Seen in the theater for the first time in September 2012.
Over the last decade I’ve grown to loathe discussing Wes Anderson films with people. Wes Anderson is, to my way of thinking, sort of the John Hughes of my generation. He makes nice entertainments, fluffy and inconsequential in the end, but if you’re of the right age and of the right class and educational background, they seem to speak of something shared. Frustratingly then, so many of the people of this generation seem to embrace him as an important filmmaker - someone to be discussed in the company of the likes of Martin Scorsese or Woody Allen (never mind if these two themselves deserve to be discussed in their own company).
This creates a kind of alienation in me of many different sorts. For one, I’ve just come to loathe being outnumbered in these discussions by smug twits, who in all honesty, lack the breadth and depth of my consumption of cinema. And two, it gets lonely. And it reminds you of the unbreachability of that loneliness. You search for kindred spirits, and all you can find is laziness and parochial mindsets in one form or another. You’re lucky if you can find a few people who won’t sneer at something in black and white.
At one time, before “Tenenbaums,” enthusiasm for Anderson’s films was perhaps an indicator of kindredness. Here was someone who was at least exposed to film outside of the mainstream stuff playing at the multiplex. That changed with “Tenenbaums.” The whole damn generation embraced the aesthetic. And the thing is, Anderson’s films were good, but not that good. When you meet enough people who, with a straight face, will tell you that “Tenenbaums” and “Amelie” are among the 100 best films of all time, and yet have never heard of Billy Wilder nor seen any Fritz Lang or Truffaut, than the gears get to grinding.
I don’t like to rant. I don’t think its a good look. I think its a particularly bad look when discussing creative endeavors. But you have a few drinks and an Anderson fan starts talking and sometimes it’s hard to resist the hyperbolic scorched earth that makes you sound like you hate something that you actually kind of like well enough for what it is. Look, “The Royal Tenenbaums” is basically a precariously constructed tower of portentious gestures built upon a bed of whimsy. The fact that it teeters but does not fall is nothing short of a marvel. But those portentious signifiers actually leave the viewer dissatisfied in the end. It’s nothing if not a dissappointing movie.
Moonrise Kingdom on the other hand abandons all of those portentious gestures and leaves us with a whimsical frolic. There’s nothing more portentious in this film than a troubled marriage, which I think is right at Wes Anderson’s pay grade. But I’ve realized something new about all of those Wes Anderson fans of my generation. I used to think that they were duped by those portentious signifiers. That they thought that they were getting opera, when what they were really getting was just a little harmless whimsy. But no, it was the whimsy that they loved all along. I misunderestimated them. They knew that what’s-her-face’s attempted suicide and Gene Hackman’s death were just emotional spectacles, crude emotional manipulations in a fairy tale universe. And they thought that was greatness, which is fair enough.
So the question I ask now is, why does my generation love whimsy so much? Is it this daydream nation we’ve somehow grown up in? The overeducated materialism of which is not even threatened by the specters of AIDS and terrorism. Those peripheral threats, of which we are barely cognizant, lurking out there somewhere and happening to somebody else. It’s my best guess. When you’ve known little of suffering and deprivation beyond maybe your dad moving out and a new guy moving in, or watching some towers crumble on television, whimsy seems like maybe a fine and comforting way of being diverted. And what can be more important, if this is your life, than being diverted?
I don’t hate whimsy. I really, in fact, enjoyed Moonrise Kingdom. A lot. But I’m constitutionally unable to think of whimsy as great, as striving to reach the highest pinnacles of artistic endeavor. Anyway, Anderson’s last two movies have been essentially kids films. I feel like he’s found his calling. The visuals by the way were great. Grade A.
Over the last decade I’ve grown to loathe discussing Wes Anderson films with people. Wes Anderson is, to my way of thinking, sort of the John Hughes of my generation. He makes nice entertainments, fluffy and inconsequential in the end, but if you’re of the right age and of the right class and educational background, they seem to speak of something shared. Frustratingly then, so many of the people of this generation seem to embrace him as an important filmmaker - someone to be discussed in the company of the likes of Martin Scorsese or Woody Allen (never mind if these two themselves deserve to be discussed in their own company).
This creates a kind of alienation in me of many different sorts. For one, I’ve just come to loathe being outnumbered in these discussions by smug twits, who in all honesty, lack the breadth and depth of my consumption of cinema. And two, it gets lonely. And it reminds you of the unbreachability of that loneliness. You search for kindred spirits, and all you can find is laziness and parochial mindsets in one form or another. You’re lucky if you can find a few people who won’t sneer at something in black and white.
At one time, before “Tenenbaums,” enthusiasm for Anderson’s films was perhaps an indicator of kindredness. Here was someone who was at least exposed to film outside of the mainstream stuff playing at the multiplex. That changed with “Tenenbaums.” The whole damn generation embraced the aesthetic. And the thing is, Anderson’s films were good, but not that good. When you meet enough people who, with a straight face, will tell you that “Tenenbaums” and “Amelie” are among the 100 best films of all time, and yet have never heard of Billy Wilder nor seen any Fritz Lang or Truffaut, than the gears get to grinding.
I don’t like to rant. I don’t think its a good look. I think its a particularly bad look when discussing creative endeavors. But you have a few drinks and an Anderson fan starts talking and sometimes it’s hard to resist the hyperbolic scorched earth that makes you sound like you hate something that you actually kind of like well enough for what it is. Look, “The Royal Tenenbaums” is basically a precariously constructed tower of portentious gestures built upon a bed of whimsy. The fact that it teeters but does not fall is nothing short of a marvel. But those portentious signifiers actually leave the viewer dissatisfied in the end. It’s nothing if not a dissappointing movie.
Moonrise Kingdom on the other hand abandons all of those portentious gestures and leaves us with a whimsical frolic. There’s nothing more portentious in this film than a troubled marriage, which I think is right at Wes Anderson’s pay grade. But I’ve realized something new about all of those Wes Anderson fans of my generation. I used to think that they were duped by those portentious signifiers. That they thought that they were getting opera, when what they were really getting was just a little harmless whimsy. But no, it was the whimsy that they loved all along. I misunderestimated them. They knew that what’s-her-face’s attempted suicide and Gene Hackman’s death were just emotional spectacles, crude emotional manipulations in a fairy tale universe. And they thought that was greatness, which is fair enough.
So the question I ask now is, why does my generation love whimsy so much? Is it this daydream nation we’ve somehow grown up in? The overeducated materialism of which is not even threatened by the specters of AIDS and terrorism. Those peripheral threats, of which we are barely cognizant, lurking out there somewhere and happening to somebody else. It’s my best guess. When you’ve known little of suffering and deprivation beyond maybe your dad moving out and a new guy moving in, or watching some towers crumble on television, whimsy seems like maybe a fine and comforting way of being diverted. And what can be more important, if this is your life, than being diverted?
I don’t hate whimsy. I really, in fact, enjoyed Moonrise Kingdom. A lot. But I’m constitutionally unable to think of whimsy as great, as striving to reach the highest pinnacles of artistic endeavor. Anyway, Anderson’s last two movies have been essentially kids films. I feel like he’s found his calling. The visuals by the way were great. Grade A.
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