Wes Anderson's third feature film "The Genius" is the third film he wrote in cooperation with Owen Wilson, and it is also the last feature film written by them. After that, Owen Wilson's reputation as an actor grew, and they never worked together. The film originated from the divorce experience of Wes Anderson's parents, but it has nothing to do with the divorce itself. Instead, it records how a broken family is finally healed after the return of a runaway father.
In this movie, Wes Anderson greatly expanded the cast. There are only three or four main actors in "Bottled Rockets", and three main actors in "Youth and Younger". In "The Genius", this number has been doubled. This is the beginning of the Wes Anderson movie all-star lineup. "The Genius" has three Oscar winners and five Oscar nominees, which is beginning to reflect. His art of reconciliation between actors and characters.
He took advantage of the actor’s personal characteristics to shape the corresponding role accordingly: Gene Hackman flickered left and right in the actor, turning the screen into a sports field; Bill Murray once again reflected his sadness and sorrow and reality. Sober cognition; Gwyneth Paltrow tends to express her character's mental state with tiny facial expressions. Ben Stiller's character wears red sportswear at all times, hoping to be eye-catching enough to be seen in an emergency. And he also used physical exaggerated performances to reflect this alertness.
This consistency between actors and roles is also reflected in the plot of the movie. A scene in which Royle Trenbaum confessed to Estherine Trenbaum's illness caused Wes Anderson to worry about the rationality of the plot. Royle lied that he was seriously ill but accidentally confessed the truth, and then the plot of lying in a panic seemed a bit far-fetched in real life, but the two people's interpretation of the role gave the scene a rationality.
However, the creation process of this film has not been smooth sailing. Gene Hackman was not interested in the role at the beginning, and showed rebellious mood after the shooting. This rebellious mood even bullied Wes Anderson to the extent that other crew members, especially Bill Murray, needed to support Wes Anderson's work. The bird named Mordecai in the movie was even kidnapped and asked for ransom. Fortunately, the film recovered 71 million US dollars in the box office at a cost of 21 million US dollars. In terms of style, Wes Anderson's gradually strengthened photographic style in future films has also begun to take shape.
The attention of characters in Webster's movies
In this movie, Wes Anderson once again awakens attention to repetitive compulsion. The characters in his films These films are endlessly trapped in the repetition of trauma, and unconsciously reach a settlement. "The Genius Family" builds on the Max and Herman in "Youth and Younger" and portrays a large family that has experienced trauma. They have their own thoughts, but they are silent, and in the end they can only choose a destructive way of dispelling them in depression. If the audience cannot understand the subtle emotions of Max in "Youth and Younger" or "Genius Family", it is easy to treat these works as simple family comedies.
This subtlety may be his deliberate intention. Wes Anderson's films often only provide viewers with two choices: empathy or watching the movie in confusion. Wes Anderson's film background interpretation is very little. In the film, he only provides the audience with a little bit of clues to help understand. But once it is missed, it is difficult to understand its emotional core. In "Youth", the whole movie mentions Marx Fisher's dead mother only twice, and the reason behind Digenan's 75-year plan in "Bottle Rocket" is never even mentioned. "The Genius Family" greatly expanded the family members, and Wes Anderson can only convey the character's character through the meticulous setting. In the tidbits, he also expressed his concerns about whether this method can correctly convey emotions. Wes Anderson hides the plight of the characters in the details of the movie. The characters in the movie hide the driving force of their behavior in the calm emotions. If these details are ignored, the audience will easily find the characters in Wes Anderson's movies so incredible.
The Class Attribute in "The Genius Family"
Wes Anderson's films are particularly focused on the failed, hesitant and depressed characters in the film: they aspire to be part of an exclusive environment, with emotions of mourning and a desire for family. In "Bottle Rocket", this role belongs to Owen Wilson, in "Bottle Rocket" it is Max Fisher, who is trying his best to become an adult, and in "The Genius Family", it is Iraq who strives to become a member of the Trenbaum family. EliCash or even Royle Trenbaum. Eli Cash pointed out this desire in a sentence near the end of the film: "Ialways wanted to be a Tenenbaum".
Eli Kash’s desire to become a member of the Trenbaum family is not surprising. Throughout the film, he is portrayed as an outsider struggling to be accepted by his family. But after him, Royle, the man whose surname is Trenbaum, replied: "Me too." After running away from home, he returned home for the selfish reasons of lack of money, hoping to be a member of the family-but what does it take to become Trenbaum?
In "The Genius Family", Wes Anderson showed his keen sense of class. From the perspective of class, the English names of Royal and Cash represent two methods of determining class affiliation: royal is royal, and throne is a class that can be inherited, except for birth or marriage. The way can become royal. In the film, Royle's fatherhood has also become a testament to the blood relationship. The English cash of Cash, that is, money, is a more obvious class orientation. However, neither of these constitutes a sufficient condition for entering the Trenbaum family. The four Trenbaums are distinguished from these two outliers in a unique way: they have received elite education since they were young, and they have become financial experts, writers or athletes respectively. Estelene Trenbaum, who is truly the head of the family, even wrote a book called "The Genius Family" to record this process of parenting, all of which are usually regarded as efforts to pursue the goals of the elite.
Therefore, we can consider the most decisive factor for class in "The Genius Family": culture. Eatherine Trenbaum's educational program provided her children with an understanding of different classes of cultural products, and the exchanges and efforts provided by Royle were an impact and attempt to disintegrate this class system. Unlike the education of Etheline, which has distinct elite characteristics, when Royle interacts with his children and grandchildren, he engages them in activities that have nothing to do with the elite. In flashbacks, Royle takes the children for outdoor activities, and at the moment, Ali and Uzi, who are their grandchildren, are stealing in the mall and throwing water balls at the cars on the road: Aatherine carefully teaches the children the correct culture, Royle wants children to experience various cultures.
Eli Cash is even more difficult to integrate into this family. He writes in a popular way. However, in contrast, Margot Trenbaum in the film as an example, her work was put on the stage to attract the elite class in suits and leather shoes instead of facing the street public. This reflects the biggest gap between him and the Trenbaum family: he doesn't understand cultural hierarchy.
This seems to be inseparable from the age of the film. The costumes of the actors in "The Genius Family" have never changed from beginning to end, and they clearly have the colors of the 1970s. And Wes Anderson also mentioned in the tidbits that the cigarettes Margaret smoked also came from the 70s. Thus, Royle is like a reflection of working-class men in the 1970s. At the end of the movie, he accepted a job as an elevator operator, looking forward to the generous pay he would get after joining the union. At the same time, Royle used outdated racist language when addressing Henry. Royle is described in the movie as a typical 1970s working-class male stereotype: reckless, uneducated, and racist.
The 1970s marked the end of the American and global economic era. In a decade, inflation and unemployment have remained high. For the first time since the Great Depression, the share of wealth controlled by the top 1% of the population has dropped significantly. In the 1970s, the voting of the working class led to Nixon's rise to power. What followed was a neo-liberal change in American economic policy, which destroyed trade unions, relaxed control over enterprises, and transferred wealth back to the highest strata of American society, completing the reconstruction of the economic elite. The working class represented by Royle voted, but in the end it did not usher in a good ending.
The class metaphors in Wes Anderson's films seem to go beyond this. His previous film "Youth and Youth" stopped talking about the fate of Max after the abrupt end of the family carnival in the school auditorium. After everyone returned to their own life track, Max in "Youth" did not surpass his class. In "The Genius Family", Royle successfully sutured the cracks in the family and died in the company of his son. Although both films ended in a satisfying slow motion, their reality metaphors have gone in another direction. This difference leads to a deeper topic: how Wes Anderson’s film aesthetics can help or hinder the content The influence of the audience?
Concluding remarks
From the beginning of this movie, Wes Anderson has gradually become a primitive existence in American movies. He seems to have unlimited confidence, is keen on gorgeous dialogue, has the talent to surprise people and provide endless jokes. His works show a sense of wholeness. He has worked hard to reach a completely accurate standard for each set in the film, which seems to be quietly cultivating a poetic world of self. His first three films were all shot in a closed, semi-exclusive, self-contained world, which separates the people in his movie world from the outside world and is self-contained: "Bottled Rocket" belongs to time control I have three middle-class Texas youths in my hands; the stories in "Youth and Younger" all take place in a school, and "The Genius" focuses on the fallen Trenbaum family.
These films all took place in the overhead world of Wes Anderson. In "The Genius Family", although the film was shot in New York, Wes Anderson deliberately concealed the landmarks of New York so that the film seemed to take place in an overhead scene. The formalization of Wes Anderson's film is not yet so. In "Youth and Younger", the curtain is marked with the month as a reminder of time, making the audience feel that all this seems to happen on the stage. In "The Genius Family", the content of the film is displayed as the content of the book. Regarding the influence of the aesthetics in Wes Anderson's movies, some film critics believe that this aesthetic creates hypocrisy and prevents the emotional interaction between the audience and the characters. They compare the characters in Wes Anderson's movies to showcases or fashion hangers. : Only for display. Others believe that the rich details in Wes Anderson's films are just a guarantee of authenticity.
Behind the scenes, Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson, who co-wrote the two films, both pointed out the "fable" quality of their films. When making movies, you can't take this kind of excessive stylization and drama seriously. Wes Anderson's film constantly emphasizes its dual attributes: it is not only a movie, but also a stage or novel in a movie. He presented a happy ending in these two films, and deliberately let the audience understand the fictional nature of this story-from this perspective, the audience can better understand the subtleties of Wes Anderson's films.
View more about The Royal Tenenbaums reviews
