Characteristics Of Wes Anderson

Should Wes Anderson be Considered as an auteur of this generation?

Wes Anderson is a unique director who has created many artistic films over the course of his career of 23 years. Some characteristics of his directional style are Whip pan, God's eye view, POV shot, Tracking, Crosscutting, Dolly in/out, Iris Lens to create a satire effect on the viewers and build a director-viewer relationship with the viewer. He is more renowned for his mastery with Unnatural camera angles which usually create a retro effect to his films as if they were shot in the 60's. I have chosen the winner of 4 Oscars Anderson's 2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel and Anderson's 2009 animated movie Mr. fantastic Fox to help me have a clear understanding of his exceptional
directing style.
Wesley Wales "Wes" Anderson (born May 1, 1969) is an American film director, film producer, screenwriter, and actor. At the age of 8, Anderson's parents divorced which caused Anderson's childhood to be troubled. Anderson has been open to his viewers about his relationship with his dad and many of the films directed by him portray a theme of a broken/dysfunctional family. Anderson is also known to be a symmetry freak because all his shots, props and every scene in his movie is symmetrical to give the movie an artistic feeling. Anderson also uses symmetry as an homage to Stanly Kubrick. Some of his other films are Moonrise Kingdom, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Rushmore, Bottle Rock etc.
In one of the sequences from the Grand Budapest Hotel, we see that Anderson uses a variety of techniques while introducing Mr.
Gustave to the viewers. We see that the director utilizes the technique of text on Screen to display Mr. Gustave‘s name on the screen, by doing so he is making the viewers eager to meet the character of Mr. Gustave. This increases the relationship between the director and the viewer. The director then continues to use the best weapon in his arsenal, the tracking shot. He also uses the tracking shot to create a lively effect. By using the tracking shot the director establishes that Mr. Gustave is a very important person and a person who is hard to keep up with, he also signifies that Mr. Gustave is the man in charge. The director also plays around with the Aspect Ratio of the film to cramp a lot of people in one frame forcing the viewer to maintain focus on the character of Mr. Gustave in order to increase the importance of Mr. Gustave’s
character.
A similar scene can be seen in Anderson’s 2009 animated film “Fantastic Mr. Fox”. We see the director using the same technique when Mr. Fox is moving into his new house ‘the tree’. We see that director using his signature, tracking shot to show that the furniture is being moved into Mr. Fox’s new house. We see that the camera follows a squirrel as it commands other squirrels to decorate the furniture in the new house. We also see the director using tilt to show Mr. Fox’s new home in its full glory.
After watching a few movies directed by Wes Anderson we observe that most of the stories by Anderson are similar to one another and have a lot of characters that are strikingly similar to each other. We also observe that Anderson likes to work with a particular cast, which is capable of delivering and portraying the quirky characters in Anderson's films. After watching The Grand Budapest Hotel and Fantastic Mr. Fox I noticed that the director uses a variety of techniques that are similar but convey a different message. Being the symmetry freak Anderson is all the shots in both the films are symmetrical. I have chosen to focus on one of the signature styles of Anderson the ‘tracking shot'. In The Grand Budapest Hotel, we see that the director uses the tracking shot to show the importance of Mr. Gustave whereas in Fantastic Mr. Fox the tracking shot is used to mark the arrival of Mr. Fox in his new house. We also see that there is a resemblance between the squirrel and Mr. Gustave, it feels like the commanding squirrel is an animated version of Mr. Gustave. I also observed a common theme of a dysfunctional family in most of the Wes Anderson films, this reflects the director's relationship with his dad. Anderson has opened up about his relationship with his dad on several occasions and has mentioned his relationship with his dad in almost all of his movies.
“An auteur is a singular artist who controls all aspects of a collaborative creative work, a person equivalent to the author of a novel or a play.” We can say that Anderson is an auteur because of the way he makes his films, every aspect of his movie is controlled by him and has an artistic feel to it.
The evidence to this lies in his movies, we can see that all the shots in his movie are symmetrical, he makes the viewer feel what he wants them to feel using unusual camera angles. We see that both of the films by Anderson open with a book at the very start to create a fairytale-like feeling, it's like he is making the viewer to feel like a child for a bedtime story. Anderson also refers to the past very often making the reader feel nostalgic. In the movie The Grand Budapest Hotel, we see that the director refers to pre-World War 2 years rather than the actual world war years to maintain a light tone but at the same time, he is sugar coating the harsh reality of World War 2. The purpose of the director doing this is to make the viewer feel that they are living their moment while conveying a much darker message. Anderson offers an escape hatch to his viewers to escape to his fantasy land for 1.5 hours. In my opinion, Anderson is truly an auteur of this
generation.