I find Wes Anderson to be a total cinematic anomaly, completely unappreciated and entirely ridiculous in the most ingenious way. The only other director I can be remotely excited about is Tim Burton.
I spent the night studying for my exam and watching The Life Aquatic, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited and Rushmore, and find myself still totally in awe of how he does it, and I can't even put my finger on what "it" is. I just revel in the fact that his movies are as smart or as stupid as you are, and are as dryly comedic as the best brittish film makers while he is from texas.
His style is so simply artistic, yet obviously artistic, I suppose he feeds the jovial minimalist in me while Tim Burton feeds the crazy, whimsical and dark parts of me. Wes manages to give even the most dark and depressing moments in ones life a certain vibrance and light-heartedness that I have never seen before, his ability to put things in perspective is amazing. It is as if he skips over all of the greiving and anger that one goes through in a troubled time and goes straight to the point where you are so exhausted by anger and sadness that you have nothing left to do but laugh. It is my favorite part of life, the moment where you learn to laugh and let go, and he depicts it so well, insinuating that we never needed to go through the first few steps to get there.
I suppose at this point in my life, when my parents are in the middle of a nasty divorce, and neither of them will just bite the bullet and move out, and I'm stuck at home finishing up credits and working on the job search...well I can look at this as the typical hollywood tragedy or I can put on a pair of Wes Anderson goggles and see how funny this all could really be under the right mindset. And truly the characters he assigns to Bill Murray thoroughly remind me of my father.
I also thoroughly appreciate that he has almost a single cast for all of his movies. The relationships he develops with the actors he chooses is phenomenal, it is as if he writes each film with his cast in mind, already knowing the character that is perfect for both the films point and the actor. I have heard of directors having muses that they love to work with, but he has an entire family of actors behind him with such a clear appreciation and commitment to their collective vision of his genious, so in tune to what he is looking for, so simple in delivery and dry in emotion. There is no anger, no laughing, no sadness, no giant influx of any emotion really, and yet it is there.
His are the movies that most excite both my aesthetic and psychological appretiation in the least self indulgent ways. I always go back for more because I have never had enough, there is always something else to notice, some quirk to recognize, some character flaw to discover. It amazes me that he can make such a topically simple movie as deep as he does, there is very little explanation to any character, and certainly any explanation given is in the most subtle and nonchalant way as to barely be noticed, which is why the philistines will find it dull and the discerning minds can discover its genious.
Maybe the reason I love his work so much is because it is so seperate from who I am and yet so a part of who I want to be. I am by no means subtle, but he creates the most in depth and wonderful world out of subtlety, and I wish I could find that subtlety in myself, but then, I was raised in New Jersey, so it may be a hopeless endeavor.
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