Week 9: The Common Themes of Directors

Wes Anderson is a man of many talents. He has been a director, producer, writer and even an actor to several films. This may not seem very impressible but considering he has done some of these together for some of his films I think that add to the level of his skill.

The 3 films I selected to watch of his were The Royal Tenenbaums, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Moonrise Kingdom. After watching the first part of Moonrise Kingdom, I became interested enough to finish the movie on my own. Being able to watch some of his other movies seemed like a good idea.

And it really was. I had heard about the movie the Fantastic Mr. Fox but hadn't had the motivation to actually see it even after hearing it was good from several friends. It was the same for Moonrise Kingdom thou I never had the motivation to watch that one ether. The only one I hadn't heard of before was The Royal Tenenbaums but considering that came out when I was only 9 years old I feel that’s explanatory.

Having watched all of these films now it seems he really likes to focus on a slice of life feeling. He focused on dramas involve the growing up of characters as they face roadblocks in their life. He also likes having a family connection as all of the films have a close family with very little focus on people outside of this inner circle.

His use of camera angle and point of view is some of the best I’ve seen in years. One example I can give is when Mr. Fox is robing the cold storage for one of farmers and we see the entire scene from the screens of security cameras. I find these odd placements of cameras prominent in many of his movies as well as almost a side scrolling view like in video games. It’s not the normal views we get currently in the movies.

Another thing found in all of his movies is the idea that he separates each part into chapters, parts that are labeled often visually on the screen. I read somewhere it feels like very much like a novel. His movies translate very much more to a visual adaptation of an actual book then a translation of a screenplay.

Wes develops characters at his own pace giving us just enough information at the beginning to give us an idea but then slowly giving more away s the movie goes on. Hints are given on what’s going on but nothing is finally revealed until the climax. He gives each of the characters their own quarks in nature that may seem strange to us. It is perfectly natural to the world they live in for the most part but they are still strange to everyone else.

So in all, I like his movies thou nothing I would watch normally.