Wes Anderson’s bookends
It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Wes Anderson’s films. I’ve talked about most of them upon their releases on NP1, and I tended to go on and on about Rushmore years back. Very recently, things have gone rather well for my favorite living auteur. His 1996 debut got the Criterion treatment last fall, and his first animated feature proved to have just as much going for it as the rest of his work.
Let’s start with the new DVD for Bottle Rocket. The closest the original DVD release could come to “special features” was the fact that one side of the disc was in widescreen and the other was fullscreen. His next three films would all be handled by Criterion, which says a lot about what they think of his work. Almost as soon as Rushmore was re-released, starting the partnership with Criterion, fans were calling for a new version of Bottle Rocket. Slowly but surely, a two-disc set was compiled and released. I remember reading an interview with Wes in which he said that they didn’t want to put anything out until they had “everything.” The fruit of their labor is a lovingly crafted set, complete with interviews, a documentary, deleted scenes, the original black and white short film, and plenty more. I have watched most of this stuff, as well as the gorgeous new transfer, which puts the old DVD to shame.
The Wilson Boys get their start
The best thing about watching this movie again is discovering the fact that the Wes Anderson style has been almost unchanged from the beginning. He’s just gotten better and better at doing what he does. There’s a prototypical feel to Bottle Rocket the whole way through, in which you see all of the Anderson trademarks at work, but in a subdued manner. Framing, costuming, music selection, and that same dry sense of humor are all accounted for, but not quite as fleshed out as his later films. This doesn’t make it a bad movie, of course. Although the film meanders through genres from ‘crime movie’ to ‘romantic road movie’ to ‘heist movie,’ there are plenty of things worth keeping an eye out for along the way. Owen Wilson’s character Dignan is one such reason to watch. Fast-talking and easily distracted, this ‘criminal mastermind’ just wants to carry out a life of crime with his friend Anthony (played by brother Luke) and join James Caan’s gang of landscapers/thieves. Just about every line out of his mouth is comedy gold.
So let’s fast forward about fifteen years or so, and we get to Anderson’s latest, an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. I remember first hearing about the project and not knowing exactly what to make of it. Was this going to be a kids’ movie or something? Did that mean that Wes would have to compromise his style in order to make this film? Was it, in fact, just some sort of cash grab?
I wasn’t really scared of that possibility. In fact, I was sort of optimistic. I was a fan of Dahl’s writing not only in grade school (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, etc.), but it stayed with me to high school and college when I discovered his twisted sense of humor in his short stories. Sure enough, when the trailer first debuted, I knew Wes had another winner on his hands. I just didn’t know how big a winner.
Here, put these bandit hats on.
It makes sense for this movie to be a kind of heist movie, like Bottle Rocket. Mr. Fox is a reformed chicken-thief who moves into a new neighborhood, only to find that across the valley are the three farms owned by Boggis, Bunce, and Bean. He decides to do one last big job on the sly with help from his opossum friend, Kiley, son Ash, and nephew Kristofferson. It also makes sense that George “Danny Ocean” Clooney gets to play the titular character.
I have to say that I was shocked to find that this was, quite possibly, Anderson’s best film to date. I’m not even sure where to begin. For one, it’s light. Most of Anderson’s films deal with issues like death and dysfunctional families. If you saw The Darjeeling Limited, you got that in spades. No such distractions from the comedy this time around. Second, it’s a movie that kids and adults will both appreciate. The kids will love the cute characters and the story, but the grown-ups are going to love all that and more. There’s jokes about real estate and credit cards, and they make sense, even when delivered by anthropomorphic animals. They’re also rather modest. Anderson’s propensity to use profanity in his movies makes the cut, but instead of what you’d expect, they just use the word “cuss” in its place. This makes for some of the best lines in the film (”Are you cussing with me?”). And the little dream world that it all takes place in is detailed and charming in a way that only Wes could create. The animals all have different jobs in their community, and they even play their own sports, such as the smartly conceived game of “Whack-Bat,” which I now want to learn and play on weekends.
Also, Ash (on the left in the above picture there) reminds me of my cat, Peanut.
Most importantly, though, is the fact that this is an animated movie without computers. Whatever happened to cell animation or stop-motion? The latter is the medium used here, and it gives this movie a whole lot of extra heart. Now, I really have no problem with Pixar. I think that they’ve put out some very good movies since Toy Story first debuted. I still love The Incredibles. Dreamworks, not so much. But it just seems to me that the concept of “animated films” has become dominated by CGI, and that the old-school approach is still worth investing in. This movie is a prime example of that.
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