Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel

it's very possible i am missing something and i'll try to go to another screening of this during the week. anderson's early films are classics as far as i'm concerned, and whenever a new one comes out i am always hoping for these poignant moments, like the sequence of bottle rocket that kicks off with dignan saying "they'll never catch me man, because i'm fucking innocent" (maybe my favorite line in cinema). in contrast, the whole stretch from darjeeling through this one just seems cheesy.

What is Mitteleurope Hollywood? xp Going to see this on your recommendation.

Basically all the '20s/30s comedies/musicals set in mythical kingdoms (Lubitsch, Mamoulian, even the odd Bob Hope vehicle). Tho France doesn't fit geographically, it's of a piece with Lubitsch saying he preferred Paris, Hollywood to Paris, France.

Geoffrey O'Brien's Film Comment feature critique is well worth a read (not online).

do you really think anderson is "critiquing" the willful political naivete of these films instead of just reproducing it? where's the critique? i don't think he so simplistic as to believe in the golden age gustave pines for, but the past for anderson very often functions as a locus of hope, and nostalgia is championed insofar as it allows his eccentric characters to survive without being spiritually crushed by their immediate environment. i think we're supposed to take the narrator at his word, and admire gustave for his archaic, gentlemanly ways that were out of sync with the "slaughterhouse" of modernity. there didn't seem to be a deeper irony at play here with this.

"Nostalgia is championed insofar as it allows his eccentric characters to survive without being spiritually crushed by their immediate environment." This is a good defense of the movie, and it's also an excellent motivation for Anderson's candy-coated formalism and an excellent motivation for filmmaking in general; it shows a good understanding of what made 30s hollywood great. Just because we're supposed to take the narrator at his word that we should (you say) admire Gustav and his gentlemanly ways, that doesn't preclude Anderson from creating a parallax view of history and filmmaking through his film, from making an analytical/critical frame. Of course his bias is in defense of and celebration of and admiration of those films populated with sophisticated eurotrash rakes and other 30s Hollywood cosmopolitan archetypes, or even just in defense of style, but I think the appeal of Anderson for most of his audience is also mostly for his style and his larger-than-life, broadly-drawn archetypes, and not for emotional, social, or relational honesty.

Have you seen the operettas and other "mitteleuropa Hollywood" films morbs is referring to? Many of them are really quite sublime, and "real feeling" and inconvenient political realities aren't too much to sacrifice for a little sublimity, I think. I get that the appeal of some Anderson movies is that they can carry emotional weight in spite of their high twee style, but sometimes emotions are just another cinematic trick.

Fiennes is well cast (an average actor with a talent for malice), the first 40 minutes are his best live action since Rushmore until the escapes and caper begin, after which I didn't give a damn.

I didn't mean "critique" in the sense of anti anti anti; call it engaging with or probing Europe-set glamor neverlands if you like. (The dark side in Hollywood might be rep'd by Ophuls' film of Zweig's bleak romance Letter from an Unknown Woman.) The candy in that coating is pretty tart this time out, with a little strychnine. Ultimately it's about a father figure, a refugee, and sacrifice. A tragedy camouflaged as an elaborate windup toy.

(ooh prob put that on Lettrboxd)

I wasn't moved because the Gustave-Zero relationship is a pallid rehash of Max-Blume.

That's awfully reductive.

There are some general similarities, plenty of differences. Blume is not a master of anything the way Gustave is, and G and Zero are never mortal enemies.

I would argue Zero is the complete opposite of Max in almost every conceivable way.

The distancing devices actually created a meaningful synthesis between Anderson's preoccupations and Zweig's melancholy. The trouble for me was in the escape/caper sections; it distracted from their relationship and turned the movie into Spot The Actor (Harvey Keitel in tats! Owen Wilson as a German named Chuck!).

With this film and The Wind Rises, are we seeing a revival of early 20th century German-language literature or something? I look forward to PTA attempting Joseph Roth.

sorry, I missed what the German connection is in TWR (aside from, you know)...

The cameo names didn't really bother me. That's entertainment. (tho it's strange Lea Seydoux is getting billed in the full-page ads; she's onscreen for maybe a half minute)

Thomas Mann (the protagonist meets Hans Castorp in the sanitarium ho-ho).

Kudos to the production design too: The Grand Budapest in '68 looked like photos I've seen of similar pre-Iron Curtain structures in desuetude.

fun drinking game: bring a flask to the theater with you and take a pull every time you hear a fellow moviegoer say "every single shot is set up so well" or "his style is so unique" or "i can't believe that was harvey keitel!" on the way out

The woman saying to her grim unsmiling husband, "It was an arty film; they do things differently" sent me across the street for a gin and tonic.

such a snob aren't you alfie boy

heavens! hoi polloi having opinions!

I wish!

Gin and tonic? That called for an Alaska.

Morbs OTM

Criticisms of Anderson often feel like cinematic rockism: Where's the realism? Where are the deep emotions? Surface v substance. Fun v depth. Dollhouse/chocolate box metaphors mandatory.

Morbs, which 30s movies should I check out to help me appreciate GBH's relation to cinematic history?

All of them.

Criticisms of Anderson often feel like cinematic rockism: Where's the realism? Where are the deep emotions? Surface v substance. Fun v depth. Dollhouse/chocolate box metaphors mandatory.

oh I agree but this film doesn't sustain the charm of its first 40 minutes

i wish he would do a spy movie or a heist movie or hard sci fi or something

― ⚓ (gr8080), Monday, March 12, 2012 2:29 AM (2 years ago)

i guess i need to see this again but about 3/4 of the way through this i was like "oh this is his adventure movie, nevermind"

lol Jacobin Mag hard to take those grad students with shiny chips on their shoulders seriously

i like wes anderson pretty well as you folks likely know, but i think if you're trying to redeem one of his films by saying it's a "critique" you're barking up the wrong tree. that seems really willful to me.

i think i'll see the raid 2 before i see GBH. two kinds of formalism, my allegiance is increasingly w/ the former.

though i know it's a false dichotomy

Also the world needs more cat-killing jokes.

feel better about skipping this now

I enjoyed the overall lack of gravitas, and I don't think the presence of Nazi-like figures automatically requires gravitas -- what about Indiana Jones?

Dr. Jones is accorded more reverence than Churchill in some quarters these days.

God, the way some people clock their mortality in new wrinkles or grey hairs, I do in accidental Morbsisms.

morbidity is the soul of wit

this might be his best since bottle rocket/rushmore i think. fiennes is totally perfect because he does the whole arch thing so well, but can do it with some warmth, its never totally sneery, which is just the kind of actor WA needs i think. this might be the tightest plotting WA has ever done too i think, or at least the least indulgent. i think he might be figuring out how to still be true to his voice without getting too carried away - there seemed to be less in-jokiness, which was nice and made me very grateful. hopefully by his next film, he will figure out how to write characters, not just poses (but i still greatly dislike his sense of humour and the whole 'arent i so smart' tone of everything so maybe hes just not for me - its not that i expect 'depth', theres just something hollow and self-congratulatory/smug about WA, even though i adore how his movies look).

4:3 is the all time greatest aspect ratio though - i wish more films used it. it doesnt allow the eyes to wonder.

it's not ENTIRELY or even MOSTLY a critique, but i think a bit of that is there.

first script he wrote himself

theres just something hollow and self-congratulatory/smug about WA

i can certainly see how his films might come off as rather complacent in some respects--i think he just about always walks right up to the line of condescending to his characters and their fragile self-constructed worlds...however, that's precisely why his OTT formalism is so necessary: it's self-implicating. any other stylistic approach would be smug.

just something hollow and self-congratulatory/smug about WA

but enough about Woody Allen...

it's not ENTIRELY or even MOSTLY a critique, but i think a bit of that is there.

― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Monday, March 24, 2014 5:08 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, I'll have to see it I guess. but similar claims made for other of anderson's films tend to ring hollow

(and I'm a fan)

"critique" is too loaded a term for he's doing, perhaps. it definitely implies a "realism" to be set in opposition to the constructed fantasies--something he seems to rather pointedly avoid doing, especially in the last few films.

in fact maybe that's the most interesting thing about his movies. the cracks in the facade are never really obvious intrusions of "the real" (of either historical or emotional sorts) but still within the logic of the constructed fantasy, the way things tend not to hold together even in their own terms.

something like a lack of internal consistency.

"Critique" is any dialogue between source and interpreter. This synthesis of Zweig and Andersonalia is itself a critique of Zweig, thirties Shangri-La-type fantasias, caper films, etc.

I kind of want to see this buy that image of the purple bellhops in the elevator that is bright blood red just makes me think too much of Kubrick and the bathroom in the Shining. I sort of would rather rewatch a bunch of Kubrick films instead.

except the mediocre Shining.

first script he wrote himself

Well this Hugo Guinness person gets a co-story credit.

but enough about Woody Allen...

shouldn't you be off championing Rocky and Patton?

dude, you're as boring as fuck

thank you

bye again, "academic"

i can certainly see how his films might come off as rather complacent in some respects--i think he just about always walks right up to the line of condescending to his characters and their fragile self-constructed worlds...however, that's precisely why his OTT formalism is so necessary: it's self-implicating. any other stylistic approach would be smug.

― ryan, Monday, March 24, 2014 6:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is interesting