anyway my husband and I wrote a book on Wes Anderson if you’re interested in more about his process. I interviewed him a few times. He’s worth studying and we learned so much doing this t.co/4PcIOGDrbV
“Nobody’s ever told me I have anybody’s anything.” He also has such a knack for these types of lines— simple language, a little jumbled, the kind of real-life musicality that you might hear once in a blue moon in real life. And then he’ll repeat it at key moments to make it mean something different
Anderson has an ear for the funny phrases people use in real life when they’re trying to communicate and not getting it quite right. His dialogue is a monument to how silly this all is. And the characters take themselves so seriously as they do it
It alternates between comically direct and comically indirect. People talk over each other, around each other, and then directly at each other. They use words kind of incorrectly. They repeat themselves, or repeat something they heard recently from somewhere else
Anderson’s visual style has been analyzed and parodied to death but his dialogue style is never parodied correctly. People don’t seem to get it. It’s a sort of parody of/love letter to people’s verbal foibles, the way we fail to properly communicate
Anderson as a screenwriter is fascinating because he’s operating on multiple levels— he does usually follow traditional screenwriting beats, but he also loves playing with language and gives himself interesting and unusual patterns and constraints to work with
Threapleton just gets it. There’s a line she delivers (it might be the last in the film) that gives me goosebumps to remember. And it’s because it’s well-written, delivered simply but knowingly by somebody who really gets it. Anderson is criminally underrated as a screenwriter
when it’s done really well, it can make the meaningful moments— the dialogue motifs coming back around, the planting and payoff—feel even more soulful than “realistic” acting. But you have to know how to stay alive and limber as an actor even within the technical constraint
some actors get tripped up with the technical assignment of it— getting the basic rhythm right, which may not be in their wheelhouse— that they forget to re-insert the soul into it. It’s about the light behind the eyes, even as the inflection patterns get tighter and more clipped
to elaborate: Wes Anderson’s dialogue requires something unique from the actor on a technical level. You have to be able to deliver the lines fast, and still have people get the joke. You have to know when and how to pause and hold within the heightened rhythm
amazing new Halloween costume for girls just dropped
The Phoenician Scheme’s Liesl is actually my new favorite religious character— beliefs sincerely held, but not naive, and willing to make the right compromises for the greater good. Also funny and cool
Mia Threapleton in The Phoenician Scheme is a tremendous addition to the Wes Anderson troupe. Intuitively gets the assignment of the dialogue— keeping up with the quick, dense patter but with a knowing twinkle behind the eyes, & the exact correct cocktail of cynicism & sincerity
every time I go in a new-to-me building, I think, “So this has been going on in here all this time, and no one knew.”
I am constantly looking at buildings and wondering what’s going on in them. Entire lives are being lived with (given building) as the main “arena.” Who knows what it’s like in there
It would be totally different in a more alfresco, “agora”-centric society of the past
it’s funny how one’s experience of “the world” in modern American life is mostly just the experiences you have inside a handful of particular buildings (home, work, school, cafe, etc)
people who spend time in different buildings than you have an entirely different life
the question, as always, is how to get the nutrients without the anti-nutrients
what I liked about the films is that they make the observer-protagonist understand what attracts and nourishes people about village life, but they equally illustrate why we have mostly left it behind (social cohesion this tight comes at a sometimes stark human cost)
we watched two really instructive films on the concept of “village life” this year— Zorba the Greek (1964) and Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979). Both follow a 20th century city intellectual into an intact rural “village” culture and watch his reaction
and I just think it’s funny that these moments—that some of us think of as transcendent, happiest-of-my-life moments of presence—used to be truly normal. Working outdoors with your body, and then chilling around a fire under the stars with your people. That was just life itself
I was thinking about what camping does for people— the physical, communal work of setting up camp/hiking/fishing/cooking, the evening campfire eat/sing/talk with loved ones, seeing the stars. All of that stuff we have to seek out to get used to be baseline human experiences
I think that’s the basic formula, and it seems like we had many thousands of years where most lives were simply provided with these nutrients. Now they describe an unusually good life
most people’s psych needs are met by 1) daytime working (ideally with both mind and body) on something interesting & appropriately challenging, and 2) evening relaxing/reveling with good company—in nature as much as possible for both. I think “village life” used to provide this as a matter of course
Go for it
but don't kid yourself (as I once did) that being cold is some kind of radical act of being "less fake." It's a cop-out. There's something much more important going on here.
learning how to be warm and cordial and decent to strangers is not about placating people. All these tiny interactions are part of the huge collective project of making earth a good place to be, and making people glad they're alive. You can participate in that or not
And not just for the sake of others—for your OWN sake. Learning how to be warm to others helps you feel like less of a zombie. It reinserts soul into a "soulless" customer service job. It's actually a way to make work feel MORE dignified and meaningful, not less
But I think warmth and coldness accumulate and radiate out. It matters which you choose, each time, at every stage. I wasn't born a "warm person" and it doesn't "come naturally" to me. But I've decided that it matters and that it's possible to improve for the sake of others
I think that COVID-era moves toward doing everything remotely, self-checkout, etc. have removed some of the small places that still existed for people to practice being cordial with strangers, to the point that many young people do not see any value in the practice
I worry that many young people have never experienced what it's like to be in a "warm" public setting—whether that's church, or a healthy organization or school or workplace, or even a retail environment with a culture of warmth
