Anderson’s signature style is characterized by bright pastels, meticulous arrangements, and symmetrical compositions, a dollhouse aesthetic that has defined most of his films, both good ones, like The Grand Budapest Hotel and bad ones, like Asteroid City and The Phoenician Scheme.
“It’s almost like my handwriting, the visual thing,” Anderson told Inverse. “It’s the surface of the movie, but it takes people five seconds before they say, ‘I know who directed this.’”
The family is potentially the richest, most rewarding but also most complex and troubled social institution.
Most of Wes Anderson’s films are defined by multi-generational plots, often centering of the relationship of a father with his children.
The Phoenician Schemes is an espionage farce that follows a billionaire industrialist named Zsa-zsa (Benicio del Toro) and his estranged daughter (Mia Threapleton), embarking on a treacherous journey to implement his ambitious new enterprise, while also repairing their previously damaged bond.
At one point in the story, patriarch Zsa-zsa (played by del Toro) notes: “Planning doesn’t matter, what matters is the sincerity of your devotion.”
Benicio del Toro
It was a bit of a thing where he was electric on the set of The French Dispatch. There were these spectacular moments, but they were better in the cutting room. I was like, “There’s some chemical thing happening here with Benicio.” He responds well to being filmed. I started feeling like I think we could do something where he’s at the center of it. And when that happened, I suggested to him, “Would you like to do another thing together? And he was up for it
I had was sort of image of this tycoon, this Euro, Italian, Greek, whatever type tycoon — turned out to be more Hungarian. And I knew men like that. There was this thing that had happened to my wife, where her father told her about his businesses, and he had these shoeboxes that contained his life’s work. I thought, “I see the shape of this starting to emerge.” Del Toro some qualities like this character, and that was what got it moving, I guess.
Two other leads: Michael Cera and Mia Threapleton
For Mia, we have a 20-year-old character, and anytime you’re casting young people, you’re looking for somebody who’s going to be a bit of a discovery. So we searched, and when you search, you don’t know what you’ll find. She came out of just, “Let’s see everybody.”
He was in the middle of a process when he arrived. He’d already figured out a lot of it. He’s saying, “What do you think of this?” It doesn’t take much from me. I’m essentially an audience member and seeing him do this I like this more than that.” But that’s really the extent of it. It’s his creation.
Smaller group of characters
Each movie kind of tells you what it wants to be. This one began really with one guy, Benicio. And then these two characters sort of joined the company, but there was never a moment when it was big ensemble. It was always going to be these three. There’s a series of visits that they’re going to have. Someone will enter, but then they’ll exit. But it was never like Asteroid City, they’re all trapped together and it’s this whole kind of company of people.
Themes of death and mortality
There’s one version of a movie scene where you say the intention is to scare you, or the intention is to be funny. And then there’s another kind of movie scene, where you say we’re just going to create experience and … everybody’s going to have their own response to it and it’s not as clear.
He’s confronting his death again and again in the story. The big changes in his perspective are happening in those scenes. He’s coming back from these and he’s shifting his priorities. He’s kind of moving away from his goals in life and finding something else that’s smaller and more about really about his daughter and the biblical aspect of it.
It is just sort of a motif, because he’s having these neurological events and they involve something spiritual, or supernatural, or otherworldly? Or is it simply what’s happening in his brain, and his way of processing these questions, this vast uncertainty, the hugeness of this universe that he is about to disappear from? What does that mean to him? What is the point of all the rest of these things that he’s focusing? It’s certainly biblical imagery, but it’s all coming from him.
Name synonymous with particular directorial style
What people think of as my style is really my methods of how I can communicate information quickly. My movies are an hour and 40 minutes, an hour and 45 minutes. I don’t make a two-and-a-half-hour movie, but I tend to have a lot of information. Sometimes quite convoluted, complicated thing, and I want to do it quickly and you’ve got to make it clear enough. A lot of my things are about how to communicate information quickly and clearly. But then there’s also my personality of visual thing.
I Am Not AI
When I’m making a movie what I’m focusing on is the story, the characters, what’s different about that movie. But what ties them together is something to do with me, it’s almost like my handwriting, the visual thing. It’s the surface of the movie, but I get that it takes people about five seconds before they can say, “I know who directed this.” I’m not imitating me. I am me. Sometimes I feel like I get put on the defensive because I am not a meme. I am myself. I’m the actual me. I’m not an AI.
