April 15, 2014 (Series 28: 11)
Wes Anderson, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (2001, 110 minutes)
Directed by Wes Anderson
Cinematography by Robert D. Yeoman
Written by Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson
Produced by Wes Anderson, Barry Mendel and Scott Rudin
Edited by Dylan Tichenor
Gene Hackman ... Royal Tenenbaum
Anjelica Huston ... Etheline Tenenbaum
Ben Stiller ... Chas Tenenbaum
Gwyneth Paltrow ... Margot Tenenbaum
Luke Wilson ... Richie Tenenbaum
Owen Wilson ... Eli Cash
Bill Murray ... Raleigh St. Clair
Danny Glover ... Henry Sherman
Alec Baldwin ... Narrator
Wes Anderson (director) (b. Wesley Wales Anderson, May 1,
1969 in Houston, Texas) wrote 12 films: 2014 The Grand
Budapest Hotel, 2013 Castello Cavalcanti (Short), 2012 Cousin
Ben Troop Screening with Jason Schwartzman (Short), 2012
Moonrise Kingdom, 2009 Fantastic Mr. Fox, 2007 Hotel
Chevalier (Short), 2007 The Darjeeling Limited, 2004 The Life
Aquatic with Steve Zissou, 2001 The Royal Tenenbaums, 1998
Rushmore, 1996 Bottle Rocket, and 1994 Bottle Rocket (Short).
He also directed 13: 2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2013
Castello Cavalcanti (Short), 2013 Prada: Candy (Short), 2012
Cousin Ben Troop Screening with Jason Schwartzman (Short),
2012 Moonrise Kingdom, 2009 Fantastic Mr. Fox, 2007 Hotel
Chevalier (Short), 2007 The Darjeeling Limited, 2004 The Life
Aquatic with Steve Zissou, 2001 The Royal Tenenbaums, 1998
Rushmore, 1996 Bottle Rocket, and 1994 Bottle Rocket (Short).
Robert D. Yeoman (cinematographer) (b. Robert David
Yeoman, March 10, 1951 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was the
cinematographer for 47 films and television shows, including
2014 Love & Mercy, 2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2013 The
Heat, 2012 Moonrise Kingdom, 2011 Bridesmaids, 2008 Yes
Man, 2008 A Matador's Mistress, 2007 The Darjeeling Limited,
2005 The Squid and the Whale, 2004 The Life Aquatic with Steve
Zissou, 2001 The Royal Tenenbaums, 2000 Beautiful, 1999
Dogma, 1998 Rushmore, 1997 Dog Watch (Video), 1997 White
Lies, 1996 Bottle Rocket, 1994 Somebody to Love, 1993 The
Paint Job, 1993 “Double Deception” (TV Movie), 1991 Past
Midnight, 1990 Too Much Sun, 1989 The Wizard, 1989
Drugstore Cowboy, 1988 Johnny Be Good, 1987 Rampage, 1986
“C.A.T. Squad” (TV Movie), and 1983 Hero.
Gene Hackman ... Royal Tenenbaum (b. Eugene Allen
Hackman, January 30, 1930 in San Bernardino, California) is the
winner of two Academy Awards: 1993, Best Actor in a
Supporting Role for Unforgiven (1992), and 1972, Best Actor in
a Leading Role for The French Connection (1971). He appeared
in 99 films and television shows, among them 2004 Welcome to
Mooseport, 2003 Runaway Jury, 2001 Behind Enemy Lines,
2001 The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001 Heist, 2001 The Mexican,
1998 Enemy of the State, 1997 Absolute Power, 1996 The
Chamber, 1996 Extreme Measures, 1995 Get Shorty, 1995
Anderson—THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS—2
Crimson Tide, 1995 The Quick and the Dead, 1994 Wyatt Earp,
1993 The Firm, 1992 Unforgiven, 1991 Class Action, 1990
Postcards from the Edge, 1989 The Package, 1988 Mississippi
Burning, 1988 Another Woman, 1988 Bat*21, 1987 No Way Out,
1987 Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, 1986 Hoosiers, 1985
Twice in a Lifetime, 1983 Uncommon Valor, 1983 Under Fire,
1981 Reds, 1980 Superman II, 1978 Superman, 1977 A Bridge
Too Far, 1975 Bite the Bullet, 1975 Night Moves, 1975 French
Connection II, 1974 Young Frankenstein, 1974 The
Conversation, 1973 Scarecrow, 1972 The Poseidon Adventure,
1972 Prime Cut, 1972 Cisco Pike, 1971 The French Connection,
1971 The Hunting Party, 1970 I Never Sang for My Father, 1969
Marooned, 1969 Downhill Racer, 1969 The Gypsy Moths, 1967
Banning, 1967 Bonnie and Clyde, 1967 “The F.B.I.” (TV Series),
1964 Lilith, 1963 “Route 66” (TV Series), and 1963 “Naked
City” (TV Series).
Anjelica Huston ... Etheline Tenenbaum (b. July 8, 1951 in
Santa Monica, California) is the winner of the 1986 Academy
Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Prizzi's Honor
(1985). She appeared in 77 films and television shows, including
2012-2013 “Smash” (TV Series, 32 episodes), 2011 The Big
Year, 2010 When in Rome, 2008-2009 “Medium” (TV Series, 8
episodes), 2008 The Kreutzer Sonata, 2007 The Darjeeling
Limited, 2005 These Foolish Things, 2004 The Life Aquatic with
Steve Zissou, 2002 Blood Work, 2001 The Royal Tenenbaums,
2000 The Golden Bowl, 1998 Buffalo '66, 1995 The Crossing
Guard, 1993 Addams Family Values, 1993 “And the Band
Played On” (TV Movie), 1993 Manhattan Murder Mystery, 1991
The Addams Family, 1990 The Grifters, 1989 Enemies: A Love
Story, 1989 Crimes and Misdemeanors, 1989 “Lonesome Dove”
(TV Mini-Series), 1988 A Handful of Dust, 1987 The Dead, 1987
Gardens of Stone, 1985 Prizzi's Honor, 1984 The Ice Pirates,
1984 This Is Spinal Tap, 1983 A Rose for Emily (Short), 1982
Frances, 1981 The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1976 The Last
Tycoon, 1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1969 Hamlet,
and 1967 Casino Royale.
Ben Stiller ... Chas Tenenbaum (b. Benjamin Edward Stiller,
November 30, 1965 in New York City, New York) appeared in
117 films and TV shows, among them 2013 “Big Time in
Hollywood, FL” (TV Series), 2012-2013 “Burning Love” (TV
Series), 2013 “The Birthday Boys” (TV Series), 2013 The Secret
Life of Walter Mitty, 2005-2013 “Arrested Development” (TV
Series), 2013 He's Way More Famous Than You, 2011 Tower
Heist, 2010 Little Fockers, 2010 Greenberg, 2009 Night at the
Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, 2008 Tropic Thunder, 20042007 “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (TV Series), 2007 The
Heartbreak Kid, 2006 Night at the Museum, 2006 School for
Scoundrels, 2005 Madagascar, 2004 Meet the Fockers, 2004
Starsky & Hutch, 2002 “The Simpsons” (TV Series), 2001 The
Royal Tenenbaums, 2001 Zoolander, 2000 Meet the Parents,
1999 The Suburbans, 1998 There's Something About Mary, 1997
“The Larry Sanders Show” (TV Series), 1996 The Cable Guy,
1994 Reality Bites, 1992 “The Ben Stiller Show” (TV Series),
1989 Next of Kin, 1987 Empire of the Sun, 1987 Hot Pursuit, and
2002 “Reel Comedy” (TV Series). He also directed 14 films and
television shows: 2013 The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, 20102011 “Stiller & Meara” (TV Series short, 5 episodes), 2009 “The
Station” (TV Movie), 2008 Tropic Thunder, 2007 “Untitled
Christine Taylor Project” (TV Movie), 2001 Zoolander, 1999
“Heat Vision and Jack” (TV Short), 1996 The Cable Guy, 1994
Reality Bites, 1992-1993 “The Ben Stiller Show” (TV Series, 9
episodes), 1990 “The Ben Stiller Show” (TV Series), 1989 “Elvis
Stories” (Short), 1987 “Saturday Night Live” (TV Series), and
1987 “The Hustler of Money” (TV Short).
Gwyneth Paltrow ... Margot Tenenbaum (b. Gwyneth Kate
Paltrow, September 27, 1972 in Los Angeles, California) is the
winner of the 1999 Academy Award for Best Actress in a
Leading Role for Shakespeare in Love (1998). She appeared in
47 films and television shows, including 2010-2014 “Glee” (TV
Series), 2013 Iron Man 3, 2012 The Avengers, 2010 Country
Strong, 2010 Iron Man 2, 2008 Iron Man, 2006 Running with
Scissors, 2006 Infamous, 2003 Sylvia, 2002 Possession, 2001
The Royal Tenenbaums, 2000 Bounce, 1999 The Talented Mr.
Ripley, 1998 Shakespeare in Love, 1998 Hush, 1998 Great
Expectations, 1998 Sliding Doors, 1996 Emma, 1996 The
Pallbearer, 1995 Jefferson in Paris, 1994 Mrs. Parker and the
Vicious Circle, 1993 Malice, 1991 Hook, and 1991 Shout.
Luke Wilson ... Richie Tenenbaum (b. Luke Cunningham
Wilson, September 21, 1971 in Dallas, Texas) appeared in 56
films and TV shows, including 2014 A Many Splintered Thing,
2014 Ride, 2013 The Skeleton Twins, 2011-2013 “Enlightened”
(TV Series, 15 episodes), 2012 Meeting Evil, 2009 Middle Men,
2008 Tenure, 2007 Blonde Ambition, 2007 3:10 to Yuma, 2007
Blades of Glory, 2006 Hoot, 2006 Mini's First Time, 2005 The
Family Stone, 2004 Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,
2004 Around the World in 80 Days, 2003 Legally Blonde 2: Red,
White & Blonde, 2003 Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, 2003
Masked and Anonymous, 2001 The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001
Legally Blonde, 2000 Charlie's Angels, 2000 Bad Seed, 1998
Rushmore, 1998 Home Fries, 1997 Bongwater, 1997 Scream 2,
1997 Telling Lies in America, 1996 Bottle Rocket, and 1994
Bottle Rocket (Short).
Owen Wilson ... Eli Cash (b. Owen Cunningham Wilson,
November 18, 1968 in Dallas, Texas) appeared in 54 films and
television shows, among them 2014 Inherent Vice, 2014 The
Grand Budapest Hotel, 2013 You Are Here, 2013 The Internship,
2011 The Big Year, 2011 Midnight in Paris, 2010 Little Fockers,
Anderson—THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS—3
2009 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, 2008
Marley & Me, 2007 The Darjeeling Limited, 2006 Night at the
Museum, 2005 Wedding Crashers, 2004 Meet the Fockers, 2004
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, 2004 Around the World in 80
Days, 2004 Starsky & Hutch, 2002 I Spy, 2001 Behind Enemy
Lines, 2001 The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001 Zoolander, 2000 Meet
the Parents, 1999 The Haunting, 1999 Breakfast of Champions,
1998 Permanent Midnight, 1998 Armageddon, 1997 Anaconda,
1996 The Cable Guy, 1996 Bottle Rocket, and 1994 Bottle Rocket
(Short).
Bill Murray ... Raleigh St. Clair (b. William James Murray,
September 21, 1950 in Wilmette, Illinois) appeared in 74 films
and television shows, including 2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel,
2014 The Monuments Men, 2012 Moonrise Kingdom, 2010
Passion Play, 2009 Zombieland, 2009 The Limits of Control,
2008 Get Smart, 2007 The Darjeeling Limited, 2005 Broken
Flowers, 2004 The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, 2003 Coffee
and Cigarettes, 2003 Lost in Translation, 2001 Speaking of Sex,
2001 The Royal Tenenbaums, 2000 Charlie's Angels, 2000
Hamlet, 1999 Cradle Will Rock, 1998 Rushmore, 1998 Wild
Things, 1996 Space Jam, 1996 Larger Than Life, 1996 Kingpin,
1994 Ed Wood, 1993 Mad Dog and Glory, 1977-1993 “Saturday
Night Live” (TV Series, 77 episodes), 1993 Groundhog Day,
1989 Ghostbusters II, 1988 Scrooged, 1986 Little Shop of
Horrors, 1984 The Razor's Edge, 1984 Ghostbusters, 1982
Tootsie, 1981 “Steve Martin's Best Show Ever” (TV Movie),
1981 Stripes, 1980 Caddyshack, 1980 Where the Buffalo Roam,
1979 Meatballs, and 1976 Next Stop, Greenwich Village.
Danny Glover ... Henry Sherman (b. Danny Lebern Glover,
July 22, 1946 in San Francisco, California) appeared in 151 films
and TV shows, among them 2014 Long Day Journey, 2014
Tokarev, 2013 Extraction, 2013 Tula: The Revolt, 2013
Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight, 2013 Space Warriors, 2013
From Above, 2013 Highland Park, 2013 The Bouquet, 2012 Sins
Expiation, 2012 LUV, 2011 Donovan's Echo, 2010 I Want to Be
a Soldier, 2010 Death at a Funeral, 2009 Night Train, 2007
Battle for Terra, 2006 Dreamgirls, 2005 Missing in America,
2005 “The Exonerated” (TV Movie), 2001 The Royal
Tenenbaums, 1999 The Monster, 1998 Beloved, 1998 Lethal
Weapon 4, 1997 The Rainmaker, 1994 Angels in the Outfield,
1994 Maverick, 1992 Lethal Weapon 3, 1991 Grand Canyon,
1991 A Rage in Harlem, 1991 Flight of the Intruder, 1990
Predator 2, 1990 To Sleep with Anger, 1989 Lethal Weapon 2,
1989 “Lonesome Dove” (TV Mini-Series), 1988 Bat*21, 1987
“Mandela” (TV Movie), 1987 Lethal Weapon, 1985 The StandIn, 1985 The Color Purple, 1985 Silverado, 1985 Witness, 1984
Places in the Heart, 1984 Iceman, 1981 “Hill Street Blues” (TV
Series), 1981 Chu Chu and the Philly Flash, 1979 “Lou Grant”
(TV Series), and 1979 Escape from Alcatraz.
Alec Baldwin ... Narrator (b. Alexander Rae Baldwin III, April
3, 1958 in Massapequa, Long Island, New York) appeared in 99
films and TV shows, including 2013 Blue Jasmine, 2006-2013
“30 Rock” (TV Series. 139 episodes), 2007-2012 “Saturday
Night Live” (TV Series), 2012 To Rome with Love, 2009 It's
Complicated, 2009 My Sister's Keeper, 2007 Brooklyn Rules,
2007 Suburban Girl, 2006 The Good Shepherd, 2006 Running
with Scissors, 2006 The Departed, 2006 Mini's First Time, 2005
Fun with Dick and Jane, 2005 Elizabethtown, 2004 The Aviator,
2004 The Last Shot, 2003 Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat, 2002
“Path to War” (TV Movie), 2001 The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001
Pearl Harbor, 2000 “Nuremberg” (TV Mini-Series), 1999
Notting Hill, 1999 The Confession, 1997 The Edge, 1996 Ghosts
of Mississippi, 1996 The Juror, 1995 “A Streetcar Named
Desire” (TV Movie), 1994 The Shadow, 1993 Malice, 1992
Glengarry Glen Ross, 1990 Alice, 1990 The Hunt for Red
October, 1988 Talk Radio, 1988 Married to the Mob, 1988
Beetlejuice, 1984-1985 “Knots Landing” (TV Series, 40
episodes), and 1963 “The Doctors” (TV Series).
From Wikipedia:
Wesley Wales "Wes" Anderson (born May 1, 1969) is
an American film director and screenwriter. His films are known
for their distinctive visual and narrative style.
He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best
Original Screenplay for The Royal Tenenbaums in 2001 and
Moonrise Kingdom in 2012, and for the Academy Award for
Best Animated Feature for Fantastic Mr. Fox in 2009.
Early life
Wesley Wales Anderson was born on May 1, 1969, in
Houston, Texas. He graduated from St. John's School in Houston
in 1987, which he later used as a prominent location throughout
Rushmore. Anderson graduated from the University of Texas at
Austin in 1990, where he met future frequent collaborator Owen
Wilson.
Film career
Anderson's first film, Bottle Rocket (1996), based on a
short film that he made with Luke and Owen Wilson, was a
crime caper focused on a group of young Texans aspiring to
achieve major heists. Though well reviewed, it performed poorly
at the box office.
Anderson's next film, Rushmore (1998), a quirky
comedy about a high school student's crush on an elementary
school teacher, starring Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman, was
a critical success. Murray has since appeared in every Anderson
film to date. In 2000, filmmaker Martin Scorsese praised Bottle
Rocket and Rushmore.
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Anderson's next
comedy-drama film about a successful artistic New York City
family and its ostracized patriarch, represented Anderson's
Anderson—THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS—4
greatest success until Moonrise Kingdom in 2012. Earning more
than $50 million in domestic box office receipts, the film was
nominated for an Academy Award and ranked by an Empire poll
as the 159th greatest film ever made.
Anderson's next feature, The Life Aquatic with Steve
Zissou (2004), about a Jacques Cousteau-esque documentary
filmmaker played by Murray, serves as a classic example of
Anderson's style but its critical reception was less favorable than
his previous films and its box office did not match the heights of
The Royal Tenenbaums. In September 2006, following the
disappointing commercial and critical reception of The Life
Aquatic with Steve Zissou,
Steely Dan's Walter Becker
and Donald Fagen released a
tongue-in-cheek "letter of
intervention" of Anderson's
artistic "malaise."
Proclaiming themselves to be
fans of "World Cinema" and
Anderson in particular, they
offered Anderson their
soundtrack services for his
Darjeeling Limited, including
lyrics for a title track.
The Darjeeling
Limited (2007), about three
emotionally distant brothers
traveling together on a train in India, reflected the more dramatic
tone of The Royal Tennenbaums but faced similar criticisms to
The Life Aquatic. Anderson has acknowledged that he went to
India to film the 2007 movie, partly as a tribute to the Indian
filmmaker Satyajit Ray, whose "films have also inspired all my
other movies in different ways" (the film is dedicated to him).
The films starred Anderson staples Jason Schwartzman and
Owen Wilson in addition to Adrien Brody and the script was cowritten by Anderson, Schwartzman and Roman Coppola.
In 2008, Anderson was hired to write the screenplay of
the American adaptation of My Best Friend, a French film, for
producer Brian Grazer, Anderson's first draft was titled "The
Rosenthaler Suite".
Anderson's stop-motion animation adaptation of the
Roald Dahl book Fantastic Mr. Fox was released in 2009.
Although the film did not earn much more than its production
budget, the film was highly praised and nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Following the critical success of Fantastic Mr. Fox,
Anderson made perhaps his best received film to date, Moonrise
Kingdom, which opened the Cannes Film Festival 2012. The
film, emblematic of Anderson's style, was a financial success and
earned Anderson another Academy Award nomination for his
screenplay.
Anderson's latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel
(2014), starred Ralph Fiennes, Jude Law, and Saoirse Ronan,
along with his regular collaborators Bill Murray, Owen Wilson,
and Jason Schwartzman. Set in the 1930s, it followed the
adventures of M. Gustave, the hotel's concierge, making "a
marvelous mockery of history, turning its horrors into a series of
graceful jokes and mischievous gestures," according to the New
York Times.
Anderson has also created several notable short films. In
addition to the original Bottle Rocket short, Anderson made the
Paris-set Hotel Chevalier (2007), which was created as a
prologue to The Darjeeling Limited and starred Jason
Schwartzman and Natalie Portman, and the Italy-set Castello
Cavalcanti (2013), which was produced by Prada and starred
Jason Schwartzman as an unsuccessful race-car driver.
Additionally, he has directed a number of television commercials
for companies such as Stella Artois and Prada, including an
elaborate American Express ad, in which he starred as himself.
Since Rushmore, each of Anderson's films has been
made by his own production
company, "American Empirical
Pictures".
Anderson's cinematic
influences include François
Truffaut, Louis Malle, Satyajit
Ray, John Huston, Mike Nichols,
Hal Ashby, Stanley Kubrick,
Orson Welles, and Roman
Polanski.
Personal life
Anderson is dating
Lebanese writer and voice actress
Juman Malouf. He lives in New
York City but has spent extensive
time in Paris.
His brother is artist Eric Chase Anderson, who
illustrated the Criterion Collection releases of Anderson's films
and provided the voice of Kristofferson in Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Recurring collaborators
Anderson's films feature many of the same actors, crew
members, and other collaborators, including the Wilson brothers
(Owen, Luke, and Andrew), Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe,
Seymour Cassel, Anjelica Huston, Jason Schwartzman, Kumar
Pallana and son Dipak Pallana, Stephen Dignan and Brian
Tenenbaum, and Eric Chase Anderson (Anderson's brother).
Other frequent collaborators include writer Noah Baumbach
(who co-wrote The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Fantastic
Mr. Fox, with Anderson co-producing his film The Squid and the
Whale), Owen Wilson (who co-wrote three of Anderson's feature
films), cinematographer Robert Yeoman (A.S.C.), music
supervisor Randall Poster, and composer Mark Mothersbaugh.
Kent Jones: “The Royal Tenenbaums: Faded Glories”
(Criterion Notes)
Simply stated, Wes Anderson is the most original
presence in American film comedy since Preston Sturges. He is
as boundlessly confident as Sturges was in his heyday, and he
has a similarly keen ear for gaudy dialogue; a gift for surprise
and for topping one joke with a bigger one; a knack for rooting
out archetypes hitherto untouched in movies; and a penchant for
making films that feel like pageants, composed of a
democratically diverse cross section of humanity. There the
similarities end. Unlike Sturges, Anderson is fixated on failure,
hesitation, depression. He has a very keen sense of class envy.
Each of his three films is set within a sheltered, semi-exclusive,
self-contained universe: a triumvirate of upper-middle-class
Anderson—THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS—5
Texas youths with time on their hands in Bottle Rocket, a boys’
prep school in Rushmore, a family of fallen geniuses in The
Royal Tenenbaums. Each film is centered around a character
from a little lower on the economic ladder, whose aspiration to
be part of the exclusive milieu dovetails with an undercurrent of
mourning and a longing for family. Owen Wilson, Anderson’s
cowriter and most magical actor, plays the role in Bottle Rocket;
Jason Schwartzman virtually defines it as Max Fischer in
Rushmore; and Gene Hackman adds a touching dimension of
mortality to the mix with his threadbare patriarch in Tenenbaums.
Wilson’s wigged-out Eli Cash underscores the yearning, the
overgrown boy who “always wanted to be a Tenenbaum.”
Anderson is a fluid quick-change artist who takes
mischievous delight in shifting registers within a film, but he’s
also extremely careful to let his characters’ emotional dilemmas
take root and flower. In one instant, you’re watching the most
flamboyant expository setup: Tenenbaums’ opening index of
failure, set to “Hey Jude,” or the private detective’s file on
“adopted daughter”
Margot
Tenenbaum’s
indiscretions;
Rushmore’s
hilarious checklist of
Max’s
extracurricular
activities. Then,
almost before you
have time to catch
your breath, you’re
into a moment that’s
bursting with life, as
surprising as
anything in early Renoir. Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums
are both very fastidious films—the framing is always neat and
foursquare, the action shaped into compact, unitlike scenes
(Bottle Rocket, a lyrical idyll disguised as a run from the law, is a
looser movie that floats across the screen like a ribbon in the
wind). But their formality is emotionally grounded, empathically
tied to the depressed characters and their rock-hard defense
mechanisms. And the moment captured within each scene is
often impossibly fragile, a matter of mood, posture, overcast
skies. For instance, Max and his father (Seymour Cassel) having
a talk about life, the son in his school blazer and the father in his
dull winter jacket and earmuffs, as they walk through a lowermiddle-class neighborhood at the end of an autumn afternoon.
It’s a little wonder of a scene, with a heartbreaking simplicity.
Richie’s and Margot’s visits to the rooftop of the Tenenbaum
mansion have a similarly somber beauty, like illustrations from a
slightly risque´ children’s book.
Anderson’s attunement to his actors as individuals is
breathtaking. He fixes on their most private traits and builds their
characters accordingly: Gene Hackman’s penchant for bobbing
and weaving with his fellow actors, turning the screen into a
sports arena; Bill Murray’s wistful, sad-sack withdrawal and
real-life disenchantment; Gwyneth Paltrow’s tendency to
singularize her characterizations and narrow things down to a
finite set of gestures; Ben Stiller’s exaggeratedly physical, highvoltage comic attack. There’s a scene in Rushmore where Max is
chatting up the bombshell mom (Connie Nielsen) of his “chapel
partner” Dirk Calloway (Mason Gamble). Just as he’s intoning
about the values he’s trying to impart to his self-appointed
charge, Dirk shows up and Mrs. Calloway’s attention shifts
without so much as a beat. Schwartzman does a perfect rendition
of the vain teenager making a show of gracefully withdrawing
from the company of an adult who doesn’t really care either way.
His reaction is so perfect (and perfectly gawky) that it appears to
have been felt rather than acted. Danny Glover and Anjelica
Huston’s first kiss in The Royal Tenenbaums: he arrives at her
excavation site (she’s an urban archeologist), decked out in
trademark blue blazer and bow tie, backs into the subject at hand,
then takes a spectacular pratfall before they both stumble into a
formal declaration of mutual affection. Other directors would
probably break the scene up into cloying, bold-faced moments
(befitting the post-Home Alone era of digitally augmented
slapstick) and end with the site workers applauding the embrace.
Anderson does it in a minimum of setups, and stays on his actors
to let the emotion
silently build after
Huston’s Etheline
Tenenbaum admits that
she hasn’t slept with a
man for eighteen years.
The awkwardness feels
real, and achingly
human.
Anderson is a
filmmaker whose work
you either get or you
don’t. For someone like
me, who connected
directly with his
sensibility from the first frame of Bottle Rocket, it’s difficult to
comprehend how anyone could not get the work of such a
devastating entertainer, such a deft manipulator of emotions.
First of all, there’s the sheer velocity of Anderson’s storytelling.
With each new film, his desire to spell things out for his audience
has decreased, in inverse proportion to his ever increasing
inventiveness. From the start, Anderson has given his audience
just enough to get by. If you blink, you may miss a gesture or a
line or a detail that alludes to a crucial aspect of a character’s
emotional life, the core dilemma that they’re hiding for fear of
being exposed and embarrassed before the world. Max Fischer,
more royalist than the king in his ever present school blazer and
games of one-upmanship with his headmaster (Brian Cox), could
easily seem like just a “creepy kid,” as a friend of mine once put
it. But that’s only if you fail to connect with his profound anger
and sadness over his mother’s death, alluded to a grand total of
two times in the entire movie, and ever so briefly at that (“What a
coincidence—we both have dead people in our families,” he says
to Olivia Williams’s Miss Cross, in an attempt to be urbanely
sympathetic; people are always using language as a shield in
Anderson’s films). Otherwise, we’re meant to infer it from his
outrageously provocative behavior, begging for negative
attention. (In Bottle Rocket, the emotional dilemma behind
Dignan’s home invasion drills and seventy-five-year planning is
never even alluded to.) Anderson doesn’t linger over the causes
but instead homes in on the nuances of the effects, and finds a
Anderson—THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS—6
double line of vision in the process: he remains within the
obsessive rhythms of his characters’ lives but finds a way of
laughing at their excesses.
Repetition compulsion is a big item in culture these
days. As a form, the expectation of change versus the reality of
sameness once seemed like a strictly art-world/philosophical
opposition, an exotic novelty in the writings of Deleuze and the
music of Glass, Reich, and Reilly. Now it’s pervasive, the perfect
form for a depressed age, from Atom Egoyan to Tsai Ming-liang,
from Abbas Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us to Manoel de
Oliveira’s I’m Going Home, from Phillip Roth’s American
trilogy to Don DeLillo’s Underworld, from Seinfeld to Ghost
World to In the Mood for Love to trip-hop. Anderson has
mastered the form, making winning, warm movies about angry,
dissociated people who never consciously arrive at reconciliation
but always stumble into it on their endless quests to recover what
they’ve lost. Anderson’s spectacular showmanship can easily
overshadow the intricate,
motoring designs behind his
work. If you don’t recognize
the bereavement that
animates Dignan, Max, and
the entire Tenenbaum
family, then Bottle Rocket
might seem like another
pleasant indie comedy (thus
the awful pull quote in
Sony’s nearly nonexistent ad
campaign: “Reservoir
Geeks!”), Rushmore an
idiosyncratic coming-of-age
movie, and Tenenbaums a
menagerie of eccentrics à la
John Irving. And if you
can’t locate the current of
emotion that powers Anderson’s collection of boffo effects,
knockout one-liners, and over-the-top inventions, his films may
seem like a series of endearing mishmashes. His oeuvre provides
an object lesson in just how degraded film-viewing habits have
become from too much TV and blockbusterism, how movies and
sitcoms have primed us to wait for the underlining of emotions
before we allow ourselves to intuit them.
Another thing that distinguishes Anderson is his
extremely private, rarefied sensibility. His work betrays an
overall sense of someone who grew up in a polite, quiet,
repressed environment, accustomed to hiding under the covers
with a flashlight, folding his emotions into make-believe shadow
plays on the ceiling, silently cultivating a poetic universe of selfprotection. In this homemade, handcrafted world—embodied by
Mark Mothersbaugh’s aggressive, magical, childlike scores—
there’s a strong aroma of sixth-grade shop class, of the ashtray
you made for your mom found in the back of a closet after
twenty years. Engraved pocketknives, shirts worn backward as
smocks, old Stones albums, and forgotten board games have
weight and presence as tokens of loss.
The Royal Tenenbaums is certainly Anderson’s grandest
movie, and if it feels like an epic at 110 minutes, it’s probably
because there’s so much territory covered in each briskly paced
scene and densely packed Scope shot—visual, geographical,
gestural, and emotional. The setting is a timeless version of
greater Manhattan (as opposed to a timeless version of greater
Houston), but it’s far from a tourist’s inventory of the Big Apple.
This is a New York of faded, seedy grandeur, where Holden
Caulfield might cross paths with the unlucky hustler of Lou
Reed’s “Street Hassle.” It’s true that Tenenbaums is filled to the
brim with high-flown comic inventions, like Owen Wilson’s J.
Peterman-ish all-star novelist Eli Cash, or the outlandish
worldwide wanderings of Paltrow’s Margot. It’s also true that it’s
shorter on the kind of detail work that endeared Rushmore to its
fans, like that brief yet indelible shot of Sara Tanaka’s Margaret
Yang at the science fair, delicately craning her neck to look for
Max, or the barely glimpsed name “Thayer,” printed with early
adolescent awkwardness on Max’s Latin reinstatement petition.
But then this is a different film, even more melancholy than its
predecessor, with a different configuration of characters. And it’s
about a different kind of longing, too: to “restore” a family that
was never that happy in the first
place to an eminence that never
was. It’s funny that some critics
have gotten tripped up by the fact
that none of the Tenenbaum
children appear to be part of the
same family. Because that’s pretty
much the point. Anderson is
tackling a difficult, sad (and sadly
familiar) dynamic here: a loving
but fundamentally inattentive
matriarch, a long-gone father who
hides behind layers of guff and
nonsense from western dime
novels (“Look at that old grizzly
bear,” he says of Glover’s beyond
elegant suitor, Henry), and three
overgrown children with nothing
but the memory of their own glory days for company. They’ve
each built their own genius-stricken identity (Stiller is the
“preternaturally” talented financial whiz kid, Paltrow is the
playwright, and Luke Wilson is the tennis star) in a failed effort
to define themselves outside of their unfathomable but
inescapable family.
The film proudly wears its inspirations on its sleeve:
Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons, Salinger’s Glass family
stories, the old New Yorker of Ross and Shawn, From the
Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the Velvet
Underground, a tinge of Fitzgerald, a dash of Philip Barry. But it
speaks in its own singular voice: at once tender and probing,
mindful of New York and its special mixture of grit and glory,
but confident enough to mold it into a big, faded magic
playhouse, a limitless extension of the Tenenbaum family’s
private universe. The spectacle of father and children contriving
to return home and make amends (“Why are they allowed to do
that?” asks Paltrow when Etheline tells her that Stiller’s Chas is
moving his family back into the Tenenbaum mansion) deepens
with each new viewing. The movie only gets funnier (Royal and
Chas’s screaming match inside the games closet; Royal’s outlaw
excursions with his grandsons, to whom he offers the following
condolence for the accidental death of their mother: “I’m sorry
for your loss—your mother was a terribly attractive woman”),
Anderson—THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS—7
more moving (Richie and Margot’s secret tryst in his tent as they
listen to “She Smiled Sweetly” and “Ruby Tuesday” on an old
record player; every interaction between Etheline and Henry;
Royal taking Margot out for ice cream over the melancholy
strains of Vince Guaraldi’s immortal A Charlie Brown Christmas
theme), and more sheerly delightful (Eli quietly bugging out on
national television). The word epiphany gets thrown around a lot,
but it should be reserved for moments like the flight of Richie’s
falcon over the New York skyline, bearing away the lost
splendor of the Tenenbaums; or Margot, armored in her fur coat
and striped cotton dress, her eyes shrouded in mascara, her hair
pushed back with a barrette like a twelve-year-old’s, her mouth
creased in an adolescent half smile, approaching Richie to the
tune of Nico’s evanescent “These Days.” Or the moment near the
end of the film when Chas, a mountain of hyped-up, burning
anger in a red tracksuit throughout the movie, suddenly switches
emotional gears for a final parting. I’ve never seen moments like
these in any other movie.
Ron Deutsch: “Chef du Cinema: The Royal Tenenbaums”
(Criterion Notes)
Wes Anderson, as a young man growing up in Texas,
had a dream of becoming a filmmaker. He came up with a few
ideas for movies when applying to film school that eventually
evolved into his first three feature films. The idea of family is
present in the first two films (Bottle Rocket and Rushmore) but in
the third, The Royal Tenenbaums, Anderson made it explicit.
“The other films [I made] did deal with the issue of
family, but they were metaphorical families, groups of friends,
someone obsessed with a school and wants to be part of it. This
one is more directly connected with issues of family, issues that
are deeply personal, emotional, and serious,” Anderson said in
the press notes for The Royal Tenenbaums.
“Well, it’s about a family of geniuses,” he continued
elsewhere, “except that I always feel that’s wrong, because it’s
really more about failure. Then I want to say it’s a comedy, but
then I think it’s as tragic as it is comic. So I’m terrible at
explaining it.”
“What the story says,” cowriter and costar Owen
Wilson explained, “is that even though everyone goes through
hell with their family, still—as corny as it sounds—family
members are still the ones you have to be close to, and really the
only ones who will understand what you’re going through. We
don’t balk at showing some of the rough stuff families endure,
but we show in the end that it’s worth it.”
“Certainly most families are to some degree or other
dysfunctional. But the capacity to forgive can help us to heal and
overcome our dysfunctionalism,” said Danny Glover, who plays
Anjelica Huston’s suitor Henry Sherman in the film.
“You know, Ben Stiller’s, Gwyneth Paltrow’s, certainly
Anjelica Huston’s . . . all those families are real kind of
achievers, and fame is an issue for their whole families,”
Anderson told Film Monthly. He also noted the similarities
between Huston’s character, the matriarch of the Tenenbaum
clan, and his own mother. “You know, my mother was an
archaeologist,” he admitted, “and also just her approach to
raising the children and the kind of household—that character
runs, I think is, you know, connected to my mother.”
The Royal Tenenbaums is one of my favorite films of
the past fifteen years. It’s a fairy tale for grown-ups. It’s one of
those cases when the classic Hollywood ending—where the story
wraps up all its elements in a nice little package—doesn’t leave
you feeling cheated. There isn’t much in the way of food in the
movie, though; I think the only person we actually see eating is
Gene Hackman’s character, Royal, gobbling down a greasy (but
tasty-looking) cheeseburger (a Royal with cheese?).
I did find, however, a video from a few years back of
Glover demonstrating how to make sweet potato pie on The
Martha Stewart Show. “This recipe was my mom’s,” he said.
“She was an absolutely wonderful cook, a wonderful baker, and
she always used to tell my dad that he didn’t know how to boil
water before he met her . . . We all had to learn to cook in my
family.”
One of the great African American traditions is the
passing down of one’s family’s sweet potato pie recipe. It is
without a doubt the crown jewel in the soul food recipe box. And
its roots run deep through African American history.
African slaves arriving in the Americas thought they
recognized a food they had known back home. They called it the
nayami, but eventually it was referred to as the yam. It was not
the vegetable they were familiar with, however. This was a sweet
potato. Yams are native to Africa and Asia, while sweet potatoes
are from Central America. In fact, the two are only very distantly
related. Yams were, however, beginning to be grown in the
Caribbean around the same time, brought over by the very same
slave ships from Africa. By the eighteenth century, both yam and
sweet potato varieties were being farmed in the United States.
And both George Washington and George Washington Carver
grew sweet potatoes.
So it just seemed fitting to make this sweet potato pie
recipe from Mr. Glover, which has its own family history, to go
with the story of the Tenenbaums and theirs. And besides, it’s
some real fine pie.
Danny Glover’s Sweet Potato Pie Adapted from a
recipe at MarthaStewart.com Makes one 9-inch pie
1½ pounds sweet potatoes½ cup (1 stick) room
temperature butter, cut into pieces1¼ cups granulated sugar2
large eggs½ teaspoon ground allspice1 teaspoon ground
cinnamon½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg1 teaspoon vanilla1
tablespoon lemon juice1 9-inch deep-dish unbaked pie
shellWhipped cream
Preheat oven to 375˚F. Cook sweet potatoes either in
microwave (Pierce a few holes in them with a fork, wrap tightly
in plastic wrap, and cook on high for 5 to 8 minutes, until soft.
Carefully remove—they’re hot!—from microwave and let cool a
minute or two before removing plastic wrap) or on the stove (Put
Anderson—THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS—8
2 inches of water in a medium saucepan; place over high heat
and bring to a boil. Fit saucepan with a steamer basket, add sweet
potatoes, and cover. Steam until potatoes are easily pierced with
a fork, about 1 hour. You may need to add more water as sweet
potatoes steam.). Let sweet potatoes cool slightly, then remove
skins.
Put sweet potatoes in bowl of electric mixer fitted with
paddle attachment. Beat on medium speed until well mashed and,
if any stringy pieces have wrapped themselves around the paddle
attachment, remove it, wipe clean, and return to mixer. With
mixer on low speed, add butter and beat until well combined.
Add sugar gradually. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each
addition. Add allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and lemon
juice. Continue beating until well combined. Pour mixture into
pie shell.
Transfer to oven and bake until the center has set, 45 to
50 minutes. Let cool. Serve with whipped cream.
The online PDF files of these handouts have color images
Just three more in the Spring 2014 Buffalo Film Seminars:
April 22 Tommy Lee Jones, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, 2005, 120 min
April 29 José Padilha, Elite Squad, 2007, 115 min
May 6 John Huston, The Dead, 1987 83 min
CONTACTS:
...email Diane Christian: engdc@buffalo.edu
…email Bruce Jackson bjackson@buffalo.edu
...for the series schedule, annotations, links and updates: http://buffalofilmseminars.com
...to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send an email to addto list@buffalofilmseminars.com
....for cast and crew info on any film: http://imdb.com/
The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center
and State University of New York at Buffalo
with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News