1 post tagged “tenenbaums”
Just finished watching the director's commentary for The Royal Tenenbaum's. It's funny, I tend to wait until a movie is almost a bit stale before taking in the commentary, or at least stale to me, because of the desire to take in the movie itself, before absorbing people's thoughts about the movie, even the director's. Northrup Frye, the literary critic, talks about how artists aren't the ultimate authority on their own works, how there can be themes that they themselves didn't consciously insert, but are present in the work. I think that's true, which makes letting the work stand, before even hearing the director's thoughts make sense to me.
That said, I was ready to hear Anderson's perspective on his film, and overall I really enjoyed it. He seems to have a very quiet manner, at least on the track, and I wonder how he can manage everything with what seems like a deferential personality (where the work itself is so stubbornly unique). Perhaps he is spastic on the set. I found myself thinking of the word "laconic" while listening to him. This strange emotionlessness to his tone, particularly in light of the strong emotions on the screen. His detachment seemed strange to me, but it may have been part of what drew me to the film in the first place: this carefully detached manner of observing strong emotions. On a personal level, I'm recently trying to move from observing to engaging with emotions, so his tone, and the theme in the film seemed to cast a little light backwards onto my emotional landscape from the last few years.
Tenenbaum's made a really big impression on me, as soon as I first saw it. Stylistically I really liked it, inventive, fresh, kind of precocious, all these slightly quirky ways of presenting things that resonate, I think, with anyone who has been a little bit nerdy, intellectual, seen things from an angle different from the status quo. At a deeper level, the family themes connected for me, both in terms of giftedness and dysfunction. In the closing scene's commentary, Anderson talks about how he wanted to capture that sense of family in the film: the way you are present with these people during hte most vulnerable times of your life, and as such, can receive deep wounds from them. At the same time, he adds, there is a way that family can provide, can give something to you that few other relationships can.
I think he is right, but also think that observation taps into a central charm about the film, presenting the attractive and maddening elements of family. It's part of what has endeared this film to me. Initially, I thought it was the Anderson-esque touches that I loved. Watching other Anderson films hasn't been quite the same thing for me, so that I think the family themes, coupled with his way of seeing, really touched things off for me.
As someone who enjoys movies a lot, I've been thinking about doing some filming myself, amateur stuff. That said, I was struck by how complicated the production of this film was. Everything was extremely detail oriented: setting up a custom dig for an archeology scene, dotting the "dalmation mice" with a Sharpie, hanging a set of tennis raquets along the back of a court, constructing three giant letters to suggest the large hotel sign." I had this illusion about just "finding" places and filming, based on how simple it is to catch motion on film, but Anderson and team did some very exacting and specific things to create this setting. It did not come easily, and made me kind of exhausted at the thought of the work they put in to create something this charming and wonderful, meaningful.
He used the term fable to describe the movie, all his movies actually, and I thought that really fit well. He creates this spaces that are realistic, but not easy to specifically place. He resists connecting that last dot, to make it a fully realistic space. They are in a "New York type place", but you never see the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, etc. I think this makes the story stronger, by making it more universal. Scott McCloud talks about this in Understanding Comics when he describes how realism is harder to identify with than representation--Charlie Brown seems more universal than a more realistic image...Harvey Pekar(?).
One final thing I enjoyed was the touches that Anderson couldn't really explain, at several points he says, "It just seemed right to me," and these are all really strong, distinctive things in the film, part of what makes it really strong. I enjoy that sense of intuition, intuiting the meaning of some pieces, even beyond explanation, and having the priviledge to say, "this just seems right to me" and doing it that way. I imagine that to be validating, but perhaps it's really stressful as well. ;)
