Wes Anderson's personal feelings are still perfectly continued in The Grand Budapest Hotel. He has kept the teenage dreaminess he is most obsessed with intact, while at the same time, the elegant, chic, artistic, and ubiquitous humanism of old Europe has been recreated in his own way. In the early days of the film's release, many people criticized the film, believing that Wes Anderson failed to get out of his own way. But for these critics, perhaps they can't ignore the fact that The Grand Budapest Hotel has more reality and more brutality than Wes Anderson's previous works.
Eye-catching tones, symmetrical compositions, wide-angle shots, different rhythmic rolls...these are all iconic and obvious elements of Wes Anderson's films. Wes Anderson took this as a foundation and gradually formed his own style today. The use of these elements in The Grand Budapest Hotel is still unabashed and clearly recognizable.
Antonioni (Michelangelo Antonioni) once said, "We have to intervene in the color film, remove its usual authenticity and replace it with the authenticity of the time." The color in Wes Anderson's films often has a taste of expressionism. This has gradually emerged since "Genius", and almost every work has a unique theme color. Pink, sauce purple, light yellow, green gray, and sapphire blue are the colors that often appear on his palette. The colors used in "The Grand Budapest Hotel" are more bold and bright, with a lot of pink, purple, and red forming noble and luxurious tones. As the story progresses, the use of color becomes more diverse, but warm tones with high saturation are always Wes Anderson's favorite. The symbolism of color has actually existed since ancient times, and the use of color in Wes Anderson's films is not as paranoid as some directors want to dominate everything, and these colors are carefully designed in his deliberate place. I have to remind you: this is a fairy tale world that belongs to the director himself.
The symmetrical composition that gradually matured in "Moonrise Kingdom" has reached its extreme this time - almost every shot begins or ends with a strict and precise symmetrical layout. "When framing an image, we have to think about its effect and expression, as a master painter would do with a canvas," says Marcel Carné. Good composition does have the function of conveying meaning, because the relationship between the actor and the space is the most important factor in helping the audience understand the character's mind. Symmetrical composition in traditional films often implies the natural order of things, often associated with the divine, the monarchy. And Wes Anderson's paranoia about this composition style may be traced back to the profound influence of classical film masters represented by Lubitsch. The composition of balance, harmony and balance of power is one of the most striking features of that cinematic era. In "The Grand Budapest Hotel", from newspapers to currency, from pastries to restaurants, Wes Anderson almost personally created the Cowmouth Republic and devoted himself entirely to it. He rejects CG and is instead keen to use models to make every scene. The symmetrical composition in "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is not rigid, he will add some unique arrangements in the mise-en-scene to embellish and enrich the picture. While modern directors find ways to use asymmetrical compositions to psychological effect, Wes Anderson is still obsessed with divine symmetry and balance in every shot, a paranoia that has become Wes Anderson's A state, not a choice.
"It's not the camera that dances, it's me who dances." This is a quote from Fred Astaire. The choice and use of shots is always the most delicate subject in a movie. Wes Anderson still has his own style in this regard. Being good at using wide-angle lenses to increase the depth of field of the picture is another aspect of his works. "The Grand Budapest Hotel" uses a large number of wide-angle lenses to capture the far, medium and close distances at the same time, which not only maintains the integrity of the space, but also moves in depth or laterally with slow push rails or panning lenses, making the audience not only Focus on the character in front of you, but be guided by the director to move your eyes involuntarily. As for the movement of the camera, Wes Anderson is also good at changing the rhythm of the pan and tilt shots to achieve specific effects. In scenes with two or more characters, he often uses multiple sets of reaction shots with sudden changes in speed. In these ways, Wes Anderson is very good at showing the relationship between characters and characters, or between characters and space in the same scene. Of course, this kind of relationship is often sad or happy, untouchable or detached.
There is never a shortage of big-name actors and one of the reasons Wes Anderson's films are always talked about. The cast in The Grand Budapest Hotel is also surprisingly large. Tilda Swinton bluntly wrote back to Wes Anderson at the beginning of filming that most people are probably already familiar with, and it is often the moment Wes Anderson is selected for the role. Anderson has already created the prototype of the character. Ralph Fiennes (Ralph Fiennes) played the elegant but imperfect Mr. Gustav difficult, he played a light-weight role in the film, plus a group of outstanding supporting characters with distinctive personalities , together with a performance that is absurd but true enough. In Wes Anderson's own words, it's about "getting the actors you've always liked to perform like never before," which may be one of his secrets to always attracting big-name movie stars.
Wes Anderson has always been able to write scripts like stories. When everyone watches "The Grand Budapest Hotel" for the first time, it is impossible not to notice the obvious changes in the frame, which is almost never seen in previous works. 16:9, 1.85:1, and 1.37:1, different aspect ratios symbolize the 80s, 60s and 30s, respectively. The nesting doll-like story structure did not cause any trouble for the audience to watch the movie with the changes of the scene frame. In addition, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" still has chapter-style transitions and explanatory text. Narrative is a very beneficial aid that pushes the audience's experience to a new level. Wes Anderson's narrative is also - rather classical rather than conservative - advocating the linear narrative of the chapters, as if he is telling the audience a story that is absurd and true to himself, but is true and convincing. .
The background of "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is set in the war years, and when there is war, there will be violence, so the blood in the film is relatively rare in Wes Anderson's previous works. In the past, Wes Anderson focused on how modern people save the rift between family, friendship and love, or the pursuit and struggle for self-identity in the face of a world that is alien to them. And this time, Wes Anderson has set his sights on Old Europe, a lost golden age, a fascinating world of prosperity. The very violent scenes in the original script, such as the one where Jeff Goldblum's agent Kovacs' fingers are cut off, were originally just a joke in the script. And in the film, Wes Anderson "wanted to make it look funny, but also very cruel at the same time." Because such atrocities occur on characters who have established emotional resonance with the audience, it is a reflection of the fact that the entire world cannot escape the claws of atrocities. In the face of an unstoppable war machine, even if it pays the full price, as the most insignificant individual of his kind, he will revolt against all odds. Because "in the barbaric slaughterhouse, there is still a glimmer of civilization, which is human nature."
Wes Anderson has stated more than once that much of the inspiration for The Grand Budapest Hotel came from the work of Stefan Zweig and himself. Zweig's words often have a dramatic flavor, and the characters' peculiar behaviors are often sudden, always showing a hope of living completely in an imaginary world, while Wes Anderson is fascinated by the film. Create those real cruel but hilarious adult fairy tale worlds in the world, and the characters in this world will make shocking and inexplicable absurd actions out of the blue. These gentle, art-loving protagonists often hide a radical and rebellious truth, and under a serene exterior, they are bent on breaking through. There are striking similarities and intersections in the defections from real life shown by Wes Anderson and Stephen Zweig. Rather than the writers played by Tom Wilkinson and Jude Law being the obvious archetype of Zweig, Mr. Gustav is the embodiment of Zweig's soul— Tirelessly pursuing a world constructed with his own taste and passion, facing the harsh atrocities of war, he strives to maintain his graceful personality, even in a destructive way.
Some people may think that "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is Wes Anderson's copy of himself, and some people may criticize that his films are always too deliberately weird and not too new. Wes Anderson will definitely happily discuss with you the technique in his films, the structure, or the history of films, books and pop music he loves, but in the face of these criticisms, when asked how to interpret his own work, He was always silent. Edward Norton, who has worked with Wes Anderson many times, said: "I'm starting to think a lot of Wes' films are about the same thing. You're born into a family that disappoints you or doesn't live up to expectations, so You just create the family you want. Maybe it's a way people struggle. So many of the characters in Wes' films are actually creating another group that can support them. I think that's a sentimental point of view. "Wes Anderson once said of himself: "I've been trying to avoid repeating myself, but my movies seem to repeat themselves. It's not what I did on purpose, all I did was to make the film Staying personal rather than just entertaining the audience. I know there are critics who say my films are more form than substance and get in the way of character development in pursuit of form. But every decision I make is just to drive character development ."
When Wes Anderson finished a movie, he left everything in that movie. This director, who likes 16 or 17 the most, stubbornly builds his own world, and is completely addicted to it. Absurd, true, charming, brutal. Always pursue and remain independent and free - Wes Anderson movies are just too much Wes Anderson.
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