Whether you love his films or not, it can’t be denied; Wes Anderson was one of the most distinctive directors to emerge from the indie filmmaking boom of the 1990s. Starting at least from Rushmore (1998), and on to notable examples such as The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and The Grand Hotel Budapest (2014), Anderson has produced an idiosyncratic body of work in the form of constructed worlds that overlap with reality. Whimsy is laced with sadness in those carefully constructed settings.
Constructed worlds are one of the themes explored by University of Texas English professor Donna Kornhaber in her slender but tightly packed aesthetic biography, called simply Wes Anderson. Calling attention to The Royal Tenenbaums, Kornhaber points out that the Tenenbaum children have all retreated into private spaces, escaping “the disorder and discomfort” of any larger reality. Anderson’s protagonists are collectors seeking to classify and arrange those elements of reality they chose to include in their lives. With their eccentric settings, his films are a product of “the impulse toward collecting—toward selecting, regrouping and arranging for one’s personal possession the objects of this world.”
Tending toward detachment and emotional isolation, Anderson’s characters endow their surroundings with “special meaning against the encroachments of a disordered world.”
Kornhaber’s insightful essay is published as part of the University of Illinois’ Contemporary Film Directors series.
