Skip to main content

Video essay about books in Wes Anderson films

You always know when you're watching a Wes Anderson film. Family is at the center of every story the 46-year-old director chooses to tell, and his movies typically adhere to a color palette, that is highly saturated. I always notice the tracking shots and his profound love of symmetry in all of his shot compositions, but I never noticed that books appear frequently throughout his films, until Luis Azevedo of The A To Z Review pointed it out:

"In the work of Wes Anderson, books and art in general have a strong connection with memory. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) begins with a homonymous book, as does Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009). The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) begins and ends with a book. Moonrise Kingdom (2012) ends with a painting of a place which no longer exists. These movies have a clear message: books preserve stories, for they exist within them and live on through them."


[h/t: Open Culture]

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

'Women of the Future,' according to vintage trading cards

Firefighter In 1902, French artist Albert Bergeret printed this set of trading cards depicting women and their futuristic occupations as firefighters, politicians, soldiers, lawyers, and journalists. Titled Women of the Future , these collectibles were released primarily for the boys, that's why many of these outfits fall more on the side of post-Victorian pin-up calendar than professional attire. General Marine Journalist Artist [h/t: Dangerous Minds ]

Thai artist paints on mosquito nets

I find them quite intriguing, these ghostly portraits that Uttaporn Nimmalaikaew paints on mosquito nets. His creations look like a hologram, changing form depending on where the viewer stands. Overall, they're gloomy, haunting, and endlessly fascinating. I could stare at them for ages. [h/t: Colossal ]

Urs Fischer creates candle sculpture of Leonardo DiCaprio and his parents

Some sculptures are built from stone and are meant to be as permanent as possible. Others are made to be deliberately short-lived, like this monumental art piece by Urs Fisher . His latest wax figure, Leo (George & Irmelin) , depicts Leonardo DiCaprio with his parents. Presented at the Gagosian Gallery, Paris , the sculpture is composed of a double portrait of the Hollywood actor. One portrays him talking to his dad, who is standing separately, and the other—which is linked to the first like a conjoined twin—portrays him hugging his mom, both of them smiling. The Swiss artist began to create candle sculptures in the early 2000s. Last year, he made a larger-than-life-size wax figure depicting Russian art collector and founder of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Dasha Zhukova. As with all of Fischer's candle sculptures, Leo (George & Irmelin) will melt slowly over the course of the exhibition, a poetic and visual reminder of the mortality we all mus...