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DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit „The Quirky in the Work of Wes Anderson. Metamodern Oscillations at the Basis of a Quirky Sensibility“ Verfasser Stefan Heiden Angestrebter akademischer Grad Magister der Philosophie (Mag. Phil.) Wien, im Dezember 2012 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt A 190 344 299 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt UF Englisch (und UF Psychologie und Philosophie) Betreuer Prof. Dr. Stefan L. Brandt Declaration of Authenticity I confirm to have conceived and written this paper in English all by myself. Quotations from other authors and any ideas borrowed and/or passages paraphrased from the words of other authors are all clearly marked within the text and acknowledged in the bibliographical references. Vienna, in December 2012 Thank you, Anna. iii Acknowledgements First, I would like to show my gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Stefan L. Brandt, for his ideas and advice in countless issues and for his great encouragement and reliability. Many thanks to my family, especially my mother. This diploma thesis would not have been possible without your great support. I would also like to seize the opportunity to express my warmest thanks to all those people who have encouraged me or lent me an ear in the course of my studies. Special thanks to my dear friends, Michi, Daniel and Robert. v Table of Contents 1. Introduction................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1. Outline.................................................................................................................................. 2 1.2. Overview: Wes Anderson.................................................................................................... 4 2. What Does Quirky Mean?............................................................................................................ 7 2.1. How the Quirky Evolved into a Technical Term..............................................................7 2.2. The Quirky and Its Conceptual Relatives..........................................................................9 2.3. An art movement? A genre? A Sensibility!.....................................................................13 3. The Quirky Film......................................................................................................................... 19 3.1. A Useful Definition............................................................................................................ 19 3.2. Recurrent properties......................................................................................................... 20 3.2.1. Light and Darkness: The Themes of the Quirky Film............................................21 3.2.2. Mise-en-scène: How the Content of the Frame is Organized................................23 3.2.3. Types of Humour: How the Quirky Film Makes Us Laugh.....................................28 3.2.4. Intertextual References and Allusions in Quirky Films.........................................30 3.2.5. Sympathy versus Detachment: The Tone of the Quirky Film...............................32 3.3. The Quirky and Its “Indiewood” Context........................................................................35 3.4. What Was Before the Quirky?........................................................................................... 37 3.5. The Metamodern Structure of Feeling............................................................................42 4. Structural Oscillations at the Heart of the Quirky Film.........................................................47 4.1. Spatial Oscillations in Rushmore......................................................................................48 4.2. Temporal Oscillations in The Royal Tenenbaums...........................................................58 4.3. Truth & Deception in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.............................................68 4.4. Purpose & Arbitrariness in The Darjeeling Limited.......................................................78 5. A Metamodern Way of Viewing and Listening.......................................................................91 5.1. Gratification Provided by the Quirky Film......................................................................91 5.2. Nostalgia for a Real World................................................................................................93 5.3. Desire for a Life Filled With Meaning..............................................................................97 5.4. Deepening Emotional Engagement................................................................................100 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................... 103 Bibliography................................................................................................................................. 106 Appendix...................................................................................................................................... 109 vii List of Figures Figure 1: Planimetric long shot in The Life Aquatic...................................................................25 Figure 2: Punch Drunk Love.......................................................................................................... 25 Figure 3: Napoleon Dynamite........................................................................................................ 26 Figure 4: Harold and Maude.......................................................................................................... 26 Figure 5: Buffalo 66........................................................................................................................ 26 Figure 6: Harold and Maude.......................................................................................................... 26 Figure 7: A copy of the book on which The Royal Tenenbaums pretends to be based............31 Figure 8: An intertitle simulating the literary source for The Royal Tenenbaums.................31 Figure 9: Ben Bradock dives in the swimming pool of his parents...........................................38 Figure 10: Herman goes underwater after watching his wife flirt with another man...........38 Figure 11: A two-dimensional oscillation....................................................................................45 Figure 12: Multiple depth layers..................................................................................................51 Figure 13: Multiple depth layers and sharp angles of the vanishing lines..............................51 Figure 14: Effect of flatness........................................................................................................... 52 Figure 15: Self-conscious gaze into the camera..........................................................................52 Figure 16: Extremely sharp angles of the vanishing lines and multiple depth layers...........56 Figure 17: Very shallow focus....................................................................................................... 56 Figure 18: “Dynamic” framing in the prologue: Chas attempts to shoot at his father...........61 Figure 19: Richie and Margot run away.......................................................................................61 Figure 20: The train: order, symmetry, flatness, planimetric long shot..................................81 Figure 21: The market: disorder, multiple depth layers, multiple lines of sight and movement....................................................................................................................................... 81 Figure 22: Order and symmetry form part of the greeting ceremony.....................................84 Figure 23: A miniaturized theater in Tenenbaums alludes to the diorama-like quality of its visual style...................................................................................................................................... 99 INTRODUCTION 1 1. Introduction Here’s our agenda for the next few months. You’ll find everything in order. – Dignan in Bottle Rocket (1992) Since the middle of the last decade, one buzzword has become “virtually inescapable” which does no longer merely describe a person or someone’s behavior but also a film and a cinematic category. Many recent U. S. American films have been described or marketed as being “quirky” and some critics even use this notion as a defining element of a new cinematic category – the “quirky film” (Mac­ Dowell 1). Half a decade before this buzzword spread and a series of similarly themed and styled films were released, Wes Anderson, whose films had a significant share in the rise of the quirky, was already gaining acceptance. His work as the writer, director and producer of The Royal Tenenbaums earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2001. Anderson who has re­ cently been called the “king of quirk” by The Guardian (Child) has developed his own recognizable aesthetics, cinematographic methods and tone. The present thesis starts from the assumption that the “work of Wes Anderson as a whole would seem to provide us with the most consistent, as well as probably the most extreme, embodiment of the quirky” (MacDowell 4). The works of Anderson have set the standards for the category of the quirky film. It is this constituting nature of Anderson’s work with regard to the new category

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