The Films of Wes Anderson: Critical Essays on an Indiewood Icon

223 Pages·2014·2.93 MB·English

by  Peter C. Kunze (eds.)

THE
FILMS
OF WES
ANDERSON
CRITICAL
ESSAYS
ON AN
INDIEWOOD
ICON
Edited by
PETER C.
KUNZE
The Films of Wes Anderson
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The Films of Wes Anderson
Critical Essays on an Indiewood Icon
Edited by Peter C. Kunze
the films of wes anderson
Copyright © Peter C. Kunze, 2014.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-40311-7
All rights reserved.
First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a
division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world, this
is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and
has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the
United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-48692-2 I SBN 978-1-137-40312-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137403124
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The films of Wes Anderson : critical essays on an indiewood icon / edited
b y Peter C. Kunze.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
IS BN 978-1-349-48692-2
1. Anderson, Wes, 1969— Criticism and interpretation. I. Kunze, Peter
C. (Peter Christopher), editor of compilation.
PN1998.3.A526F57 2014
7 91.4302'33092—dc23
2013045031
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Amnet.
First edition: May 2014
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Introduction: The Wonderful Worlds of Wes Anderson 1
Peter C. Kunze
Part 1
1 The Short Films of Wes Anderson 13
Nicole Richter
2 Cast of Characters: Wes Anderson and Pure
Cinematic Characterization 25
Kim Wilkins
3 The Jellyfish and the Moonlight: Imagining the
Family in Wes Anderson’s Films 39
Steven Rybin
4 “Max Fischer Presents”: Wes Anderson and the
Theatricality of Mourning 51
Rachel Joseph
5 “Who’s to Say?”: The Role of Pets in Wes Anderson’s Films 65
C. Ryan Knight
6 “American Empirical” Time and Space: The (In) Visibility
of Popular Culture in the Films of Wes Anderson 77
Jason Davids Scott
Part 2
7 From the Mixed-Up Films of Mr. Wesley W. Anderson:
Children’s Literature as Intertexts 91
Peter C. Kunze
8 A Shared Approach to Familial Dysfunction and Sound Design:
Wes Anderson’s Influence on the Films of Noah Baumbach 109
Jennifer O’Meara
vI CONTENTS
9 Bill Murray and Wes Anderson, or the Curmudgeon as Muse 125
Colleen Kennedy-Karpat
10 Life on Mars or Life on the Sea: Seu Jorge, David Bowie,
and the Musical World in Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic
with Steve Zissou 139
Lara Hrycaj
Part 3
11 The Andersonian, the Quirky, and “Innocence” 153
James MacDowell
12 “I Always Wanted to Be a Tenenbaum”: Class Mobility
as Neoliberal Fantasy in Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums 171
Jen Hedler Phillis
13 Objects/Desire/Oedipus: Wes Anderson as Late-Capitalist
Auteur 181
Joshua Gooch
14 Systems Thinking in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
and Moonrise Kingdom 199
Laura Shackelford
Notes on Contributors 215
Index 219
List of Illustrations
Figure 11.1 Bottle Rocket: The Hurricanes “don’t let defeat
get them down.” 163
Figure 11.2 Bottle Rocket: Dignan is “fuckin’ innocent.” 163
Figure 11.3 Fantastic Mr. Fox: Raised-first salutes. 165
Figure 13.1 Th e Darjeeling Limited: Adrien Brody
outruns Bill Murray’s metatextual
paternal figure. 184
Figure 13.2 Th e Darjeeling Limited: Sons shed their
paternal baggage. 184
Figure 13.3 Th e Darjeeling Limited: The paternal figure
anchors a desiring chain of train cars. 185
Figure 13.4 M oonrise Kingdom: The an-Oedipal objects
of Sam’s costume. 192
Figure 13.5 M oonrise Kingdom: Sam’s costume acts as
an assemblage. 192
Figure 13.6 M oonrise Kingdom: Suzy’s objects are largely
those of passive consumption like this portable
record player. 193
Figure 13.7 Moonrise Kingdom: As part of the film’s thematics
of policed desire, Sam swaps his Scouts uniform
for that of his adopted father. 194
Figure 13.8 M oonrise Kingdom: In place of his earlier
painting of adolescent desire, Sam substitutes
a representation of its scene in the film’s
concluding sequence. 195
vIII LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 13.9 M oonrise Kingdom: To emphasize the connection
between art, cinema, and the capture of desire,
the film ends with a dissolve from Sam’s painting
to this shot of the beach. 196
Figure 14.1 Th e Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: Communicating
with cybernetic “albino dolphin scouts.” 200
Figure 14.2 The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: Underwater
in the Deep Search. 209
Introduction
The Wonderful Worlds
of Wes Anderson
Peter C. Kunze
Are any film directors working today as polarizing as Wes Anderson? In
less than 20 years and with seven feature films (an eighth, The Grand
Budapest Hotel, is set for release in March 2014), he has established himself
as a creative force to be reckoned with, inspiring overblown diatribes and
excessive praise. Christopher Kelly of Texas Monthly claims Anderson’s
films prior to Moonrise Kingdom (2012) reveal that he “never seemed to
understand real people” (97), while Jonah Weiner contends, “In every film
he’s made, even the best ones, there’s been something kind of obnoxious
about Wes Anderson.” A. O. Scott, of The New York Times, remarks that
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) “finally elicits an exasperated admiration.
Yes, yes, you’re charming, you’re brilliant. Now say good night and go to
bed.” In his review of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), Roger Ebert
ambivalently concludes, “I can’t recommend it, but I would not for one
second discourage you from seeing it.” On the other side, Elbert Ventura,
of Slate, and Steven Hyden, Noel Murray, Keith Phipps, Nathan Rabin,
and Scott Tobias, of A.V. Club, have credited Anderson with inspiring a
stream of recent indie films, including Garden State (Braff, 2004), Napoleon
Dynamite (Hess, 2004), Juno (Reitman, 2007), and Charlie Bartlett (Poll,
2007). In Wes Anderson: Why His Movies Matter, Mark Browning claims,
“The only movies Wes Anderson films look like are other Wes Anderson
films” (ix). On October 26, 2013, Saturday Night Live featured a mock
trailer for a Wes Anderson horror film entitled The Midnight Coterie of
Sinister Intruders, starring The Royal Tenenbaums’s narrator, Alec Baldwin,
as the narrator and Moonrise Kingdom’s Edward Norton as frequent
P.C. Kunze (ed.), The Films of Wes Anderson
© Peter C. Kunze 2014