Wes Anderson

Genius - The common garden online dictionary states that a genius is "1.an exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in creative and original work". Well yes, that's just about right I'd say.

Wes Anderson is a wonderful director. Owen Wilson is a fantastic actor. You read that right. Owen Wilson when together with Anderson is a fantastic writer also. Not many people know that. They just know he’s the wonky nosed guy from Wedding Crashers and are done with it. No, there’s more to his bow than the low brow. Everyone’s got to pay the bills, and Owen treads the same boards as the likes of Clooney and Pitt in that respect, one for the studio and then one for himself. And in most cases this invariably ends up with collaboration with Anderson.

Anderson is an impeccable director. His vision is clear and direct. It’s precise and sometimes relentlessly staged. The vision is the key with his directing, freeze the frame at any point and the image presented is beautiful, or challenging, or humorous. He crafts and creates his films makes them live. When the two collaborate it’s many a wonderful thing.

Sigh.

I’m just going to post my favourite piece of dialogue from any film, it’s from the Royal Tenenbaums. Richie is in love with his adopted sister, Margot, and always has been. He knew that it could never be, but still when she eventually got married he had a mental breakdown and left home only to return many years later, along with the rest of his family under the false pretence that their father is dying. In the wake of their discovery of Margot’s infidelities, Richie shuts the bathroom door and stares deeply at his own image and takes off his headband. Slowly, you hear the delicate strum of Elliot Smith’s “Needle in the Hay,” a song of such desolate beauty that you know Richie’s intent before he takes out the razor. Instantly, the scene takes on the presaged dimness of a morphine-dream. As the blood courses down his arms and he tries to sit, the song stops abruptly before starting up again as he’s rushed to the hospital. When he’s released from hospital, he goes back to his old room in the family home, and sleeps in the tent that he and Margot used to use to escape into when they were children. Margot finds him and asks him why he did what he did. They embrace and Margot remains in his arms, only for them to slowly realise that they share a love that can never be, she backs out of the tent to the refrain of “Ruby Tuesday” by the Stones. It gets me every time. It’s a beautiful scene, it’s superb. Oh here’s that piece of script I was promising.

“I have to tell you something...

What is it?

I love you.

I love you, too.”

It’s simple. But it’s beautiful. It’s a microcosm of the Anderson/Wilson film making aesthetic