Have we anticipated Wes Anderson's 'The French Dispatch' enough?

*takes drag of cigarette*

This is lovely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJGMmXdyhoA

Went into this with a very closed mind--I wanted to hate it--and it worked, I hated it. More or less than the hotel movie, I don't know--it's a moot point.

I'll try to keep this relatively short. Was Benicio Del Toro's painter supposed to be a stand-in for the Abstract Expressionists? Doesn't really fit in many ways, but he's said to be part of a big group in the movie, and they brawl with each other, so close enough. I liked Ed Harris's clumsy deification of Jackson Pollock a thousand times better than whatever it is Wes Anderson's after. (His smarminess seems to extend more to the people around Del Toro than Del Toro himself.) Made me think of a Christgau review where he once excoriated Jon Spencer for evidently taking a dig at Canned Heat's Bob Hite. Ed Harris = Bob Hite, I guess. The second and third stories were no less of an ordeal. I recall liking Timothée Chalamet in Little Women, but this and Dune have me wondering about that.

I way preferred the hotel movie, and I'm no fan.

clem, I'm surprised you haven't seen Chalamet in Call Me By Your Name or especially, given your preferences, Lady Bird.

I saw Lady Bird--maybe a smaller part? I just found him really bland in these two latest.

Was Kael one of the dedications? There was one that surprised me, so my attention wandered for a couple of seconds. If she wasn't, that's kind of interesting in light of the well-known backstory between Anderson and her. (Not that she was typical of The New Yorker...and that's a another bias I went into the film with: outside of the anomalous Kael, I have no nostalgia for The New Yorker's storied past.)

Will this movie open wide at some point?

It sort has here surprisingly

Believe it or not but they liked it !
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/the-french-dispatch-reviewed-wes-andersons-most-freewheeling-film

That Brody review surprised me too...I rewatch Rushmore every couple of years, waiting to be annoyed by all the things that annoy me (much worse than that, actually) about his last two; I never am. Even with Tenenbaums, I find Gene Hackman's death very moving; with Murray's, felt nothing.

(Not really a spoiler, as you'll see; that's where the film starts.)

In a sublime gesture of his own, he celebrates not only unsung heroes and those who tell their stories but also those who, like Howitzer and his staff of grammarians and illustrators, provide an accompaniment as stylish and as substantial as the adventures and inventions themselves.

That's the problem: the accomplishments of these writers is insubstantial.

I got whiplash trying to follow Brody's argument in that piece. He pushes back against critics who accuse Anderson of making hollow, aestheticized bonbons by praising his "tableaux vivants that freeze scenes of turmoil into contemplative wonders", or how he "approaches serious matters not by displaying the authentic pain that they entail but, rather, by letting it ricochet off other, related subjects". Not exactly bolstering your case, dude.

this felt like the movie that anderson's harshest critics accuse his other movies of being. which doesn't mean i think it was bad exactly: it was gorgeous, it was often pretty funny, it was overall kinda empty. the switch-ups between black-and-white and color were frequently breathtaking. the new yorker animatic at the climax of the third story felt... embarrassing

I don’t know why he didn’t have it hand animated!

or direct an animated fake doc about The New Yorker narrated by Mr. Fox.

not a fan but loved the hotel movie and unexpectedly enjoyed this one: vibed w the ~imprisonment~ theme (felt it suited a director this ensconced in his style); was repeatedly and variously moved, tbh, by the abstract expressionist section; did not think much of the soixante-huit one even after telling myself to let its political glibness go (as it goes along the godard pastiches get onner and onner the nose) but will put up with worse for even an anderson-mannered frances mcdormand; agree abt the animated sequence(s) ew; was initially a lil shocked by the cartoonification of james baldwin but felt wright gradually re-inflated the character into something worthy. also perversely admired the microscopic subtitles, which made his frames look more obnoxiously than ever like you're supposed to pause and get out some kind of loupe.

Liked part 1 OK. Part 2 I was in and out of sleep. Jeffrey Wright in part 3 had me doubled over laughing. So great. What else should I see him in... besides Westworld?

Angels Over America.

Maybe cuz I saw this with zero expectations, been pretty lukewarm on the guy for a while, but I thought this was the funniest, most entertaining thing he’s done in a long time. I don’t get the “how dare he” piety, dude playfully poking fun at literally everything, idols included, scene to scene. Doesn’t hit hard emotionally, it’s all there though, just gets out of the way quickly. Above all it’s funny and that’s what drew me to him in the first place.

Watching this on a laptop (hey, I’m in a hotel room) unexpectedly worked in its favor. For the 15-Second Rewind button at least. So many good gags and small, hilarious gestures packed in. I can’t understand shitting on Chalamet in this, he has more than a few of them.

I had a good time (stumbled upon the DVD at Target) but wish I’d seen it in the theater. This was my first Anderson.

Oh yeah, this movie, I should watch it!

(I don’t have a deep enough understanding of the stuff WA sent up to be troubled by this movie.)

Went into this with a very closed mind--I wanted to hate it--and it worked, I hated it.

I wanted to like it, and I hated it. I hadn't read anything in advance, and for most of the movie I assumed it was supposed to be "about" France (in some sense) - only later did I realise it was about America and the stories told by American correspondents to Americans. So there's some texture I didn't get, but anyway it felt empty, derivative (of Wes Anderson), and I can't remember any of the jokes.

it was definitely his most off-putting film to date, but also his most complex. I thought it was fascinating

it also felt like an endpoint in the evolution of his style visually (if not in story-telling) - there was so much granular detail that it was impossible to take it all in

did anyone grasp the rationale for his frequent changes between the 1.33:1, 1.66:1, 1.85:1 and 239:1 aspect ratios? I thought the switches between b&w and color were strictly between past and present, but after a while wasn’t so sure

will have to see it again

His dumb conceptions mitigated the impact of his detail. That's his ethos, no? So overwhelm us with detail that we forget how dumb his ideas are.

I didn't think his story ideas were dumb exactly, but they were also not that engaging. It felt like he was trying to stretch his storytelling.

I liked your essay about this film, Alfred

thank you!

If he didn't care about les soixante-huitards except to render them dumbly comic, why bother?

Yeah this is his slightest film so far. Forgettable. Tilda Swinton is hilarious though and Lyna Khoudri is adorbs.

Had to stop watching some way through 'The Concrete Masterpiece' section to go to bed, have no inclination to return. The pedant in me will always remember Owen Wilson mispronouncing 'victuals' though.

ever more determined to watch this movie and love it and be correct in that take (not today tho)

If he didn't care about les soixante-huitards except to render them dumbly comic, why bother?

I find this criticism baffling, Paris '68 was hardly the Selma to Montgomery march. Most soixante-huitards I've met have plenty of comical and stupid stories of their youth, dumb teen rebellion was an integral part of the whole thing, why should that be off limits?

Agree ^^^

Me too, seemed like a good way to poke some fun at people saying things like "take your desires for reality" who are simultaneously deadly serious, having a laugh, very important and ripe for a pisstake; also I came away from that sequence thinking more about the disproportionality of the state response in the story than the impugned dignity of any noble real-life rebels.

Then again I pretty much loved the whole thing.

I don't have access to it anymore but I think the excellent Pam Hutchinson saying in Sight and Sound (this is my half-remembered precisely) that TFD is an unusual film in the longish history of movies about the press: most of those are about what it's like to write or produce a publication, this one's about what it's like to read one.

I find this criticism baffling, Paris '68 was hardly the Selma to Montgomery march. Most soixante-huitards I've met have plenty of comical and stupid stories of their youth, dumb teen rebellion was an integral part of the whole thing, why should that be off limits?

― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, April 6, 2022 9:10 AM (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Agree ^^^

― Otto Insurance (Boring, Maryland),

I anticipated this response. All I can say is the sequence is glacially paced and the jokes rather lame. Chalamet's hair, though, remains a wonder. There's something worth fighting for.

I think I would've loved this movie a lot more if it had been all like the first ten minutes or so - an imaginary travelogue around an impossibly romanticised French village. But if the film IS like the experience of reading a magazine, then the Paris 68 segment = Positf, when it could've been Cahiers.

may 68 issue of sight and sound has a piece on the making of if….

Oh yeah Alfred I agree the segment was a trial. I just object that May 68 is some sort of sacred cow. Hey, under the cobblestones, the beach!

The appeal of Tim Chalmaet eludes me

oh no no sacred cows are hamburger meat

I enjoyed this pretty mildly, but my takeaway was that the film was so segmented so that Anderson wouldn't feel the need to commit strongly to the characters or take a stand with any one story. Everything was trivialized, even the film's own trivialization. At least his other movies give in entirely to their shallow worlds.

fwiw I found the ending emotionally affecting - perhaps a bit West Wing-y in the professionals coming together to pay tribute to the Great Man but I guess I have enough journalism school sentimentality left in me that it got to me

Everything was trivialized, even the film's own trivialization.

Yeah. At least Mr. Fox wanted to break into the factory!

But if the film IS like the experience of reading a magazine, then the Paris 68 segment = Positf, when it could've been Cahiers.

(Which is to say each segment of the film is a tour around impossible romanticisation.)

Well Tim, for me Paris 68 and cinephilia are pretty inextricably linked in a way that say travel magazines and Paris 68 are perhaps not - and the film is larded with visual allusions to French cinema - but yes, it's also definitely an invitation to follow the fantasies - and reading matter - of our choice.

I understand the objections to the film and agree with a lot of them, but I also think a lot of them miss what it's actually trying to do. It's not really a consideration of French life and culture, American expats, politics, race or art. It's about the experience of living somewhere remote from major cultural centers and reading a magazine that touches on all of those things. Which is to say, the movie's gloss on its alleged subject matters has the superficiality and blinkered perspective of a New Yorker reader in Kansas (or in 1970s Texas). It's a love letter to the possibilities suggested by that kind of magazine to audiences for whom everything in its pages is distant and alluring.

I don't know if making a movie about that is really worth the effort, or if The New Yorker either deserves or needs that kind of valentine. But being exactly Anderson's age and having grown up in ruralish suburbia with parents who subscribed to The New Yorker, I do appreciate the impulse.

That's fair. And I suppose there's something to a director who continues making films about his own distance from most lived experiences.

Yes, it seems alright to me to have a life-is-elsewhere film set more or less entirely in the elsewhere that life supposedly is.

I also really loved the look and the texture of the whole thing, which I suspect helped me gloss over some of the things others found irritating ro slow or whatever. I was very happy to just look at that fantastical and fantastically stylish world, I am very happy to think the effort of making the movie was justified by the results (at least in so far as any movie justifies the immense amount of effort required to make it).

I saw this film on a iPad in a motel during a power outage in Morro Bay so I think I should watch it again before I comment

Finally sat down with this last night, and have already cut up a few times this morning remembering the circus strongman on the hood of the getaway car during the chase.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TLPrxqx5e8