Gl asgow FILM
FESTIVAL
W E S W O R L D
With Wes Anderson’s latest movie opening this year’s Glasgow Film Festival, Eddie Harrison takes a timely trawl through the celebrated
director’s back catalogue
In 2003, I was invited to Cinecittà Studios in Rome to marvel at a freshly constructed i lm-set, a diorama of the good ship Belafonte, built for Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Over 150 feet long and 40 feet high, this underwater dolls house had been meticulously constructed over three stories high to resemble a cross-section of a ship, the image that originally inspired Anderson to make the entire i lm.
At that point, Anderson had only made two movies, Bottle Rocket and Rushmore,
two promising quirky comedies. Given a real budget to play with, the Texan writer/director/producer soon developed his unique visual style, an eccentric, miniaturised, visually symmetrical universe he describes as a ‘slightly heightened reality, like a Roald Dahl children’s book’. As a prelude to 2018’s Glasgow Film Festival kicking off with the i rst UK screening of Anderson’s animated i lm Isle of Dogs, here’s A Short and Practical Guide to the Wonderful World of Wes Anderson . . .
2004 2007
2009
The Darjeeling Limited A tribute to the great Satyajit Ray, this 2007 story of three brothers bonding after their father’s death was i lmed on a train in India, starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman. Featuring arresting use of The Kinks song ‘This Time Tomorrow’ and the late Peter Sarstedt’s ‘Where Do You Go To My Lovely?’, this bitter- sweet comedy had a plot set in motion via a Paris-set short-i lm by Anderson, Hotel Chevalier. For once, Murray does not feature, except in a Buster-Keaton-inspired cameo over the opening credits. The Fantastic Mr Fox Marking a rare departure into family entertainment, Anderson’s i rst animated feature sees the director transforming Roald Dahl’s well- loved story into a 2009 heist i lm, with George Clooney playing to type as a Mr Fox out to beat the system operated by the local farmers. Bill Murray chips in a voice-over.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou Bill Murray takes centre-stage as Steve Zissou, an underwater explorer in the Jacques Cousteau- mould who sets out on a Moby Dick-style search for the fabled Jaguar Shark that killed his best friend. Cheerful on the outside, 2004’s The Life Aquatic’s teamwork and jollity conceals an abrupt and surprising dark twist; compensations include a selection of David Bowie songs adapted by the inimitable Seu Jorge in Portuguese, plus Willem Dafoe in his bobble hat as the hapless Klaus Daimler. Although largely i lmed in Italy, a signii cant part of the Mediterranean l avour comes from Anderson and Wilson’s long writing sessions at eatery Bar Pitti, a famous foodie institution in New York’s Greenwich Village.
18 THE LIST 1 Feb–31 Mar 2018