What Anderson Hath Wrought?
Previously, I said: Don't be the guy who "thinks Wes Anderson films are "too precious" and overrated." I take it back now. I'll explain why.
In anticipation of his latest flick, The Darjeeling Limited (reviewed ably by Suderman here) the Onion A.V. Club took two days to publish two important lists. 16 Films Without Which Wes Anderson Couldn't Have Happened. And 10 Films That Couldn't Have Happened Without Wes Anderson.
There are problems almost immediately. Leading off the former list is The Graduate. Name a modern filmmaker who doesn't bow down to this dead idol? You can't.
Mike Nichols' seminal comedy of disaffected youth echoes through all five of his [Anderson's] features—for its groundbreaking use of pop songs on the soundtrack, for its impeccable widescreen compositions, and for its tale of a young man of privilege crippled by uncertainty and melancholy
And these influences are all so important to Anderson specifically- why? Pop songs - how novel! Impeccable widescreen compositions (what about PTA or every other modern director not named Kevin Smith). Uncertainty and melancholy: sounds like what every member of the creative class is selling - since this is precisely the unchallenging crap that people who measure their taste by the length of their Criterion Collection shelf like to buy.
The list of films that Anderson enabled is even scarier. Napolean Dynamite is the cinematic equivalent to Orbit gum - an attractive ad campaign, but the flavor lasts 8 seconds when you actually taste the product. Garden State - yeah, I dug the part with the flaming arrow too! Effective use of The Shins in that one and it was just so powerful and cathartic when the three leads screamed into th...ZZZzzzzz. Next!
The Squid and the Whale is the only decent member on the list of films that Anderson made possible. Of course that film wasn't so much influenced by Anderson's twee style. Instead it grew out of the increased name recognition for Noah Baumbach after he received co-screenwriting credits on The Life Aquatic. It was Baumbach's best autobiographical film since Kicking and Screaming. Better because he allowed the material to actually disturb the audience. He didn't frame the frightening performance of Jeff Daniels in multi-colored balloons and set it at 375th street in a plasticized Manhattan. Anderson's repulsive father figures are harmless, belching cartoons who deep down love their sons. Baumbach's fictionalized father is a monster who comically refers to Kafka as one of his literary predecessors, and in between Knicks games ignores his children and says to his female student, "Put me in your mouth." It may stack the deck, but it's a fair bit more interesting Royal Tannenbaum "tearing it up" with identicaly dressed grandkids.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Culture
|
1 Comment
Share this: del.icio.us | Digg | Google | Ma.gnolia | Reddit | Stumble Upon | Technorati
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (1)
Finally, someone said it!
To any filmmaker's credit, though, it would be a miracle if nowadays anyone could wrap up his career without any major disasters along the way. Filmmaking is a medley of quite a few fine arts, and considering how fragmented the market has become, it's just too likely that a great writer will eventually be forced to watch his script end up with a terrible director, or that an awesome actor will have to work with a hackneyed script.