory, always, that great man whose fame resounds through Hellas right to the depths of Argos!” (The Odyssey, Book 1, lines 395-397) This, of course, is Penelope.