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Jeff wrote:A new short film for H&M.

That made my morning, Jeff. Thanks.

I shop at H&M, I'm not sure I saw more than two outfits in this film that could have come from there. I guess the idea is to just let Wes Anderson do whatever, foot the bill, and put their company name in the title of the video to get dat street cred?

domino harvey wrote:I shop at H&M, I'm not sure I saw more than two outfits in this film that could have come from there. I guess the idea is to just let Wes Anderson do whatever, foot the bill, and put their company name in the title of the video to get dat street cred?

Relevant

Though, having just rewatched it - are those clothes (that the younger/millennial passengers are wearing) really unbelievable as winter line mall clothes? I don't see what makes them exceptional. I totally get that the older passengers in suits and the employees aren't wearing H&M clothes, but I think that might be the idea.

Apparently, there's a cut of this ad that plays in movie theaters, where the prices of the costumes pop up to indicate them being sold by H&M.

Apparently she doesn't need the signal boost this time, but our very own LQ is teaching a four-week course at Bryn Mawr Film Institute (in Bryn Mawr, PA) beginning tomorrow titled The Empathy and Ecstasy of Wes Anderson.

The course itself is sold out (hence not needing the signal boost), but there are four Tuesday @ 7:15 PM screenings beginning tomorrow that are open to the public and that still have tickets available. They are:

- Bottle Rocket on 1/29 (DCP)
- Rushmore on 2/5 (DCP)
- The Royal Tenenbaums on 2/12 (35mm!)
- The Darjeeling Limited on 2/19 (DCP, sadly sans short due to rights issues)

The course and film intros will be taking the approach of trying to largely avoid discussing the mise en scène or "quirks" of these earlier films and digging into their emotional substance instead, which makes me doubly excited for what she does with it and how people respond. And which made The Life Aquatic a bit of an understandable omission as it was Anderson already taking a big swing (some might say too early) at doing something more fantastical.

Anyway, commercial over - hopefully if you're in the Philadelphia area you can make it to one or more of the screenings, I don't see these films pop up on the big screen around here very often (if at all)!

After the Kunsthistorisches Museum the Juman Malouf and Wes Anderson curated Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin and other Treasures exhibition goes to the Fondazione Prada.

The Austrian catalogue on Amazon.com
The limited Italian edition (999 copies) is here

New York Times review
artnet review

The man has become Edward Appleby

I read all about this a year ago when this first went up and find it to be symbolic of my issues with the current works of Wes Anderson. I do find The Darjeeling Limited and especially the Isle of Dogs to be racially insensitive, but certainly not racist, partly because he doesn't see culture as the history of civilization, labor, war, politics, or social issues. His view of the world and art is whittled down to specific aesthetic fetishization of objects devoid of their humanity and history. Picking objects like weapons, depictions of religious figures, Korean robes, etc., and removing all meaning from them seems culturally clueless. When you get someone like Ed Ruscha curating, you have someone who understands those aspects and understands that the history of art is in conversation with itself, but Anderson's show seems like kitsch.

I find The Darjeeling Limited to be his most fascinating and perhaps best film because of the struggle between those two halves of his personality - there is a deep well of humanity and emotion in even his most recent, more kitsch (to use your word) work, but he definitely has seemed to cross over to the other side, into completely embracing his nostalgic predilections. And that should presumably be the goal of any artist, right? Not to have to compromise your vision? But give me all of his films through The Darjeeling Limited over all of his films since, every day and twice on Sunday.

mfunk wrote:And that should presumably be the goal of any artist, right? Not to have to compromise your vision?

Not necessarily. Some artists probably need to compromise more with the terms of the world than they do, and perhaps that's Wes Anderson. Others have a notion of the world so private and incommunicable that their art lives on its own plane and works according to rules and schemas one'll never have access to.

So I don't think your comments go against comment sense or anything.

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 9:02 pm he doesn't see culture as the history of civilization, labor, war, politics, or social issues. His view of the world and art is whittled down to specific aesthetic fetishization of objects devoid of their humanity and history

Given it's known elements (post-war France, persecution of journalists, student/social protests), I'm equally interested and full of dread how The French Dispatch will turn out. The Grand Budapest Hotel is currently my favorite of Anderson's films, and probably the one I consider his greatest. Not least because of the move towards engaging with art and history in a more real way. To not only retreat from that progression, but make something so useless and grating as Isle of Dogs was a sad shock to say the least. Not simply the only Anderson film I don't admire to some degree, but one I actively despise as a hollow, joyless time-suck for audience and artist alike. As discussed above, this exhibit inspires no confidence, though I'd love to feel wrong when his new film is released.

mfunk9786 wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 9:06 pm I find The Darjeeling Limited to be his most fascinating and perhaps best film because of the struggle between those two halves of his personality - there is a deep well of humanity and emotion in even his most recent, more kitsch (to use your word) work, but he definitely has seemed to cross over to the other side, into completely embracing his nostalgic predilections. And that should presumably be the goal of any artist, right? Not to have to compromise your vision? But give me all of his films through The Darjeeling Limited over all of his films since, every day and twice on Sunday.

This is a great concise analysis of the power of this film, and was definitely the effect it had on me, especially upon release. The characters reflect emotionally lost and isolated people who are searching for feeling and meaning in their own lives through connection, as usual in Anderson’s work, but here he uses the idealization of a geographical cure to simultaneously romanticize the process and reveal its inherent failure to address the real problems seeking resolution. The characters cannot authentically break through to this mystical culture that is out of reach. They have experiences and achieve small doses of contentment from these encounters, information about themselves, and their own strengths, abilities, and weaknesses, but no catharsis that lasts or fixes what they are looking to remedy. In this way they are in a constant state of treading water, moving towards and away from growth, ‘forward’ by discovering this information about themselves and becoming familiar with the impermanence of serenity, as well as ‘away’ by seeking it in external places and actions that will not address the internal dysregulation. It does not matter Anderson’s knowledge or sensitivity to the culture himself because the film is about (likely autobiographically to some degree) the Western individual’s painful desire and need to escape into, or seek refuge in, a fantasy experience to achieve catharsis. India could be any place, but it’s significant because of how different and distant it is, not because of the specific cultural practices, as well as the expansive net Anderson is casting this time.

After using film to explore the search for this connection in micro-systemic romances in his first two outings, Anderson moved onto the mezzo-system of a family with more complicated dynamics, before then extending the scope of the journey to the open sea, concentrating the energy of this quest onto the object of an endangered species that is less physically and emotionally attainable than a human. In a way The Darjeeling Limited is the culmination of Wes’ own admittance of his blind and naive journey to finding his own meaning and emotional resolve by broadening the expedition to an entire culture, a new community, and one that has more opportunities for the hope of idealistic fulfillment by sheer space, and yet more opportunities to get lost, and magnify the isolative feelings at the same time, which is another purpose for the film as a confession. It’s not a shameful surrender, but a humble one with acceptance and maturity, while also acknowledging the very real struggle that the individualistic American (that Anderson identifies with) will always have due to an absence of culture and connection in his social context. While not my personal favorite, this film is probably the one that had the largest personal effect on me, largely because it is unlike its predecessors that wrestled with surrender and had its characters achieve growth through accepting change, swinging between emotional extremes, and instead arrived at a less cathartic and wiser revelation: that the journey is a necessary process of life and that perhaps the most ideal route to self-discovery in later adulthood may not be to waver between extremes. The point may actually be treading water.

It’s no surprise that after this film, Anderson seemed to reach a sense of self-actualization and focused his attention to other interests, though obviously hitting on familiar ideas of identity and self-discovery. It’s been a privilege to watch Anderson grow with his films, producing emotional art that one can view as evidence of his developmental progress, and as someone who grew up watching his movies as they came out starting with Rushmore, despite being a bit younger than him, it’s been nice to vicariously accompany him on this journey and have his art impact me along similar milestones in ways no other filmmaker has, and probably never will.

therewillbeblus wrote:It does not matter Anderson’s knowledge or sensitivity to the culture himself because the film is about (likely autobiographically to some degree) the Western individual’s painful desire and need to escape into, or seek refuge in, a fantasy experience to achieve catharsis. India could be any place, but it’s significant because of how different and distant it is, not because of the specific cultural practices, as well as the expansive net Anderson is casting this time.

And in the film, in a way that feels very authentic to me, it's a chance encounter with grief and understanding and humanity that has an impact on the way they see themselves and the world around them, not any of the more touristic experiences they have prior. Neither their reckoning with their feelings about their father or their encounter with their mother is as important to those men as what happens in that village, and the latter is something that can only happen if one truly broadens their horizons.

Anyway, having sat with it many times and chipped in with LQ teaching a course on it, including watching it with an audience who had seen Anderson's first three films (the course skipped Zissou because of the more fantastical elements of that film - was not in line with the syllabus) in the prior three weeks, I'm convinced it's the one film in his canon that is practically begging to be rediscovered and on a baseline level, reconsidered. It is misunderstood and maligned, and might always be, but considering the on location shooting and set decoration, the incredible blend of music and performances (Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody have never been better in their entire careers), it is right up there with The Royal Tenenbaums as Anderson's finest hour, and what feels like the most authentic and honest thing he has ever done. That being said, The Grand Budapest Hotel was gangbusters and I have no issue with seeing what's around the bend - just because he's made a couple films that veer into being too indulgent here or there doesn't mean he isn't still growing and evolving as a filmmaker.

I would say this is my second most favorite WA film (after Moonrise Kingdom) -- I couldn't really understand all the flak it had gotten.

To be fair, I didn't think it was some great shakes the first time I saw it. It had to grow on me.

I'll add to to chorus finding it his most fascinating work. Until GBH it was my favorite and that only really beats it because of how it connects to some of my most passionate interests.

All of this Moonrise Kingdom legacy subtweeting is nuts. A good reminder that different people clearly get different things out of his films, because I fundamentally don’t understand how anyone who’s seen MK could feel the need to engage in the periodic ranking discussions since it’s already been settled. I like Darjeeling fine, but y’all are nuts

We post here. Our insanity is well established by that.

True. At least we have opinions, unlike certain other forums/discussion boards!

mfunk9786 wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2019 3:07 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:It does not matter Anderson’s knowledge or sensitivity to the culture himself because the film is about (likely autobiographically to some degree) the Western individual’s painful desire and need to escape into, or seek refuge in, a fantasy experience to achieve catharsis. India could be any place, but it’s significant because of how different and distant it is, not because of the specific cultural practices, as well as the expansive net Anderson is casting this time.

And in the film, in a way that feels very authentic to me, it's a chance encounter with grief and understanding and humanity that has an impact on the way they see themselves and the world around them, not any of the more touristic experiences they have prior. Neither their reckoning with their feelings about their father or their encounter with their mother is as important to those men as what happens in that village, and the latter is something that can only happen if one truly broadens their horizons.

Exactly, the process of witnessing diverse cultural practices involving universal human experience is the key to Anderson's use of milieu in this film. He de-romanticizes this encounter by disallowing the brothers from absorbing themselves into the community to achieve enmeshment for absolute resolve (the fantasy, or the American Dream of the psychological fix), but still romanticizes the encounter with The Kinks' Strangers just enough to offer a burst of reprieve, the authentic experience that actually exists in these moments before the impermanence settles in and one returns to their own problems. The film is bittersweet because it doesn't offer hope with the degree of optimism in the films that came before, with characters reaching a significant bar of achievement in overcoming their personal problems through acceptance in a singular linear narrative, but still offers strong hope in that through the repetition of these life experiences of joining with other human beings and disbanding from egocentrism, across many different narratives to come, these people will become more conditioned to feel right-sized in the world, and will be relieved of the burdens they place on themselves by lessening the obsessive or compulsive roles they play in their own malaise.

domino harvey wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2019 4:48 pm All of this Moonrise Kingdom legacy subtweeting is nuts. A good reminder that different people clearly get different things out of his films, because I fundamentally don’t understand how anyone who’s seen MK could feel the need to engage in the periodic ranking discussions since it’s already been settled. I like Darjeeling fine, but y’all are nuts

Moonrise Kingdom dukes it out with The Royal Tenenbaums for the number two spot in my own ranking depending on the day, and usually wins out, though it's only risen in my esteem over time as I get older and feel less inclined to engage with ennui and more with joyful expressions of youth (more of a balance, not an aversion to the former). The Darjeeling Limited still feels like the Anderson film with the most to analyze in its placement amongst his body of work, and serves as a kind of cathartic resignation of that ennui. Maybe one day I'll have something more to write about Moonrise Kingdom but for now, it just gives me a concentrated dose of pleasure while not sidetracking the developments of growing up. I believe that in reaching that developmental milestone of self-actualization following Darjeeling, Anderson was able to look back on these processes of growing, maturing, and engaging in the world with admiration and passion that is less torn through the lens of uncomfortable nostalgia. That doesn't make these newer films better or worse than the former, and taken as a whole I still have a stronger emotional connection with the films up until Darjeeling, but it's hard for me to even compare the two halves of his filmography (if one were to divide the developmental growth in two, as pre and post-self actualization) since they embody such different worldviews. The same thematic interests, but from completely separate angles.

domino harvey wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2019 4:48 pm All of this Moonrise Kingdom legacy subtweeting is nuts.

Merely considering that film, say, an 8 or 9 out of 10 and one of the best filmmakers working today's more middle of the road efforts but not specifically bringing it up certainly isn't subtweeting, at least it wasn't on my part... and someone else said it was their favorite of his during the same conversation! Let's make my glass half full: It's the second best film Anderson has made post-The Darjeeling Limited, now let's all have a party

Just to restore order here, it goes:

Rushmore and Moonrise Kingdom

other things

That sounds about right

While we're on the subject of ranking, I never got why The Life Aquatic received such lukewarm reception.