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Is “The Phoenician Scheme” Wes Anderson's Most Emotional Film?

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Re: Is “The Phoenician Scheme” Wes Anderson's Most Emotional Film?

#111

With Tenenbaums, Rushmore and maybe the Darjeeling Limited we had enough of the classic Anderson visual style for the films to have lovely atmosphere, but with the actors still being warm, lively and human enough to create real sympathy. After those, his own movies have almost become caricatures of an Anderson film and the characters have become so much like clockwork that they might as well be set pieces themselves.…

This is clearly intentional, whether you like it or not. My mileage varies depending on my mood. Fiennes is indeed grand in Budapest.

Re: Is “The Phoenician Scheme” Wes Anderson's Most Emotional Film?

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Picasso and Godard changed their style dramatically over their careers. I'm not familiar enough with Woody Allen's movies to comment on them. These are good examples to show how being an auteur doesn't mean you need to stick to the same stereotypical aesthetic. Anderson is still pretty young, so maybe he is shifting in one direction or another. But as far as his work goes as of today, the range of stylistic choi…

The stylistic evolution of Picasso and Godard over time is undeniable, but I think it’s also worth considering that Anderson is working in a medium that isn’t just visual, but also narrative, thematic, sonic, and performative. His evolution as an artist is not truly represented by his shifts in color palettes, framing, or editing technique, but you can see it in the emotional territory he explores, the narrative stru…

Picasso didn't have evolution so much as total overhauls at several points. It seems much harder to do this kind of evolution/revolution in film simply because of the money involved.

As a film director with such a distinct style, which makes money, it would be pretty hard to go to your investors and say 'I want to do something totally different.' and secure enough money to make a film in the modern era. There are some directors who can self fund due to windfalls in the past. I mean thinking back on noted auteurs I can only think of a film or two that are outside of their style and most are either very early in their career when maybe they were doing a work for hire or very late in their career where they had enough gravitas to get the money to try something different that they had been sitting on for many years (David Lynch's Straight Story is a bit of an odd man out though, I'm not sure of the history of that particular film)

But for someone like picasso, he can just decide on even a whim to attempt to refine or invent another style, the market probably has some kind of pull but it seems like, to me, several orders of magnitude lower stakes.

It would be interesting to find out after some film auteurs' death that they actually had done several other films in a wildly different style under whatever the director's equivalent of a pen name is. Though keeping such a thing secret would be highly improbable (too many people involved in a modern film production).

Re: Is “The Phoenician Scheme” Wes Anderson's Most Emotional Film?

#113

With Tenenbaums, Rushmore and maybe the Darjeeling Limited we had enough of the classic Anderson visual style for the films to have lovely atmosphere, but with the actors still being warm, lively and human enough to create real sympathy. After those, his own movies have almost become caricatures of an Anderson film and the characters have become so much like clockwork that they might as well be set pieces themselves.…

>After those, his own movies have almost become caricatures of an Anderson film and the characters have become so much like clockwork that they might as well be set pieces themselves. I think this is a feature of his artistic refinement through the years; he's the last true visual storyteller in Hollywood. Actors don't really matter, scripts don't really matter - it's a treat for the eyes alone. Something really was…

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Re: Is “The Phoenician Scheme” Wes Anderson's Most Emotional Film?

#114
post #52
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason, this made me think of the countdown timer in Galaxy Quest that counts down but stops before getting to zero because the ship's design is based on a TV show.

"Spoiler alert", I guess, if you've not seen Galaxy Quest in the quarter century since it was released.

Which, if you haven't, you absolutely should!

Re: Is “The Phoenician Scheme” Wes Anderson's Most Emotional Film?

#115
post #87
post #48

Why does it feel like any film churned out by Hollywood is just mindless banter in between sex and explosions...haven't seen a movie in theaters since well before covid because it's really not worth it, waste of time.

Perhaps you can share some examples of the films you are referring as "mindless banter in between sex and explosions". I'm not sure that description really fits most of the films coming out recently. If you said, "Dumb comic book films", I would maybe agree with you, but there isn't typically any sex in those so I assume you are not referring to them. Covid halted the production of a lot of movies, and changed how ot…

Just to toss in a couple of 'dumb comic book movies' that hit different, the two (so far) Spiderverse films. They put Flow to shame both visually and emotionally (at least for me).

Re: Is “The Phoenician Scheme” Wes Anderson's Most Emotional Film?

#116

Haven't read the article but saw the film. If Wes made No Country For Old Men in this style it would suck. The films look incredible but the monotone delivery and lack of soundtrack remove any drama and intrigue. I say this as someone that loved Rushmore, Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic

Every once and a while you see an auteur get coaxed out of their genre. Lynch did Dune in '84 right off the back of The Elephant Man. And while he hated the entire experience I know that I'm not the only person that enjoyed the particularly lynchian facets of the story that he brought into the light. His film is much more concerned with exploring the more psychedelic aspects. The divination that comes with being the Kwisatz Haderach, the grotesqueness of the Harkonen house, the psychedelic experience of the spice.. which are all present in the source material. Whereas the Villeneuve take is much more concerned with other aspects colonialism primarily, and those things that Lynch leaned into he certainly acknowledged but spent more time in other places. I love both and I love when we get to see multiple adaptations of the same source material, even if some aren't so great, just because we do get to see these different aspects of the original work.

Re: Is “The Phoenician Scheme” Wes Anderson's Most Emotional Film?

#117
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your “simple counter” might be a bit reductive. Artistic evolution can take many forms, but it doesn’t have to take every form, not every distinctive filmmaker needs to reinvent every aspect of their art to demonstrate creative growth. My point wasn’t that Anderson should be exempt from criticism, just that his growth may register differently because of the kind of storytelling he’s committed to. The evolutio…

Perhaps the example of Woody Allen at the top is more apt. The departure in style, theme, visual approach, and structural vision between early works like Sleeper or Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex and later films such as Match Point is dramatic. Then again, three decades separate those movies. Anderson still has time.

> Anderson still has time.

Yes, but time for what? I still resist the implication that Anderson is somehow “sitting still” artistically just because he maintains a consistent (and remarkable, and unique) aesthetic. When you engage with his work beyond the surface, there’s clear evolution in structure, tone, emotional depth, and thematic ambition. That doesn't mean everything he's done is a masterpiece, or that not liking it is somehow an invalid critique.

He may still evolve in more outwardly dramatic ways, but I think he has and continue to evolve already, just on his own terms, without compromising the visual language he clearly loves.

Re: Is “The Phoenician Scheme” Wes Anderson's Most Emotional Film?

#118

With Tenenbaums, Rushmore and maybe the Darjeeling Limited we had enough of the classic Anderson visual style for the films to have lovely atmosphere, but with the actors still being warm, lively and human enough to create real sympathy. After those, his own movies have almost become caricatures of an Anderson film and the characters have become so much like clockwork that they might as well be set pieces themselves.…

For me the casual violence in this movie really destroyed it - it’s not at all super prevalent throughout the film but there are some “gory” bits played for comedy that took me fully out of the whimsical coziness I expected from it. The comedy didn’t land either.

Re: Is “The Phoenician Scheme” Wes Anderson's Most Emotional Film?

#119

i think wes anderson was replaced by AI, his last 3 films lacks alot of soul

It's very odd. I thought Asteroid City (a really tough watch, like eating a 3 day old biscuit without water to wash it down) and Isle of Dogs were the most stilted. I didn't like Darjeeling Limited when I first saw it. It's visually and musically beautiful but maybe was too close to home so I was bored of the brothers relationship, also, I don't really think Wes Anderson can do sex scenes. Scenes of intimacy sure, bu…

> Asteroid City (a really tough watch, like eating a 3 day old biscuit without water to wash it down)

A great way to describe it, unfortunately. I love Wes Anderson movies, but my patience with Asteroid City ran out when the (spoiler alert) quirky-looking stop-motion alien landed.

Re: Is “The Phoenician Scheme” Wes Anderson's Most Emotional Film?

#120

With Tenenbaums, Rushmore and maybe the Darjeeling Limited we had enough of the classic Anderson visual style for the films to have lovely atmosphere, but with the actors still being warm, lively and human enough to create real sympathy. After those, his own movies have almost become caricatures of an Anderson film and the characters have become so much like clockwork that they might as well be set pieces themselves.…

>After those, his own movies have almost become caricatures of an Anderson film and the characters have become so much like clockwork that they might as well be set pieces themselves. I think this is a feature of his artistic refinement through the years; he's the last true visual storyteller in Hollywood. Actors don't really matter, scripts don't really matter - it's a treat for the eyes alone. Something really was…

Check out Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal. First season has no dialogue.
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