Accidental Wes Anderson
July 9, 2017 5:27 AM   Subscribe

Director Wes Anderson is known for creating films with a striking visual style and delightfully eccentric characters. They're unforgettable; once you hear titles like Moonrise Kingdom or The Grand Budapest Hotel, you can instantly picture how they look. Clad in retro-inspired color schemes and costumes, his movies inspire us to look for the whimsy of everyday life. For those who find it, they’ve got a place to share their discoveries—the subreddit called Accidental Wes Anderson. There, people from across the globe post places that could be part of his film sets. -- Sara Barnes, My Modern Met (which has an extensive sampling, for those who wish to avoid visiting /r.)
posted by Room 641-A (22 comments total) 34 users marked this as a favorite
 
The article mentions just the color schemes and retro costumes, which are part of it to be sure. The pink escalators, the candy blue van -- pastels in unexpected places are certainly Anderson's style. But I'm actually more struck by the symmetry, and I wonder why the Barnes article didn't mention that. I think symmetry in the composition is what makes most of these photos "Wes Anderson." If half of these photos were framed differently -- say, from a close, skewed angle with a narrow depth of field, I don't think Anderson would come to mind at all. In fact, the few photos in the Sara Barnes collection that didn't include this symmetry didn't look as Anderson-like to me.

For example, take this photo of a two-storey motel in pastel pink. It could totally be accidental Anderson, except the photo is not from a 100% head-on angle, and it isn't framed to make the doors symmetrical. Instead, it focuses on the unsymmetrical stairs.
posted by alligatorpear at 6:40 AM on July 9, 2017 [29 favorites]


.....I actually had a dream that was set in this exact kitchen and I thought I made it up.

I'm kinda freaking out right now help
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:35 AM on July 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


There's a Dutch candy that looks like a Wes Anderson title card.
posted by moonmilk at 8:00 AM on July 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


Neat!
posted by Glinn at 8:29 AM on July 9, 2017


Somebody more knowledgable in film genres and film history could answer this perhaps ... Does Wes Anderson owe some of his look to Norwegian and Swedish film? I watch such films occasionally and it had been a while but I just watched "A Man called Ove" and its look reminded me of films from years ago from that same region and reminded of Anderson's, too. Yes? or am I imagining things?
posted by falsedmitri at 8:55 AM on July 9, 2017


The music videos by Indian duo Parekh and Singh are pretty spot-on homages to Anderson, done with respect instead of just being silly parodies. They fit the mood of the songs perfectly.
posted by TwoToneRow at 11:06 AM on July 9, 2017 [5 favorites]


So much Havana, most of which isn't very Wes Anderson to me, other than the palette, I suppose.

But damn it makes me miss Havana.
posted by rokusan at 12:13 PM on July 9, 2017


I'd think that The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg by Demy or its sequel would be a big influence on Anderson. Probably also the technicolor work by Powell and Pressburger like The Red Shoes or Black Narcissus and maybe the fifties Hitchcocks like To Catch a Thief or The Man Who Knew Too Much.
posted by octothorpe at 12:36 PM on July 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm not seeing Wes in monochrome settings, I think there has to be some contrasting elements. There's always at least a slight tchotchke angle to his style for me.
posted by rhizome at 12:39 PM on July 9, 2017


It's not just symmetry; David Bordwell uses the term "planimetric" to describe it - one, two. What's more, everything gets framed as if it's part of a child's drawing. The symmetry and planimetry are part of that. So for example, to use images from the subreddit

If it's a building, we see it head-on so it makes a square shape and any writing isn't distorted. Usually all of the building is in frame. That's how a little kid draws a building.

If it's an indoors space, there's a low-ish angle like the camera is at a child's eye-level looking up.

If it's a group of people, they're lined up head-on to the camera. Imagine a child drawing of their family.

Here's a whole video of Wes Andersen shots so you can see the line of action.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 12:52 PM on July 9, 2017 [18 favorites]


.....I actually had a dream that was set in this exact kitchen and I thought I made it up.

I'm kinda freaking out right now help



Oh, you had the "Kitchen Dream."

Not to worry- you'll probably just become involved in some sort of scenario over the next few days in which you and a few childhood friends construct an improbable heist scenario involving rope-work and old-school safe-cracking techniques, with the objective of stealing a whimsical 19th-century sculpture by a lesser-known Pre-Raphaelite, or a piece of jewelry with an exotic and convoluted history. There may also be a chase involving unlikely or anachronistic vehicles. Just go with it, and in the end you'll wind up resolving a bunch of issues about your parents and/or former lovers.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:44 PM on July 9, 2017 [7 favorites]


Oh golly, I have a number of these kinds of images in my old collection from my photography days. I wasn't deliberately mimicking Anderson's style, but I liked to take photos of things from a right angle and zoomed in from a distance. The result was very Andersonesque, with very flat surfaces, perfectly side-on objects, and often horizontal symmetry.

That subreddit looks fun, perhaps I must dust off and submit a few of mine.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 4:01 PM on July 9, 2017


the Netflix A Series of Unfortunate Events seems very Wes Anderson in its style and array of broad pantomime performances.
posted by Sebmojo at 4:19 PM on July 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


I think that Robert Yeoman might have a little something to do with how Anderson's films look. Also Adam Stockhausen. It's naive to think the director is solely responsible for creating the visual and stylistic aspects of a movie.
posted by Ideefixe at 5:03 PM on July 9, 2017


A director isn't so much someone who tells people what to do as a decision maker around whom a movie happens. If Anderson's crew were replaced with different people, a different movie would emerge, but different in a very similar way.
posted by Grangousier at 5:44 PM on July 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


Sebmojo, Barry Sonnenfeld has a few words for you:

The series feels a little bit like projects you worked on like Addams Family or Pushing Daisies, and a little Wes Anderson–like. Did you have any specific references in mind while you were shooting?
To tell you the truth, every time I read that A Series of Unfortunate Events looks like Wes Anderson and Tim Burton got together and did a show, I keep thinking, “I don’t know … looks like I did a show.” To me, it looks like what I’ve done, whether it’s Raising Arizona or Pushing Daisies or The Addams Family. I have a very specific visual style. We also hired one of the great production designers in the world, Bo Welch, who I did the three Men in Black with and the The Tick and Wild, Wild West. Bo loves to stylize as much as I do. We had a brilliant cinematographer and the only nice person to ever come from Montreal. He has a perfect name for a cinematographer, which is Bernard Couture.

I would say Raising Arizona is as much the influence as anything else. When I started as a cinematographer with the Coen Brothers on Blood Simple and Raising Arizona, I always felt like the camera was another character on the show. The lenses and camera and camera movement can be funny or emotional or scary or banal. I think that a lot of directors don’t necessarily use the camera as a character so much as a recording device.

posted by ejs at 6:20 PM on July 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


"I think symmetry in the composition is what makes most of these photos "Wes Anderson.""

It's "New Topographics" + kitsch.

New Topographics emphasized the documentarian and flat compositions of post-modern '70s photography, with an emphasis on affectless descriptions of modern living. It's a reinterpretation of the "Straight Photography" movement that launched modernism in photography. The work is often very symmetrical in composition (e.g. Bernd and Hilla Becher's Water Towers) and has a minimal feel.

Anderson then combines that with the nostalgic kitsch of pastel colors (whose washed-out softness implies age while also calming and muting sentiment).

I do think the point about the child-like perspective is a good one, since a forced naïveté is part of Anderson's aesthetic and ties to the nostalgia of an adult for childlike simplicity of meaning and a grandeur of the quotidian.
posted by klangklangston at 8:12 PM on July 9, 2017 [5 favorites]


you'll probably just become involved in some sort of scenario over the next few days in which you and a few childhood friends construct an improbable heist scenario involving rope-work and old-school safe-cracking techniques, with the objective of stealing a whimsical 19th-century sculpture by a lesser-known Pre-Raphaelite, or a piece of jewelry with an exotic and convoluted history. There may also be a chase involving unlikely or anachronistic vehicles.

r/AccidentalEdwardGorey

Just go with it, and in the end you'll wind up resolving a bunch of issues about your parents and/or former lovers.

ok maybe not
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:16 PM on July 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


I have one of these!
posted by Lapin at 8:45 PM on July 9, 2017 [6 favorites]


This is where I mention that I live three blocks up from the Tenenbaum house and I have to stop and admire it every time while nobody else in the neighborhood seems to care.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:03 PM on July 9, 2017 [7 favorites]


oh this is fun, but I have to ask: why so many swimming pools? Is there something inherently Wes Anderson about swimming pool design?
posted by tuesdayschild at 12:18 PM on July 10, 2017


tuesday's child: I think they just often lend themselves to that type of head-on symmetry, plus so so many of them were constructed in America in the mid-twentieth century, which gives them a lot more of Anderson's aesthetic.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:35 PM on July 10, 2017


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