Wes Anderson Childhood

Films that deal with childhood typically marginalize youth as an age of purity and disregard its harsh aspects. Though one might relate melancholy, detachment, and failure to maturity, filmmaker Wes Anderson appropriately associates them with children. However, he does so in an amiable manner that neither loses charm nor allows the adults to forget the child inside. By shrewdly using adult characters that behave like children, Anderson casts childhood's magical sense of wonder onto the viewer. Through this unique approach, the audience can genuinely perceive the phenomenon of childhood. Immature adult characters are only one of the many ways that Anderson captivates the viewer's inner-child. Essentially, Anderson's films lead audiences
down enchanting paths and towards childhood with their subtle humor, oddball characters, delicate filming techniques, and fantastical sets/costumes.
Anderson's elaborate sets immediately jump out of the screen and evoke a sense of Neverland. With both Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums located in a timeless Houston (Anderson's childhood hometown) and New York respectively, Anderson dismisses any relevance of his films to modern day society. Instead of imparting any social or political critiques, these semi-fictional settings serve to narrate a magical story. In The Royal Tenenbaums, Anderson places the character Pagoda (played by Kumar Pallana) in front of the Statue of Liberty so that he blocks its view from the camera (Anderson, Commentary from The Royal Tenenbaums). Such a notorious landmark as the Statue of Liberty would chafe the film's fantastical texture. Anderson longs for an enchanted New York not tainted by commercialism just as an adult yearns for the innocence lost after childhood. Remaining consistent with his other two films, The Life Aquatic transpires over imaginary islands and on invented seas. The film, in essence, occurs in an exotic world of make believe. Anderson even manufactured the fish in the film with the intention that they appear unrealistic—as if they were the figments of a child's imagination (Anderson, Commentary from The Life Aquatic).
The animated colors of these sets further emphasize the fantasy within the films. In Rushmore, green predominates the screen with plentiful shots of grass, trees and a fungi-filled pool. The prevalence of the color green accentuates the organic nature of childhood, especially in the character of Max who naively attempts to skip his adolescence and inhabit the adult world. The green also provides an entrancing landscape for the film, which offers a suitable venue for the fictitious events.
In a different way but with an analogous purpose, The Royal Tenenbaums contrasts such urban colors as stone and tarnished steel with a dormant red of the Tenenbaum household. With its peculiar colors, various turrets, and gothic windows, the house resembles a medieval castle that might subsist in a child's mind. Scott describes the film's set as "a fantasy New York of grand hotels and brick and limestone mansions where gypsy cabs meander through the streets and the light plays off dark mahogany, red velvet and brown corduroy" (3). Instead of depicting the enchanted forests of Rushmore, the setting of The Royal Tenenbaums portrays the intrinsic grandeur that rests in a majestic city.
The primary colors of The Life Aquatic add a dynamic to the screen that pleases the primal inclination of the kid inside the viewer. The blue of both Zissou's uniforms and the vast sea underscore the yellow of the submarine, helicopter and safe. The red of the crew's nightcaps and of the plush carpet "further saturates the set with simple yet effervescent colors" (Anderson, Commentary from The Life Aquatic). And, as mentioned earlier, these colors facilitate Anderson's objective of sketching a world outside of the ones we live in.
To go along with the dreamlike sets, Anderson also designs unconventional yet picturesque costumes for his characters. Luke Wilson's character of Richie Tenenbaum sports a camel-haired suit with a horizontally-striped Fila tennis shirt—the same outfit he wears during his years as a professional tennis player as well as during his adolescence. Richie's reluctance to change his outfit relates to the fact that he "tumbles unwillingly into maturity" (Scott, 4). Anderson also conceals Richie's features with long hair, thick beard and sizeable sunglasses. Since Richie is neither able to deal with his failures at tennis nor convey his furtive love to his step-sister Margot, he chooses to veil his face and stay in the past. Within this costume motif, Anderson daftly illustrates the childhood instinct to run and hide from one's troubles.
Max, in Rushmore, exhibits a similar juvenile tendency for denial with his persistent wearing of his Rushmore uniform. Even when he is expelled from Rushmore and has to attend the public school, Grover Cleveland, Max sports his uniform with a pseudo pride. He refuses to concede his dream of attending Rushmore even when it is an impossibility. Max's incongruous Rushmore uniform—along with his thick glasses—illustrates his childish attempt to inhabit the adult world of maturity. Max becomes even more foolish as he grows to be "enchanted by the idea of his own precocity" (Scott, 1). Maslin recognizes Anderson's visual statement of inanity for the character of Max "who's as much of a sight gag for the wide-angle lens as he is a flesh-and-blood character" (2). Though Max's grand endeavor might seem to contradict Richie's reluctance to grow-up, both characters naively aspire for the unattainable.
Anderson's original characters do not necessarily require off the wall costumes to accentuate their immature attributes.
Their overly dramatic performances color the films with a shade of irony. Part of the humor in Anderson's films comes from the fact that the out of place, exaggerated acting lets the audience know that these people are acting. In The Royal Tenenbaums, Eli Cash's (played by Owen Wilson) zany aphorisms seem so absurd that one can see his acting for what it is—acting. In an early scene, Eli tells the reporters around him with a sly grin: "Everyone knows that Custard died at Little Big Horn, what this novel presupposes is: Maybe he didn't?" One might dismiss this quote as nonsensical, but its absurdity coming from the mouth of an acclaimed author such as Eli turns out to be quite humorous. Later in the movie, Eli justifies his childish/eccentric behavior when he tells Richie, "I've always wanted to be a Tenenbaum" (The Royal Tenenbaums). This all returns to the recurring concept of idealistic aspirations, only in this case, the goal is familial
love.
The characters of Herman Blume in Rushmore and Steve Zissou in The Life Aquatic—both played by Bill Murray—embody the cynical yet ambitious archetype of a teenager.
The humor of these characters appears in the fact that Murray's old age clashes with his immature behavior. Even though Herman has made himself into a steel tycoon, he spends his twilight years sophomorically seeking revenge on the adolescent Max. He also possesses a distaste for life that frequently plagues one's teenage years. The only thing that can reverse the sadness within Herman is his crush for Rosemary, which he (like a child) is too scared to confess—as seen when he crouches behind a tree attempting to hide for her. Murray's portrayal of Steve Zissou differs somewhat from Herman in that Zissou deliberately tries to lead an immature life of excitement, yet he only runs into the same dead end of melancholy. As Steve looks out into the distance wistfully, he tells his wife "I was hopin' to go out in a flash of blazes, but I'll probably just end up goin' home" (The Life Aquatic). Anderson believes Zissou "to be a kid's idea of what an adult is (Anderson, Commentary from The Life Aquatic). Zissou's need for adventure and personal glory exhibit the vanity of
adolescence.
Anderson's trademark employment of the 30-millimeters wide-angled lens (Lyman 5)—accompanied by almost pictographic arrangements of his characters and props—sustains his quest to make his films appear as "fables" (Jones 4). Anderson also rarely uses hand-held cameras in order to keep stability within the frame and make the shots really resemble portraits (Anderson, Commentary from The Royal Tenenbaums). Scott describes Anderson's filming technique:
Mr. Anderson presents each his characters with the fastidious care of a collector arranging prize specimens on a shelf. He likes to shoot them alone in the middle of his wide, meticulously composed frames as if they were sitting for formal portraits. But his obsessive regard for their individuality, the care he takes to make sure we see their uniqueness, isolates them from each other. The Tenenbaum ensemble never achieves the adhesiveness and density -- the buzzing, asymmetrical feeling of relatedness -- that defines family life. (6)
Though Scott acknowledges Anderson's knack for picturesque shots, he completely misses the point of such unique shots. Anderson wants the characters to remain isolated from one another. The medium shot of Max sitting across the table from his love—Rosemary Cross—not only displays the ridiculousness of his desire but also accentuates his seclusion. With his solitary shots, Anderson highlights the remoteness and self-absorption that plagues all children. In effect, the viewer sees that this is Max's dream-world where it is possible for him to love Rosemary.
Anderson's most pungent (and probably most difficult to articulate) signature throughout all of his films rests in his distinctive use of slow-motion reinforced by melancholic music. In The Life Aquatic, the camera slowly zooms in on Steve crouched with the rest of his crew in his submarine bracing for the encounter with his nemesis—the jaguar shark. As Sigur Ros' ambient song "Starlfur" kicks in, the viewer is transported into the ethereal landscape of beauty. The actual sensation that a child experiences as he awaits to face his worst fears tickles the stomach of the viewer. The glistening of Steve's teary eyes adds the finishing touches to a scene which almost defines the word "climax" with its theatrical authority.
The idea of Richie meeting Margot as she exited the bus to Nico's "These Days" actually served as the inspiration for The Royal Tenenbaums (Anderson, Commentary from The Royal Tenenbaums). Since the film has already detailed Richie and Margot's vivid history as well as their undeclared forbidden love for each other, their reunion is already beset with drama. However, as the bus stops in the middle of the frame and Margot walks out of it in her fur coat from a medium-long shot, time seems to slow down with the camera speed. Nico's chimerical voice softly soothes the lingering close-up of Richie who wears everything possible to cover his face and hide his fright. Just as The Life Aquatic scene encapsulated confronting one's fears, the meeting of Richie and Margot epitomizes the spectacle of childhood love. The two have loved each other for their whole lives, and the fact that they are brother and sister (though she is adopted) only heightens the romance as it remains socially objectionable. Margot's gradual metamorphosis from a lackluster frown to a restrained smile as she approaches the camera caps off the graceful scene.
Anderson also wrote all of Rushmore around the ending where Max dances with Rosemary to the Faces "Ooh La La." As Max looks up into the camera with a close-up shot, one can sense that Rosemary is about to grant his wish. The song begins to play, and Rosemary takes off Max's distinctive glasses. While she leads him onto the dance floor, the audience waits in suspense like a teenager about to attend his very first dance. The long-shot of every important character dancing in the frame as well as the closing curtains translates to a somewhat "and they all lived happily ever after" ending for the film. Anderson also places every member of the cast in the final frames of his other two films as a signature sendoff to his fable-esque films with the same intention as in Rushmore.
Ultimately, though Anderson's films return the viewer to childhood, only a learned adult can appreciate their ingenious delicacies. In other words, Anderson does not portray adolescence; he rather makes the viewer feel like an adolescent. Anderson cleverly characterizes his films "magic realism" (Anderson, Commentary from The Life Aquatic). This term aptly describes Anderson's work as a director/writer of his films since they blend the wonder of art with the anguish of life.