In Contention

Tag: Wes Anderson

  • A flash of ‘Fox’

    Thanks to the combined efforts of Lars von Trier and Wes Anderson, 2009 should hold a unique place in cinematic history as the year that brought us not one, but two screen depictions of talking foxes.

    The films they appear in couldn’t be any more different, though after looking at these two new stills (courtesy of Filmsactu) from Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” I find the woodland critter who pops up halfway through “Antichrist” to reassure us that “chaos reigns” less unsettling than these zombified-looking stop-motion creations.

    Fantastic Mr. Fox

    (More thoughts, and a second still, after the cut.)

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  • Is Wes Anderson corroding the cinema?

    Rachel Weisz in The Brothers BloomI should say at the top that I have not yet seen Rian Johnson’s “The Brothers Bloom,” but I was an absolute disciple of the director’s 2005 debut “Brick.”  That said, “Bloom” has always had a particular sheen to it that has obviously kept it from being a must-see since the first screenings began back in September of 2008.  Elbert Ventura, writing in Slate, may have pegged the reasoning, at least as it pertains to my taste:

    Rian Johnson’s caper comedy The Brothers Bloom begins its nationwide rollout already burdened with a reputation as an imitation of an American original. If Johnson’s terrific debut, Brick, crackled with the borrowed brio of the Coen brothers, early notices for The Brothers Bloom have identified a new muse: Wes Anderson…

    But The Brothers Bloom is only the latest addition to a burgeoning subgenre. Over the last few years, Anderson’s movies have become touchstones for indie culture. In the 1990s, it seemed every NYU graduate and Sundance contender was making his own Tarantino knockoff. These days, the Tarantino imitators have been replaced by the Wes wannabes. A popular strain in recent American indie cinema has been the Andersonian quirkfest, a tendency that runs through movies like Juno, Napoleon Dynamite, Son of Rambow, Charlie Bartlett, and Garden State, among others.

    The appropriation doesn’t stop there. Anderson’s trademarks—poker-face eccentricity, affection for the oddball, fastidiously arranged clutter, an affinity for the precocious and childlike—have now become conventions in the larger culture. You can glimpse his style and sensibility in TV shows, music videos and—a true sign that you’ve arrived—commercials.

    Of course, I like one or two of those films, but as someone who considers nearly the whole of Wes Anderson’s portfolio to be incredibly disposable, and as a guy from the film school generation Ventura indicates (and therefore, witnessed the development of this new “wannabe” culture), allow me to simply say: God help us. I won’t pass judgment on “The Brothers Bloom” until I see it, of course, but items like this make it difficult to drum up enthusiasm.

  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: Alexandre Desplat

    Tech Support at In ContentionOver the last several years, Alexandre Desplat has gone from being a relatively unknown (in the United States anyway) French composer to emerging as one of the most acclaimed and sought after commodities in the business today.  Receiving his second Oscar nomination this year for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Desplat has continued to cement his place at the top of his field.

    Despite the acclaim, however, he remains very close to his home in European cinema.  “I have tried to keep as much of a relationship as I can with my French directors,” he says.  “I always try to go to do two or three French movies a year.  That’s a lot but I don’t want to lose that.”

    While there are certainly exceptions, there is definitely a difference in the manner that French and American filmmakers approach their work, Desplat says.  Being forced to think differently because of different filmmaking styles helps his creative resources.  “It feeds me,” he says.

    David Fincher’s “Button” posed unique challenges for Desplat.  “It doesn’t have a linear storytelling,” he says.  “It’s a complex puzzle and I’d ask myself, ‘How do you deal with this in music and deal with the main character when he is a passive character?’  It’s not easy to capture in music.”

    Describing the film as a “sound epic,” Desplat notes that the music had to be strong without being overly dramatic or imposing.  It was a crucial demand from Fincher that Desplat says he had to struggle with.

    The composer has worked with some of the world’s top directors in recent years – Ang Lee, Stephen Frears, Jacques Audiard — but despite Fincher’s unique perspective in the wake of those talent helmers, Desplat says certain professional similarities smoothed the journey.

    “He has an amazing quality as a collaborator,” Desplat says. “He’s very demanding but so am I so that’s fine.  He’s very detailed but so am I, so that’s also fine.  He wants his people to bring their own world, talents and colors into the film.  I think that’s the sign of a great director.  All the great directors I’ve worked with know that it is crucial that your creative energy is opened and not just restrained.”

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  • Sheer cool overload

    Sorry for another music-related post, but this is surely too awesome to actually be true. Word is out that Jarvis Cocker is writing music for Wes Anderson’s upcoming adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “Fantastic Mr Fox.”

    The former Pulp frontman, responsible for pretty much the greatest, wittiest, most perceptive and socially on-the-button song of the 90’s, has written “three, four songs and some that might become bits of the score” for the film.

    Cocker has good form with soundtracks, having worked on “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” and Alfonso Cuaron’s underrated “Great Expectations.” (Remember the gorgeous Pulp-Patrick Doyle collaboration “Like a Friend,” anyone?) What could be cooler?

    (Answer: maybe everything about Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are,” which has the equally tantalising musical possibility of Karen O involved. Who wouldn’t want to see those two duelling it out for Best Original Song at the Oscars? Not that that would ever happen – not least because it seems we may never see Jonze’s much-discussed fantasia at all. So much for my most anticipated title of 2009.)

    But I digress. With Cocker joining a team that already includes George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and Bill Murray lending their vocal talents to the project, Noah Baumbach on the screenplay, and Alex McDowell, no less, on production design duty, “Fantastic Mr Fox” seems to have everything going for it. This could well be the first Wes Anderson film that I actually love.

    2009’s Best Animated Feature race is starting to look a lot more fun than this year’s.