A friend recently shared this piece of writing by Michael Chabon on Wes Anderson:
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/jan/31/wes-anderson-worlds/
I re-read sentences several times over. To totally comprehend his meanings and impossibly good grasp of language, structure and metaphor. To marvel at his deeply-considered comparisons and well-justified arguments. He's so on it.
I particularly liked his openings paragraphs regarding childhood, the paradoxical power of scale models and our adult longing / futile efforts to re-capture that same world perspective. Also, he's found the words to describe what I've only felt, beyond my own understanding, and have wanted to explain to audiences who don't 'get' Wes - that sedateness that somehow speaks volumes about characters' emotions; that his rich, precise mise-en-scene creates a doll-like world, an ideal world setting (like that of a child's game/view or adult's nostalgic recollections!); that the juxtaposition (work of art!) shows us that these broken characters don't fit in this ideal world:
"Anderson, like Nabokov, understands that distance can increase our understanding of grief, allowing us to see it whole. But distance does not—ought not—necessarily imply a withdrawal.... the teeming, gridded, curio cabinet sets at the heart of The Life Aquatic, The Darjeeling Limited, and Fantastic Mr. Fox - often cited as evidence of his work’s “artificiality,” at times with the implication, simple-minded and profoundly mistaken, that a high degree of artifice is somehow inimical to seriousness, to honest emotion, to so-called authenticity.... indeed I would argue that artifice, openly expressed, is the only true “authenticity” an artist can lay claim to."
Seriously, bravo.
No comments:
Post a Comment