Wes Anderson doesn’t have a “particular style” according to him
The director returns to his way of directing and assures that the idea of a Wes Anderson style “is an invention”.
After having diverted the Croisette with its Asteroid City, Wes Anderson arrives on Netflix with Henry Sugar, adapted from Roald Dahl. This time again, he will mix the famous children’s author with his very particular aesthetic.
But the filmmaker does not agree with this vision of things: “I don’t have a particular style. For me, it’s just the way things are…” ensures Wes Anderson in Deadline.
He goes on to explain:to understand“why people won’t agree with that and confides: “Of course we can identify a style. But the idea of a style Wes Anderson, it’s an invention. Every time I make a film, a lot of it is influenced by something we did in the previous project. For example, people often say that I do these kinds of shots with the characters in an onion row and Asteroid City starts with a long shot like this. But it’s just a certain way of filming a sequence that’s not so common for everyone. I know exactly when I started doing it, and I know why. That’s when we did Rushmore, there was a scene that took place on a baseball field, but it had rained heavily the day before and the field was completely flooded. So, I put the actors on the edge of the field, under a shelter, and we played the scene in a row like this. I liked doing that. It was interesting and I enjoyed it. And so I feel like I’ve been doing variations of it ever since. And a lot of times I feel like that’s how things evolve when you make films. You find what you like, and then you start again, and you do it a little differently, and then you go in another direction.”
As a result, Wes Anderson doesn’t really like people imitating his “style” on the web, in these parody videos which have recently been a hit: “I’ve never watched them because I don’t want to… (Pause) Not that that’s a criticism of the thing… but do I really want to see someone imitate me? is embarrassing. Do I really do it like that? Right away you become self-conscious, so I’d rather not see them. I’ve never seen them.”
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar will be released on September 27 on Netflix. Wes Anderson has adapted three other Roald Dahl stories into short films, which will be released consecutively. The Swan will be broadcast from September 28. Claude’s Dog will be broadcast from September 29. And Venom will be broadcast from September 30.
