[HN Gopher] Is "The Phoenician Scheme" Wes Anderson's Most Emoti...
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Is "The Phoenician Scheme" Wes Anderson's Most Emotional Film?
Author : prismatic
Score : 78 points
Date : 2025-06-02 04:05 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| otherayden wrote:
| Archived link using a site I made to auto-redirect you to
| archives :)
| https://unbloq.us/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06...
| dmos62 wrote:
| Hey, good job!
| otherayden wrote:
| Thanks! I hope it can be a good tool for people to reach for
| if they ever hit a paywall
| a012 wrote:
| Why not just post direct link to archive?
| dmos62 wrote:
| To share the service? https://unbloq.us/
| otherayden wrote:
| Yeah pretty much, just hoping people might get some use out
| of my side project
| yard2010 wrote:
| Thank you for making the internet a better place these
| days <3
| otherayden wrote:
| thank you! I love HN and really hope people here get some
| value from my thing!
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| normally I find getting to crawled version is a couple of
| steps, this takes you immediately is one thing I notice.
| otherayden wrote:
| yeah, it's a pretty incremental change but it will find the
| latest archive of the link, and as long as it exists, you
| will be redirected to it. If there's no archive yet, it
| automatically puts you in the archive.today queue to get
| your page archived
| empath75 wrote:
| you can just do this with archive.is/https://...
| keiferski wrote:
| I am looking forward to seeing this, as while I really enjoy the
| aesthetic of Anderson, I increasingly wish someone would push him
| out of his comfort zone. His films are the same thing repeated in
| different circumstances with different characters.
|
| Maybe he isn't interested in doing anything other than what he's
| doing, and at some level that's all the justification he needs.
| He doesn't owe anyone anything. But I do think the cinematic
| world as a whole would benefit from him experimenting a little
| more, trying a novel format, and so on.
| ofalkaed wrote:
| >His films are the same thing repeated in different
| circumstances with different characters.
|
| I am not sure what you mean, Asteroid City with its complex
| structure utilizing metafiction to explore things mostly
| removed from the characters and the story does not have much in
| common with The Royal Tenenbaums other than aesthetic with its
| fairly simple and direct use of character to explore the
| individual and family. Do you want him to make a superhero or
| action movie or something?
| keiferski wrote:
| When you go see an Anderson film, you have a pretty solid
| idea of what you're going to get. The mood, character
| development, cinematography, quirkiness, and pretty much
| everything else is largely the same across his films. I think
| this is obvious (?) to most people. Yes, there are individual
| differences between films, but I don't think my opinion is an
| uncommon one.
|
| There are more genres than action and superhero. A whole
| world of cinema, in fact. So it would be great if Anderson
| took his formidable skills and tried something new. A selfish
| request from a viewer, sure, but I just never feel like he's
| trying to improve as a filmmaker and is merely doing what is
| comfortable to him.
| mda wrote:
| Just to add to your sentiment, I agree with you. The setup
| of his films became so similar to each other in many ways,
| same quirky (slightly insane) characters, same pastel
| colors, same textures. All subjective of course, but I
| found his later movies soulless and hard to watch.
| ofalkaed wrote:
| >The mood, character development, cinematography,
| quirkiness
|
| Other than character development those are all part of the
| aesthetic and in his last two he mostly extended that
| aesthetic directly to the characters, dropped the
| essentially realistic relatable characters and turned them
| into caricatures who don't really develop; devices of the
| story and theme instead of what drives the story and
| develops theme. I would say he was doing things
| uncomfortable for him with The French Dispatch, which is
| why he did not quite pull off the meta aspect. I think his
| interests are in improving on story and narrative and
| exploring what can be done with them within the medium and
| his aesthetic is a means to those ends, a way to push
| things out of the normal perspectives and give him more
| room to do things like make highly metafictional films
| without going all out experimental.
|
| I am perfectly aware there are other genres.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Same for Nolan's movies.
| awongh wrote:
| I liked that in Oppenheimer, even though the plot of the
| movie was a similar sort of high stakes mystery heist
| movie, instead of the macguffin being a random piece of
| metal like it was in tenet, its the literal atom bomb.
| For that reason I enjoyed it more than some of his other
| movies.
|
| I would enjoy a Wes Anderson movie that just moved the
| whole aesthetic over to something new. It can still be a
| Wes Anderson movie but just different in one important
| new dimension.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| The Dark Knight Rises also had an atom bomb. Nolan has a
| thing for nuclear detonations.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| also, timers. What absolutely killed Nolan for me was
| when someone pointed out that he's virtually unable to
| create tension without a literal timer, be that bombs,
| watches, countdowns, what have you. Ever single damn
| movie. There's even a tick-tock sound from Nolan's
| stopwatch in the soundtrack of Dunkirk.
| rkomorn wrote:
| For some reason, this made me think of the countdown
| timer in Galaxy Quest that counts down but stops before
| getting to zero because the ship's design is based on a
| TV show.
| rkomorn wrote:
| "Spoiler alert", I guess, if you've not seen Galaxy Quest
| in the quarter century since it was released.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Which, if you haven't, you absolutely should!
| masfuerte wrote:
| You can edit your comments. I didn't reply to your second
| one so you can delete it if you want.
| rkomorn wrote:
| It was sarcasm. 25 year old movies don't need spoiler
| alerts.
|
| But also, in a meta way, it wasn't a spoiler anyway
| because countdowns never reach zero anyway.
| awongh wrote:
| Except in Oppenheimer he was like, I'll just do the
| actual atom bomb instead. I'm glad that he knows himself
| well enough that he went right to the source.
| brookst wrote:
| Agreed. He's like those amazing musicians who keep using
| the same chords, instruments, arrangement, and lyrical
| content over and over.
|
| What I wouldn't give to see Anderson tackle something
| really novel (for him). A period-piece tragedy; a college
| road trip; a horror film.
| colechristensen wrote:
| There are many common factors to all of his films and not a
| lot of change in those common factors. Especially because
| many of them are rather unique to him the continued variation
| on the same artistic themes gets a bit tired.
| lou1306 wrote:
| Haven't seen Asteroid City, but metafiction and exploration
| of side-plots removed from the characters are absolutely
| present in Tenenbaums (presented as a book with chapters)
| _and_ Grand Budapest Hotel. I guess to a lesser degree.
|
| Sure, most people trivialise his "quirkiness" in annoying
| ways (there is depth and poetry in some of his movies that go
| beyond eye-pleasing symmetry) but the guy could take a risk
| or two, artistically speaking. His Fantastic Mr Fox was
| charming, and switching to animation is not at all easy for a
| live-action director!
| ofalkaed wrote:
| Before The French Dispatch his use of meta was just a side
| effect of the style, it broke the fourth wall which you can
| call meta but it is sort of meaningless if all it does is
| break the forth wall. In the French Dispatch and Asteroid
| City he develops it and uses it towards theme, we can not
| fully understand them without taking in account the meta.
| apwell23 wrote:
| Honest Trailers - Every Wes Anderson Movie
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trWLY6NrS2Q
| mda wrote:
| The remark "Do you want him to make a superhero or action
| movie or something?" implies that any desire for Anderson to
| evolve beyond his current style stems from a limited
| understanding of cinema, rather than a genuine wish for
| artistic expansion. Imo this rhetorical question can be seen
| as an attempt to dismiss the critique by framing it as
| unsophisticated. I found it a little condescending.
| ofalkaed wrote:
| You are making assumptions about my intent and my feelings
| regarding superhero and action movies. I am not sure I
| would call most of Anderson's output particularly
| sophisticated and absolutely would not write off entire
| genres as unsophisticated, many dramas offer nothing more
| than an emotional appeal and many action movies offer
| considerably more.
|
| There was nothing rhetorical about my question.
| detourdog wrote:
| He definitely has a unique voice but I think he does challenge
| himself. Switching to stop motion certainly seems like a
| challenge. Admittedly he now has a stop motion style.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >But I do think the cinematic world as a whole would benefit
| from him experimenting a little more, trying a novel format,
| and so on.
|
| But his format _is_ novel in the entire world of cinema right
| now, even if it doesn 't change from film to film. People go to
| see a Wes Anderson film for the same reason Marvel fans line up
| for the next blockbuster; you know what you are going to get,
| and you want more of it. He takes it to the extreme in this
| one, where it works entirely visually as an almost homage to
| the days of silent film. We would benefit greatly from more
| filmmakers (and studios willing to take them on) who have such
| a defined aesthetic vision and are able to develop it over such
| a long a period, rather than just mashing together whatever
| expectations a focus group might have, or going off on flights
| of fancy that have little artistic continuity.
| wk_end wrote:
| For better or for worse, Anderson is very much an auteur [0],
| like Godard or Woody Allen. Almost certainly in a self-
| conscious way.
|
| Complaining that Anderson movies feel like Anderson movies
| seems almost to miss the point: do we look at Picasso's works
| and complain about the consistent style he developed? The self-
| imposed constraints of his own style give him a framework to
| build his art from (it's often said that constraints foster
| creativity after all) and a particular craft to master.
|
| Conversely, the form might always be an Anderson movie, but the
| function of each film can be quite different. By sticking with
| and mastering a particular aesthetic he frees himself to
| explore things besides aesthetic wildly. What _does_ The Royal
| Tenenbaums have in common with, say, The Grand Budapest Hotel,
| besides Futura?
|
| That said, I do feel like Asteroid City in particular was a
| stretch for him: there's nothing quite like "you can't wake up
| if you don't fall asleep" anywhere else in his filmography. It
| felt like along with the more extreme artifice came a more
| extreme intensity of feeling: to me it's a film that really
| came from a very anguished and grieving place. I haven't read
| the article or seen the new film yet, but based on the headline
| it sounds like this might be the overall direction his work is
| heading.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur
| keiferski wrote:
| Both Picasso and Godard changed their style dramatically over
| their careers. I'm not familiar enough with Woody Allen's
| movies to comment on them.
|
| These are good examples to show how being an auteur _doesn
| 't_ mean you need to stick to the same stereotypical
| aesthetic. Anderson is still pretty young, so maybe he is
| shifting in one direction or another. But as far as his work
| goes as of today, the range of stylistic choices is far, far
| less than what Picasso or Godard did in their careers.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| I once walked into a room in a museum and felt proud for
| immediately spotting and identifying a Picasso. It was only
| a few minutes later that I realised that the entire room
| was Picassos, all in wildly varying styles, most of which I
| was completely unfamiliar with. Picasso had range.
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| The stylistic evolution of Picasso and Godard over time is
| undeniable, but I think it's also worth considering that
| Anderson is working in a medium that isn't just visual, but
| also narrative, thematic, sonic, and performative. His
| evolution as an artist is not truly represented by his
| shifts in color palettes, framing, or editing technique,
| but you can see it in the emotional territory he explores,
| the narrative structures he experiments with. While he
| stays within his own unique aesthetic framework, he is
| pushing against the boundaries within it.
|
| Asteroid City, for example, is doing something genuinely
| different, not just in tone, but in structure, layering
| fiction and grief in a way that feels disorienting and
| profound. And while his style is often imitated or
| parodied, nobody else is actually making movies like his
| with that particular blend of rigor, melancholy, humor,
| formality, and _precision_. We should celebrate having a
| unique voice and perspective, he 's a major part of the
| diversity of creation, he's way outside the boiled-down
| average the rest of the industry pushes towards.
| keiferski wrote:
| It's not that you're completely wrong or anything here,
| but _the simple counter example of other unique directors
| that also progressed / changed their style over time_
| kind of disproves the idea that this is some inherent
| aspect of filmmaking.
|
| And certainly I'm glad he's making movies and I enjoy
| them (as I said in the initial comment.) That doesn't
| mean I need to celebrate every single thing he does and
| refrain from film criticism.
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| I think your "simple counter" might be a bit reductive.
| Artistic evolution can take many forms, but it doesn't
| have to take every form, not every distinctive filmmaker
| needs to reinvent every aspect of their art to
| demonstrate creative growth.
|
| My point wasn't that Anderson should be exempt from
| criticism, just that his growth may register differently
| because of the kind of storytelling he's committed to.
| The evolution in his work often plays out less in
| surface-level aesthetics and more in structure, emotional
| depth, and thematic complexity. He clearly enjoys working
| within a consistent visual language, but that doesn't
| mean he's artistically "stuck". Critique is always valid,
| and I think it's also worth asking whether we're tuned
| into the kinds of shifts that matter most in his
| particular creative vocabulary.
| doron wrote:
| Perhaps the example of Woody Allen at the top is more
| apt.
|
| The departure in style, theme, visual approach, and
| structural vision between early works like Sleeper or
| Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex and later
| films such as Match Point is dramatic. Then again, three
| decades separate those movies. Anderson still has time.
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| > Anderson still has time.
|
| Yes, but time for what? I still resist the implication
| that Anderson is somehow "sitting still" artistically
| just because he maintains a consistent (and remarkable,
| and unique) aesthetic. When you engage with his work
| beyond the surface, there's clear evolution in structure,
| tone, emotional depth, and thematic ambition. That
| doesn't mean everything he's done is a masterpiece, or
| that not liking it is somehow an invalid critique.
|
| He may still evolve in more outwardly dramatic ways, but
| I think he has and continue to evolve already, just on
| his own terms, without compromising the visual language
| he clearly loves.
| detourdog wrote:
| Anderson is also not dead yet so still creating.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Picasso didn't have evolution so much as total overhauls
| at several points. It seems much harder to do this kind
| of evolution/revolution in film simply because of the
| money involved.
|
| As a film director with such a distinct style, which
| makes money, it would be pretty hard to go to your
| investors and say 'I want to do something totally
| different.' and secure enough money to make a film in the
| modern era. There are some directors who can self fund
| due to windfalls in the past. I mean thinking back on
| noted auteurs I can only think of a film or two that are
| outside of their style and most are either very early in
| their career when maybe they were doing a work for hire
| or very late in their career where they had enough
| gravitas to get the money to try something different that
| they had been sitting on for many years (David Lynch's
| Straight Story is a bit of an odd man out though, I'm not
| sure of the history of that particular film)
|
| But for someone like picasso, he can just decide on even
| a whim to attempt to refine or invent another style, the
| market probably has some kind of pull but it seems like,
| to me, several orders of magnitude lower stakes.
|
| It would be interesting to find out after some film
| auteurs' death that they actually had done several other
| films in a wildly different style under whatever the
| director's equivalent of a pen name is. Though keeping
| such a thing secret would be highly improbable (too many
| people involved in a modern film production).
| Fricken wrote:
| He has put out 5 films in the last 7 years. Wes Anderson might
| just be a victim of his own productivity, his work could
| benefit from some scarcity.
|
| Anderson nonetheless is still quite inventive and experimental
| in his films, he's always doing new things, and usually those
| new things are in the details, and of course, those new things
| tend to play into his trademark style. Asteroid City played
| like an excuse to play around with clever camera movements.
| Isle of Dogs did weird things where the image and sound were
| providing diverging narratives that would come back together.
|
| Anderson's trademark style is annoying to me only when my
| interest in the characters and story is lacklustre, but for
| every Anderson film I'm not that into I know at least one
| person who loves it.
|
| I think it would be unreasonable to expect him to reinvent his
| filmmaking style dramatically. There are other filmmakers out
| there making movies for those who've had their fill of quirky
| Wes Anderson flicks.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| In case you haven't seen it, "Wes Anderson Horror Trailer":
| https://youtu.be/gfDIAZCwHQE?si=EzoCvqsY70AcZI4u
| e40 wrote:
| The article completely spoils the movie.
| throwbigdata wrote:
| Isn't that the point?
| e40 wrote:
| The movie's not even out yet. It's possible to talk about a
| movie without spoiling it.
| xnx wrote:
| https://archive.ph/FkNc3
| xg15 wrote:
| > _ensemble cast_
|
| This being a Wes Anderson film, I expect at the very least an
| introductory chapter heading and title card for each character.
|
| They might or might not have argued for two months about the
| individual fonts to pick for each card, before eventually
| settling on hiring a font designer (one per character).
| bag_boy wrote:
| I like Wes Anderson movies in general, but I was unable to finish
| Asteroid City at home. It felt emotionally monotone. I probably
| need to go back and rewatch it.
|
| Hope this one is a bit more exciting.
|
| Rushmore is my favorite. The yearbook montage is awesome:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMyh6ptegko
| ctrlp wrote:
| The genius of Rushmore is inseparable from the collaboration
| with Owen Wilson and the autobiographical inspiration of their
| school days. Wes Anderson can never make another movie like it.
| His oeuvre since then is without charm for me.
| subpixel wrote:
| I agree but I think there's lots of charm, it's just that
| charming gets old.
| AlanYx wrote:
| I feel that his movies post-mid-career have been trending more
| and more towards an emotional monotone. That's more of an issue
| IMHO than the predictable artistic approach that people tend to
| focus on.
|
| I haven't seen The Phoenician Scheme, but if it changes that
| then it's a positive sign.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Rushmore was my favorite of his films until the release of
| Moonrise Kingdom.
|
| Fun fact: Rushmore was shot in an era without social media. All
| my film nerd pals were _aware_ of Anderson after Bottle Rocket,
| and were tacitly awaiting his next film, but its ultimate
| arrival was a surprise. Even MORE surprising (at least for us)
| was that it was shot right here in Houston -- recognizably,
| obviously Houston. (I 'm sure the St John's community was
| aware... )
|
| Its release also solved a puzzle for my friend E. and I dating
| from the winter of 97-98. We'd stopped for sushi at a middling
| but reasonably priced joint between our rental house the bar we
| were headed to, and after posting up at the corner of the sushi
| counter and ordering a bit, we noticed the guy at the far end
| of the bar. He had a sort of admiring entourage with him of 2-3
| younger folks.
|
| The guy looked familiar, but we couldn't place him. Finally:
|
| "Wow, that guy looks like Bill Murray."
|
| "Yeah, he really does, doesn't he?"
|
| "I think that might actually BE Bill Murray."
|
| "What the hell is he doing in Houston?"
|
| "No idea. Is there a tournament at the River Oaks club?"
|
| We ate. We left. We forgot about seeing him -- until we saw
| Rushmore the following fall.
|
| (In the unlikely event someone reading this knows Houston: this
| was at the Miyako that used to be just north of 59 on the west
| side of Kirby, so close to River Oaks.)
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| I get that reaction, and Anderson's style can definitely create
| a sense of emotional distance for some. Throughout this thread
| - and I want to jump in to so many comments - you can see it.
|
| I found Asteroid City to be one of his most emotionally raw
| films. Beneath the precise framing and deadpan delivery that
| characterizes his work, the movie is wrestling with true grief,
| uncertainty, and the need to keep performing your role (in
| life, and in a metafiction sense, in the movie). This driving
| need is there even and perhaps especially when you don't
| "understand the script", and when you feel isolated and other-
| ed.
|
| The scene with Margot Robbie is the fulcrum of the entire
| movie, it's brief, but devastating, and probably the most
| emotionally exposed Anderson has ever gotten. I think this
| scene is also in part in dialogue with the audience. If you
| ever do revisit it, I think there's a lot simmering under the
| surface worth your time. But it's not my intention to try and
| convince someone to enjoy a movie that doesn't click for them.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Data point for you: Asteroid City is my favorite, I've watched
| it like eight times now? and I could barely get through
| Rushmore.
|
| All the commenters in here complaining that new Wes doesn't
| have what old Wes had.. Maybe they're missing what new Wes is
| doing? The newer movies are full of emotion, they're not
| monotone at all.
| kulshan wrote:
| I agree. While overall not my favorite, Asteroid City was
| definitely his most emotional impactful film for me.
| yooo000 wrote:
| Why does it feel like any film churned out by Hollywood is just
| mindless banter in between sex and explosions...haven't seen a
| movie in theaters since well before covid because it's really not
| worth it, waste of time.
| hhh wrote:
| I think you might just not be interested in the overwhelming
| amount of movies coming out that have neither sex nor
| explosions. I have a subscription and go 2-7 times a month to
| see new movies. Plenty of slop that is both sex and explosions,
| but a ton of interesting movies that aren't.
| beart wrote:
| Perhaps you can share some examples of the films you are
| referring as "mindless banter in between sex and explosions".
| I'm not sure that description really fits most of the films
| coming out recently. If you said, "Dumb comic book films", I
| would maybe agree with you, but there isn't typically any sex
| in those so I assume you are not referring to them.
|
| Covid halted the production of a lot of movies, and changed how
| others were made. It also shut down theaters. So, "since
| covid", is really talking about before and after an era. Kind
| of like saying, "since 9/11", in terms of the impact on
| culture. A lot of creativity has moved from the movie theaters
| to streaming services and from films to more episodic content.
|
| However, here is a short list of films worth seeing (imo) since
| covid (2019).
|
| Zone of Interest (2023) The Holdovers (2023) Parasite (2019)
| Dune (2021) Dune Part Two (2024) Everything Everywhere All at
| Once (2022) 1917 (2019) The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) The
| Substance (2024) Palm Springs (2020) Oppenheimer (2023) The
| Lighthouse (2019) Hundreds of Beavers (2022) Barbarian (2022)
| Flow (2024)
| tuveson wrote:
| Oppenheimer had sex and explosions, but the banter part might
| be more subjective
| drdaeman wrote:
| > Flow (2024)
|
| "Flow" was a huge disappointment for me. I couldn't get past
| the animation jerkiness and overall unrealistic look. I have
| two cats, and cats simply don't move like pictured: while
| most of the keyframes were perfectly fine, the transitions
| between them were off, which completely broke it for me.
| Heck, "Stray" (the video game) had much more realistically
| moving cat than "Flow" and I think it's supposed to be the
| other way around. I get that it was "indie" stuff done on a
| relatively small budget, but those broken movements became
| sort of an uncanny valley for me.
|
| I guess, I also had wrong expectations from the beginning.
| The movie was heavily advertised as non-verbal, so -
| naturally - I expected it to portray the behaviors of non-
| human consciousness (with slight allowances for plot reasons,
| sure). And then the animals behaved as if they were
| unquestionably and heavily anthropopsychic.
|
| To sum it up, "animals don't move like this and don't behave
| like this" paired with some invalid pre-expectations, sadly,
| was too much to break my suspension of disbelief and ruin the
| movie for me.
|
| But yeah, it's certainly not a "mindless banter in between
| sex and explosions".
| snowwrestler wrote:
| The animals behave like animals at the beginning of the
| movie, but differently by the end. That's clearly a choice
| by the filmmakers.
|
| I think Flow is one of the best movies I've seen in years,
| in part because of how it chooses to depart from reality.
|
| I think it also helped that I saw it in a theater which I
| find far more immersive than watching at home.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Just to toss in a couple of 'dumb comic book movies' that hit
| different, the two (so far) Spiderverse films. They put Flow
| to shame both visually and emotionally (at least for me).
| freejazz wrote:
| This is the kind of comment that starts the conversational bar
| at such a low point there really is no point in engaging with
| it.
| rafaepta wrote:
| I miss Rushmore's plain approach. Just enough quirk, sharp
| acting, and visuals that back the plot instead of hogging it.
| Newer Anderson films look like photo shoots: pretty, but the
| story drags. Same story dev teams hit when designers chase pixel-
| perfect screens and users still wait on real features.
| dstroot wrote:
| Rushmore is my favorite Wes Anderson film. I think you nailed
| it. It was a great film that was "enhanced" by Wes Anderson's
| style. Newer films seem to be primarily delivery vehicles of
| his style, with a hint of story and plot to move it along.
| kyleblarson wrote:
| Were you in the shit? Yes, I was in the shit.
| whodidntante wrote:
| Absolutely agree. My favorites,in order of how often I have
| watched them:
|
| Fantastic Mr. Fox Rushmore Royal Tenenbaums Life Aquatic
|
| The rest, I don't really care for, nothing new, just flash, no
| substance, and have stopped watching his new movies.
| elif wrote:
| Yes this. Tennenbaums and Zisou were still primarily narrative
| fiction which allowed the actors to really be the spotlight,
| which let the characters really come alive.
|
| In Budapest, French and Asteroid it felt increasingly like the
| actors were too confined to fulfilling an aesthetic for them to
| come alive or for the actors to shine.
|
| Apologies in advance for sounding controversially critical, I
| can't help but be reminded of AI art where its trying so hard
| to look a way that it stops being something you want to look
| at.
| chadd wrote:
| This is because the older films were co-written with Owen
| Wilson. Once they stopped collaborating, Anderson's later films
| are unbalanced - they have the whimsical aesthetic, but are too
| sweet without the bitter piercing wit and clarity of Wilson's
| writing to make them less cloying (IMHO).
| echelon wrote:
| I miss Owen Wilson.
|
| He was going through some major depression and understandably
| pulled back from the industry. But he brought something very
| personable and authentic to comedy, and his absence has been
| palpable.
|
| Many other comedians of the era were too slapstick and over
| the top for me. I still can't watch a Will Ferrell comedy
| with any interest.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Owen Wilson has been a fascinating character with a unique
| yet consistent approach.
|
| Ferrell... Massive comedic turn off for me. He seems like
| the guy that jumps into a room, interrupts and yells out a
| joke out of context, then keeps repeating it louder and
| louder until some polite fake laughter occurs. I feel bad
| about being this negative about a fellow human being, but
| his comedic approach sets off a Bully vibe / response in me
| in anything I've seen him in except Stranger Than Fiction.
| schlauerfox wrote:
| "The Landlord" is a short comedy masterpiece. He's so
| much better restrained as a straight man/foil than a lead
| clown. Zoolander, Anchorman.
| btown wrote:
| I never realized Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson were college
| roommates, and how much they'd collaborated together!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Wilson
| billfruit wrote:
| Moonrise Kingdom was good too, it had something at its core,
| not just stylish visuals.
| detourdog wrote:
| Bottle Rocket fits that bill for me.
| quadyeast wrote:
| Bottle Rocket is a charming film
| prettyblocks wrote:
| Royal Tenenbaums & Rushmore have always been my favorite, the
| way they hit every single emotional chord without being
| overcooked, and with characters that are relatable.
| mhh__ wrote:
| It genuinely looks like an AI generated Wes Anderson film.
|
| He needs to go to Siberia and relearn what made him great.
| ddanielsantos wrote:
| i think wes anderson was replaced by AI, his last 3 films lacks
| alot of soul
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| It's very odd. I thought Asteroid City (a really tough watch,
| like eating a 3 day old biscuit without water to wash it down)
| and Isle of Dogs were the most stilted. I didn't like
| Darjeeling Limited when I first saw it. It's visually and
| musically beautiful but maybe was too close to home so I was
| bored of the brothers relationship, also, I don't really think
| Wes Anderson can do sex scenes. Scenes of intimacy sure, but
| not sex scenes. I found it very awkward on the first viewing,
| I've grown to like it more but... idk, it has some issues still
| I think outside of that. Pretty much every deeper aspect of
| that film I don't like, even the brothers character arc I find
| meh. More than most of his movies I think it showed that he
| can't really enter into the headspace of the economically
| disadvantaged.
|
| The Roald Dahl short stories on Netflix were very dysfunctional
| but so obviously in the spirit and tone of Roald Dahl that I
| thought they were actually very faithful to his writing, I
| think Wes Anderson did a rare thing in transliterating those
| stories to screen, the good and the flaws in tone are directly
| from Roald Dahl who I really enjoyed as a kid because the
| absurd and ironic detachment, the odd meanness of spirit, was
| rare in childrens books at the time (maybe still is, idk). I
| didn't enjoy them as film but I did enjoy their faithfulness to
| the authors work.
|
| Dispatches felt like basically Wes Anderson explaining his own
| personal feelings of his life, being an ex-pat enamored but
| disconnected from his new home country, I could be wrong but it
| felt like it was the closest he'll ever have to an
| autobiography. It was effectively a short story format as well.
| I mean the guy went from being a Texas rube / self manufactured
| dandy dreaming of exotic locations through the lens of the
| fucking new yorker (what a weirdo right?) to living in Paris,
| what an odd personal life arc, the film felt like it was all
| exploring that. As someone who has lived in these kinds of
| personal cultural displacements and unexpected life arcs it
| felt very obvious, and I really enjoyed that part. This could
| all be projection of course.
|
| I don't know, I wonder if he has the pathos required for long
| form any more, maybe he is just bored with the traditional arcs
| they require (I'm getting older and it's very easy to get bored
| of any consumptive activity) but he can't really seem to find
| his footing on short stories either. Maybe he's happy and
| resolved trauma and can't speak to it in that subtly authentic
| way anymore. I loved Life Aquatic, I loved the exploration of
| an unsympathetic main character who didn't want to realize why
| he had become unsympathetic, I already loved Seu Jorge and so
| the soundtrack is perfection to me as well.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Asteroid City (a really tough watch, like eating a 3 day
| old biscuit without water to wash it down)
|
| A great way to describe it, unfortunately. I love Wes
| Anderson movies, but my patience with Asteroid City ran out
| when the (spoiler alert) quirky-looking stop-motion alien
| landed.
| pursuableproofs wrote:
| Haven't read the article but saw the film.
|
| If Wes made No Country For Old Men in this style it would suck.
|
| The films look incredible but the monotone delivery and lack of
| soundtrack remove any drama and intrigue.
|
| I say this as someone that loved Rushmore, Tenenbaums, Life
| Aquatic
| rickdeckard wrote:
| > If Wes made No Country For Old Men in this style it would
| suck.
|
| I genuinely don't understand what this means, No Country for
| Old Men is a Coen Brothers movie.
|
| Do I need to see "The Phoenician Scheme" to understand this
| reference...?
| pursuableproofs wrote:
| No, you don't need to see the film but it was a way of me
| trying to put across how much his style really sucks out of
| the films.
|
| I see No Country For Old Men as one of the top films of the
| last 20 years, what with its pacing and the atmosphere they
| create. It's not an original story, based on a book, so
| therefore any director could have been brought on board.
|
| You might say I am comparing apples to oranges but it was
| just a way to illustrate what I think the problem is.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| There's still a selection problem in adaptation....
| Directors are not interchangeable, and that's ok! It means
| there can be a broader range of styles and flavors in the
| world.
|
| For example, what if the Coen brothers had directed, say,
| 'Adaptation'? It would have been a completely different
| film. Would we ever want to see Christopher Nolan adapt
| Stefan Zweig? Hardly.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Every once and a while you see an auteur get coaxed out of
| their genre. Lynch did Dune in '84 right off the back of The
| Elephant Man. And while he hated the entire experience I know
| that I'm not the only person that enjoyed the particularly
| lynchian facets of the story that he brought into the light.
| His film is much more concerned with exploring the more
| psychedelic aspects. The divination that comes with being the
| Kwisatz Haderach, the grotesqueness of the Harkonen house, the
| psychedelic experience of the spice.. which are all present in
| the source material. Whereas the Villeneuve take is much more
| concerned with other aspects colonialism primarily, and those
| things that Lynch leaned into he certainly acknowledged but
| spent more time in other places. I love both and I love when we
| get to see multiple adaptations of the same source material,
| even if some aren't so great, just because we do get to see
| these different aspects of the original work.
| sys32768 wrote:
| He keeps pushing his actors to become more wooden and paper-doll
| like.
|
| At some point he may use real wooden puppets like the 1960s TV
| series Thunderbirds, which looks very Wes Andersonesque:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLiH4xrCITI
| freejazz wrote:
| Have you considered his actual films with actual puppets?
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| With Tenenbaums, Rushmore and maybe the Darjeeling Limited we had
| enough of the classic Anderson visual style for the films to have
| lovely atmosphere, but with the actors still being warm, lively
| and human enough to create real sympathy.
|
| After those, his own movies have almost become caricatures of an
| Anderson film and the characters have become so much like
| clockwork that they might as well be set pieces themselves.
|
| The one later exception I can think of, off the top of my head
| was Ralph Fiennes in Hotel Budapest. His character, and the actor
| himself in how he plays him, are just too zesty to stay wooden.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >After those, his own movies have almost become caricatures of
| an Anderson film and the characters have become so much like
| clockwork that they might as well be set pieces themselves.
|
| I think this is a feature of his artistic refinement through
| the years; he's the last true visual storyteller in Hollywood.
| Actors don't really matter, scripts don't really matter - it's
| a treat for the eyes alone. Something really was lost in the
| transition from silent to "talkies" where the focus became
| entirely on plot and dialogue. If you go back and watch those
| films now, the very best of them had almost no dialogue or
| title cards. I'd liken what he is doing to something like Joyce
| in literature, where it's not even about the words, but their
| semantic structures alone. It seems that all visionary artists
| end up going in this direction, see Picasso in his later years
| of total abstraction, or Schoenberg's final works that
| completely abandoned tonality.
| Citizen_Lame wrote:
| Check out Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal. First season has no
| dialogue.
| bborud wrote:
| Ralph Fiennes in Grand Budapest isn't just an exception. The
| performance, in my not so humble opinion, is quite possibly the
| most memorable and brilliant of any performance in a Wes
| Anderson movie. It is delightful.
|
| That being said, I actually think his style of late has its
| place. At least he is trying something different in a time when
| most movies are so derivative and bum-numbingly boring that I
| rarely bother seeing a movie in a movie-theater. There is a
| rarity of interesting outliers in mainstream film today.
|
| Outliers are good. They are not wayward miscreants that must be
| herded back into mediocrity lest we have to think.
|
| It isn't like I'm a snob who only watches art films. I used to
| watch almost everything that hit the big screen, and I'd enjoy
| the whole range from hard-to-grasp, arty farty stuff most
| people think is boring/demanding/ugly/confusing to blatantly
| commercial nonsense ... that was nonetheless entertaining and
| fun. (I'd make my proto-hipster friends cringe with my love of
| B-movies). I had to empty my wallet of ticket stubs regularly
| so it wouldn't burst the seams.
| pram wrote:
| IDK personally I don't think Grand Budapest feels wooden at
| all. The entire scene where Adrien Brody smashes the Egon
| Schiele-esque lesbian painting is one of the most hilarious
| things I've seen in a movie.
| mzs wrote:
| The actors being the most human-like in "Fantastic Mr. Fox" of
| all his films is pretty telling.
| babyshake wrote:
| This is clearly intentional, whether you like it or not. My
| mileage varies depending on my mood. Fiennes is indeed grand in
| Budapest.
| kace91 wrote:
| For me the casual violence in this movie really destroyed it -
| it's not at all super prevalent throughout the film but there
| are some "gory" bits played for comedy that took me fully out
| of the whimsical coziness I expected from it. The comedy didn't
| land either.
| rurban wrote:
| I loved it. I think it's better than the Tenenbaums, more
| emotional, more funny, more serious. Perfect from the start to
| the finish. Only Rushmore, the Fantastic Mr Fox and Moonrise
| Kingdom were better so far.
| luckydata wrote:
| Emotional is a big word for that movie.
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