Is “The Phoenician Scheme” Wes Anderson's Most Emotional Film?

He has put out 5 films in the last 7 years. Wes Anderson might just be a victim of his own productivity, his work could benefit from some scarcity.

Anderson nonetheless is still quite inventive and experimental in his films, he's always doing new things, and usually those new things are in the details, and of course, those new things tend to play into his trademark style. Asteroid City played like an excuse to play around with clever camera movements. Isle of Dogs did weird things where the image and sound were providing diverging narratives that would come back together.

Anderson's trademark style is annoying to me only when my interest in the characters and story is lacklustre, but for every Anderson film I'm not that into I know at least one person who loves it.

I think it would be unreasonable to expect him to reinvent his filmmaking style dramatically. There are other filmmakers out there making movies for those who've had their fill of quirky Wes Anderson flicks.

>His films are the same thing repeated in different circumstances with different characters.

I am not sure what you mean, Asteroid City with its complex structure utilizing metafiction to explore things mostly removed from the characters and the story does not have much in common with The Royal Tenenbaums other than aesthetic with its fairly simple and direct use of character to explore the individual and family. Do you want him to make a superhero or action movie or something?

>But I do think the cinematic world as a whole would benefit from him experimenting a little more, trying a novel format, and so on.

But his format is novel in the entire world of cinema right now, even if it doesn't change from film to film. People go to see a Wes Anderson film for the same reason Marvel fans line up for the next blockbuster; you know what you are going to get, and you want more of it. He takes it to the extreme in this one, where it works entirely visually as an almost homage to the days of silent film. We would benefit greatly from more filmmakers (and studios willing to take them on) who have such a defined aesthetic vision and are able to develop it over such a long a period, rather than just mashing together whatever expectations a focus group might have, or going off on flights of fancy that have little artistic continuity.

For better or for worse, Anderson is very much an auteur [0], like Godard or Woody Allen. Almost certainly in a self-conscious way.

Complaining that Anderson movies feel like Anderson movies seems almost to miss the point: do we look at Picasso's works and complain about the consistent style he developed? The self-imposed constraints of his own style give him a framework to build his art from (it's often said that constraints foster creativity after all) and a particular craft to master.

Conversely, the form might always be an Anderson movie, but the function of each film can be quite different. By sticking with and mastering a particular aesthetic he frees himself to explore things besides aesthetic wildly. What does The Royal Tenenbaums have in common with, say, The Grand Budapest Hotel, besides Futura?

That said, I do feel like Asteroid City in particular was a stretch for him: there's nothing quite like "you can't wake up if you don't fall asleep" anywhere else in his filmography. It felt like along with the more extreme artifice came a more extreme intensity of feeling: to me it's a film that really came from a very anguished and grieving place. I haven't read the article or seen the new film yet, but based on the headline it sounds like this might be the overall direction his work is heading.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur

In case you haven’t seen it, “Wes Anderson Horror Trailer”: https://youtu.be/gfDIAZCwHQE?si=EzoCvqsY70AcZI4u

He definitely has a unique voice but I think he does challenge himself. Switching to stop motion certainly seems like a challenge. Admittedly he now has a stop motion style.

>After those, his own movies have almost become caricatures of an Anderson film and the characters have become so much like clockwork that they might as well be set pieces themselves.

I think this is a feature of his artistic refinement through the years; he's the last true visual storyteller in Hollywood. Actors don't really matter, scripts don't really matter - it's a treat for the eyes alone. Something really was lost in the transition from silent to "talkies" where the focus became entirely on plot and dialogue. If you go back and watch those films now, the very best of them had almost no dialogue or title cards. I'd liken what he is doing to something like Joyce in literature, where it's not even about the words, but their semantic structures alone. It seems that all visionary artists end up going in this direction, see Picasso in his later years of total abstraction, or Schoenberg's final works that completely abandoned tonality.

IDK personally I don't think Grand Budapest feels wooden at all. The entire scene where Adrien Brody smashes the Egon Schiele-esque lesbian painting is one of the most hilarious things I've seen in a movie.

Ralph Fiennes in Grand Budapest isn't just an exception. The performance, in my not so humble opinion, is quite possibly the most memorable and brilliant of any performance in a Wes Anderson movie. It is delightful.

That being said, I actually think his style of late has its place. At least he is trying something different in a time when most movies are so derivative and bum-numbingly boring that I rarely bother seeing a movie in a movie-theater. There is a rarity of interesting outliers in mainstream film today.

Outliers are good. They are not wayward miscreants that must be herded back into mediocrity lest we have to think.

It isn't like I'm a snob who only watches art films. I used to watch almost everything that hit the big screen, and I'd enjoy the whole range from hard-to-grasp, arty farty stuff most people think is boring/demanding/ugly/confusing to blatantly commercial nonsense ... that was nonetheless entertaining and fun. (I'd make my proto-hipster friends cringe with my love of B-movies). I had to empty my wallet of ticket stubs regularly so it wouldn't burst the seams.

The actors being the most human-like in "Fantastic Mr. Fox" of all his films is pretty telling.

For me the casual violence in this movie really destroyed it - it’s not at all super prevalent throughout the film but there are some “gory” bits played for comedy that took me fully out of the whimsical coziness I expected from it. The comedy didn’t land either.

This is clearly intentional, whether you like it or not. My mileage varies depending on my mood. Fiennes is indeed grand in Budapest.

This is because the older films were co-written with Owen Wilson. Once they stopped collaborating, Anderson's later films are unbalanced - they have the whimsical aesthetic, but are too sweet without the bitter piercing wit and clarity of Wilson's writing to make them less cloying (IMHO).

Rushmore is my favorite Wes Anderson film. I think you nailed it. It was a great film that was “enhanced” by Wes Anderson’s style. Newer films seem to be primarily delivery vehicles of his style, with a hint of story and plot to move it along.

Yes this. Tennenbaums and Zisou were still primarily narrative fiction which allowed the actors to really be the spotlight, which let the characters really come alive.

In Budapest, French and Asteroid it felt increasingly like the actors were too confined to fulfilling an aesthetic for them to come alive or for the actors to shine.

Apologies in advance for sounding controversially critical, I can't help but be reminded of AI art where its trying so hard to look a way that it stops being something you want to look at.

Absolutely agree. My favorites,in order of how often I have watched them:

Fantastic Mr. Fox Rushmore Royal Tenenbaums Life Aquatic

The rest, I don't really care for, nothing new, just flash, no substance, and have stopped watching his new movies.

Moonrise Kingdom was good too, it had something at its core, not just stylish visuals.

Royal Tenenbaums & Rushmore have always been my favorite, the way they hit every single emotional chord without being overcooked, and with characters that are relatable.

Bottle Rocket fits that bill for me.

Rushmore was my favorite of his films until the release of Moonrise Kingdom.

Fun fact: Rushmore was shot in an era without social media. All my film nerd pals were aware of Anderson after Bottle Rocket, and were tacitly awaiting his next film, but its ultimate arrival was a surprise. Even MORE surprising (at least for us) was that it was shot right here in Houston -- recognizably, obviously Houston. (I'm sure the St John's community was aware... )

Its release also solved a puzzle for my friend E. and I dating from the winter of 97-98. We'd stopped for sushi at a middling but reasonably priced joint between our rental house the bar we were headed to, and after posting up at the corner of the sushi counter and ordering a bit, we noticed the guy at the far end of the bar. He had a sort of admiring entourage with him of 2-3 younger folks.

The guy looked familiar, but we couldn't place him. Finally:

"Wow, that guy looks like Bill Murray."

"Yeah, he really does, doesn't he?"

"I think that might actually BE Bill Murray."

"What the hell is he doing in Houston?"

"No idea. Is there a tournament at the River Oaks club?"

We ate. We left. We forgot about seeing him -- until we saw Rushmore the following fall.

(In the unlikely event someone reading this knows Houston: this was at the Miyako that used to be just north of 59 on the west side of Kirby, so close to River Oaks.)

Data point for you: Asteroid City is my favorite, I've watched it like eight times now? and I could barely get through Rushmore.

All the commenters in here complaining that new Wes doesn't have what old Wes had.. Maybe they're missing what new Wes is doing? The newer movies are full of emotion, they're not monotone at all.

I get that reaction, and Anderson’s style can definitely create a sense of emotional distance for some. Throughout this thread - and I want to jump in to so many comments - you can see it.

I found Asteroid City to be one of his most emotionally raw films. Beneath the precise framing and deadpan delivery that characterizes his work, the movie is wrestling with true grief, uncertainty, and the need to keep performing your role (in life, and in a metafiction sense, in the movie). This driving need is there even and perhaps especially when you don’t "understand the script", and when you feel isolated and other-ed.

The scene with Margot Robbie is the fulcrum of the entire movie, it’s brief, but devastating, and probably the most emotionally exposed Anderson has ever gotten. I think this scene is also in part in dialogue with the audience. If you ever do revisit it, I think there’s a lot simmering under the surface worth your time. But it's not my intention to try and convince someone to enjoy a movie that doesn't click for them.

The genius of Rushmore is inseparable from the collaboration with Owen Wilson and the autobiographical inspiration of their school days. Wes Anderson can never make another movie like it. His oeuvre since then is without charm for me.

I feel that his movies post-mid-career have been trending more and more towards an emotional monotone. That's more of an issue IMHO than the predictable artistic approach that people tend to focus on.

I haven't seen The Phoenician Scheme, but if it changes that then it's a positive sign.

Have you considered his actual films with actual puppets?

Why not just post direct link to archive?

you can just do this with archive.is/https://...

Hey, good job!

Isn’t that the point?

Perhaps you can share some examples of the films you are referring as "mindless banter in between sex and explosions". I'm not sure that description really fits most of the films coming out recently. If you said, "Dumb comic book films", I would maybe agree with you, but there isn't typically any sex in those so I assume you are not referring to them.

Covid halted the production of a lot of movies, and changed how others were made. It also shut down theaters. So, "since covid", is really talking about before and after an era. Kind of like saying, "since 9/11", in terms of the impact on culture. A lot of creativity has moved from the movie theaters to streaming services and from films to more episodic content.

However, here is a short list of films worth seeing (imo) since covid (2019).

Zone of Interest (2023) The Holdovers (2023) Parasite (2019) Dune (2021) Dune Part Two (2024) Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) 1917 (2019) The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) The Substance (2024) Palm Springs (2020) Oppenheimer (2023) The Lighthouse (2019) Hundreds of Beavers (2022) Barbarian (2022) Flow (2024)

This is the kind of comment that starts the conversational bar at such a low point there really is no point in engaging with it.