The Family Unit in Wes Anderson’s films

The Royal Tenembaums, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox

“the wiz kid director manages to pass himself off as a precociously gifted child, curious to see what he can do with his fancy toy theater and all the funny figures that go with it.” (9)

Intro

“That's the kind of movie that I like to make, where there is an invented reality and the audience is going to go someplace where hopefully they've never been before. The details, that's what the world is made of.” – Wes Anderson

Background

“An artist [Anderson] who imprints his personality and preoccupations on his work so strongly that whatever the contributions of his collaborators, he deserves to be considered the primary author of the film” (10)

Auteur

“underlying strength of representation in this film [The Royal Tenenbaums] is the vulnerability exposed through the way the characters cling onto the past” (17)

Links between life/film

"I want to try not to repeat myself. But then I seem to do it continuously in my films. It's not something I make any effort to do. I just want to make films that are personal, but interesting to an audience. I feel I get criticized for style over substance, and for details that get in the way of the characters. But every decision I make is how to bring those characters forward.“ -- Wes Anderson

Anderson’s own style

“ultimate premise of the auteur theory is concerned with interior meaning, the

ultimate glory of the cinema as an art.” (16)

“While this isn’t a world you would like to inhabit, it’s one that you find hard to leave” (8)

The Royal Tenenbaums

“This movie, for instance, is a very personal movie; everything comes from my experiences, or Jason's or Roman's experiences. That was really our goal and it's always been important to us that's it's both personal to us and hopefully personal for other people. That's the idea!” – Wes Anderson

The Darjeeling Limited

“My only effort was one, to try to make it seem to me like Roald Dahl and then to make it as fun and energetic and interesting as it could be”(8)

Fantastic Mr. Fox

“so rich and charming, that straight out laughter seems beside the point” (9)