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How Wes Anderson Turned The New Yorker Into “The French Dispatch”
- throwyawayyyy 4y agoThis was the Wes Anderson movie that would (in my very humble opinion) have benefited most from being a limited TV series instead. Have five or six episodes, one per story. As a film, like every anthology film I can bring to mind, it's a curate's egg. Good in parts, not good as a whole. (Of the three stories, the first is wonderful; the second insufferable; while the third relies too much on a thing, the policemen's chef, that isn't a thing.)
- brtkdotse 4y agoWhile I’m a huge fan of Andersons earlier work, The French Dispatch was just… too much Wes in one sitting. Like tomato soup with extra ketchup. A mini-series sounds like grand idea.
- xwolfi 4y agoWatching that as a French was for me like watching what an american would fantasize about the country. It was very weird and interesting and completely discordant but not in a bad way. The May 68 protest part was so weird, both insulting and naive, with a sort of truth to it but exagerated like only an american would. I wonder how Americans feel when playing "Life is strange", a French fantasy about what America is like.
- keiferski 4y agoFor reference, I’m American but lived in Paris for awhile. I wouldn’t say The French Dispatch is indicative of American views of France, more a very specific, Brooklyn-based, literary industry one. Which is also what The New Yorker is. A movie like Amélie is probably more in line with the American fantasy version of France.
- xwolfi 4y agoOh I see, I guess us French are very heavily exposed to the NYC mirror ourselves so for us that's "american" when for you there s a clear distinction with how a North Carolinian or a Californian would dream up a French fantasy? Or social classes would fantasise differently ? I guess it s not too deeply explored, how a bias towards France develop across different layers of foreigners ahah But it s obvious the reverse is true: coming from Normandy my family accepted Iraq a lot more than the rest of France and felt even more betrayed when it turned out to be a lie for instance. Sadly the truth is more mundane than all those fantasies: we have an approximately similar distribution of morons, fascist, religious, generous, competent, savant and ignorant people and I guess bar historical deviations we're pretty much the same. I live in China myself and I cant really find a structural difference in people themselves.
- keiferski 4y agoThe media industry in NYC (and LA) is so dominant as compared to the rest of the country, so when viewed from abroad, the NYC/LA opinion ends up being “the American opinion.”
- nagonago 4y agoI got the same feeling about Japan as depicted in Isle of Dogs. it's the Japan as fantasized by Wes Anderson, not real Japan. "Weird and interesting and completely discordant but not in a bad way" is the perfect way to describe it.
- dkdbejwi383 4y ago"Fantastic Mr Fox" is also strange but charming in its own way, with it's odd mix of 20th century English countryside and very American characters and dialogue. The source material being authentically English probably helps this one.
- jhbadger 4y ago"Life is strange" (at least the first one about Max & Chloe) did have the odd bits of dialogue that didn't seem like something native English speakers would say, but in terms of setting, it was set at a fancy boarding school, which is a setting most Americans have little familiarity with (except maybe from Harry Potter), so the weirdness of setting even to Americans may have hid a lot of gaps in the authors' knowledge of American culture.
- yieldcrv 4y agoGenius Yeah i didn’t realize the author behind life is strange but I watched a play through of the first one and I really enjoyed it It was probably pewdiepie even though he hated it, the plot twists resonated with me and i looked forward to his commentary Reminded me of the butterfly effect with ashton kutcher
- dr_dshiv 4y agoI love foreign fantasy representations of America. My favorite is the Italian music video of a high school class where they sing in made up English. https://youtu.be/-VsmF9m_Nt8 https://youtu.be/-VsmF9m_Nt8
- 4gotunameagain 4y agoThe difference of course being that Adriano Celentano intentionally created something that sounds like English to prove a point, while hollywood is primarily based on ignorance.
- cheesysam 4y agoI'm reading 'An Editor's Burial', which is a collection of essays which inspired the film. There's an interview with Wes as a foreword, and that's exactly what he describes as his intention for the feel of the film.
- keiferski 4y agoAgreed. I would have also liked to see more exploration on the "Americans in Europe" theme in an Anderson style. Especially in the WW1/1920s era, with Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc.
- Ialdaboth 4y agoBrillant idea. As an anthology movie, I felt that the movie was a little too disjointed and didn't really work.
- bwv848 4y agoIt's a sad and beautiful obituary, a miniseries would be unnecessary long.
- fullshark 4y agoI think the Ballad of Buster Scruggs was a TV series that they turned into a movie, and I think it benefited from it. That's also the only anthology film I even like I can recall.
- keiferski 4y agoI’d wondered if you have a particular affinity for the mid-sixties. You were born in 1969. There’s a psychological theory that says what we tend to be most nostalgic for is a period in time that is several years before our own birth—when our parents’ romance might have been at its peak. The technical term for the phenomenon is “cascading reminiscence bump.” This is a pretty interesting idea and as someone born in the early nineties, I definitely find aspects of the 80s to be appealing, especially when it comes to tech and sci-fi. I wonder if this phenomenon could be linked to the popularity of cultural trends in general.
- idk1 4y agoHard to say, I was born in the late 80s and I have an affinity for the early 90s.
- crtasm 4y agoPerhaps that is when your parents’ romance was at its peak?
- longtimelistnr 4y agoI do find this interesting too. As if this affinity comes from wanting to understand the cultural circumstances around one’s birth. I wonder if that can be extended to nostalgia for the era of one’s parents childhood as well?
- zeristor 4y agoThe article is about Wes Anderson's inspiration for the film, the main thing being the characters from the New Yorker. I have been gradually learning more about James Baldwin, and was quite touched by his story.
- doitLP 4y agoIf you’d like to see a great parody of Wes Anderson check out this short SNL did some years ago: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gfDIAZCwHQE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gfDIAZCwHQE I hadn’t seen it before watching the French Dispatch and it nails him perfectly.
- staticman2 4y agoI prefer this short "What if Wes Anderson directed X-men?" https://youtu.be/UngE0qn3VRY https://youtu.be/UngE0qn3VRY
- zeristor 4y agohttps://archive.ph/S20w2 https://archive.ph/S20w2
- matt-attack 4y agoI thoroughly enjoyed this movie when I came out. And have watched it several times since. I often wonder if I’d like it even more if I knew the first thing about The New Yorker. I wish I caught all of those references to French cinema mentioned in TFA. I nonetheless love Anderson’s style. I just eat it up like soup.
- jdkee 4y agoThe French Dispatch is likely Wes Anderson’s worst movie.
- rurban 4y agoNot just likely. Definitely. https://letterboxd.com/rurban/film/the-french-dispatch/ https://letterboxd.com/rurban/film/the-french-dispatch/
- nnamtr 4y agoGood to know there's a definite measure for that. I for one liked it.
- Foreignborn 4y agoWhy did you link us to your own review of a film? It’s sitting at a 3.8 out of 5, in the upper half of his films, on letterboxd. https://letterboxd.com/director/wes-anderson/by/rating/ https://letterboxd.com/director/wes-anderson/by/rating/
- bryanrasmussen 4y agoI suppose they linked to their own review because they made their arguments there as to why they thought it sucked, but anyway I thought it quite a bit better than the Darjeeling Limited.
- aaronbrethorst 4y ago