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.Russell represents a particular American type, the manic-depressive whiteliberal intellectual, and his films in various ways represent the struggles ofthat genus to make sense of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.There is some acknowledgment in them that liberal intellectualism per se isinadequate to the task.In Flirting with Disaster, he affectionately mocks both hippie idealism andManhattan yuppieism; in Huckabees, neither philosophy nor earnest activismseems up to the job of confronting corporate rapacity; and Three Kings presentsa political world so complex that it defies both ideology and good intentions.At the same time, Russell s sympathies throughout remain with the liberals,the intellectuals, and activists.He is to some degree sending up his own pointof view, but it is still his point of view.The postmodern, post Cold War, post-everything world might be so riven by uncertainty that all approaches to itrequire caveats and conditional disclaimers, but Russell still believes in makingthe effort to connect: across generations, cultures, races, classes, sexes, etc.Hismovies find hope in the attempt, even if the results are inevitably mixed. 114 POST-POP CINEMAAs maybe befits his experience as a labor organizer, Russell is particularlyattuned to class and its signifiers, and he doesn t give anyone a free pass.He canpresent a comic figure like the truck-driving Fritz Boudreau without makinghim seem either stupid (he s not) or lovable (ditto).The casual bigotry of theworking-class soldiers in Three Kings is offset by their genuine curiosity aboutthe Arab culture they encounter.Albert in Huckabees, the collegiate liberalprogressive, is shown to be more condescending toward the young Africanhe befriends than the suburban conservative family that has adopted him.Where there is fault, it is always in making assumptions about other people,and whether those assumptions arise from ignorance or idealism is somewhatbeside the point. 6WES ANDERSONt makes sense that the adolescent Wes Anderson resembled to some degreethe adolescent Max Fischer, the hero of Rushmore (or, more accurately,Ithat Max Fischer resembled Wes Anderson).Anderson apparently stagedelaborate drama productions at the private school he attended in Houston,1just as Max orchestrates all manner of extravagant extracurricular activities(including writing, directing, and starring in a war-is-hell student play aboutVietnam, complete with helicopter and flashpots).As his films have becomeprogressively more stylized, Anderson has been easy to imagine as Max withever bigger budgets, able to spring for ever grander conceits.His movies arelyrical, sad, funny, and fantastical, in ways that reference literature and theateras much as cinema.He is an avowed aficionado of J.D.Salinger (Max Fischeris an obvious descendant of Holden Caufield, and the title family of The RoyalTenenbaums could be cousins of Salinger s Glass family), and his elaborate setdesigns are works of self-conscious stagecraft.But there is a breeziness about his films that keeps oxygen moving throughtheir sometimes claustrophobic plot and set contrivances.That oxygen ispartly or maybe largely thanks to the persistent presence of the unfailinglybreezy Wilson brothers, Owen and Luke, who appeared in and/or cowroteAnderson s first four films.Owen Wilson in particular, onscreen and off,seems to act as the obsessive Anderson s puckish foil.The Wilsons are the most significant of Anderson s partners, but like PaulThomas Anderson, he has built an extended family of regular collabora-tors.His includes the cinematographer Robert Yeoman, the Devo-frontman-turned-film-composer Mark Mothersbaugh and the editor David Moritz, 116 POST-POP CINEMAalong with recurring cast members Bill Murray (who has appeared in threeof his films) and the elderly Indian actor Kumar Pallana.And like the otherAnderson, Wes Anderson has shown a recurring fascination with family struc-tures and intergenerational bonds and rivalries.After his first film, the sweet-natured crime caper Bottle Rocket, his next three movies revolved at least partlyaround parents (or parent figures) and children.In Rushmore, Max Fischeradopts the wealthy Herman Blume as a sort of ad hoc father (while lyingto Blume and his schoolmates about his own father, whose scruffy barber-shop embarrasses him).Both The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquaticwith Steve Zissou have problematic fathers at their centers, embodied by GeneHackman and, again, Murray.(Anderson can take credit for giving Mur-ray roles that helped create and refine the weary, middle-aged male types hewent on to play in Sofia Coppola s Lost in Translation and Jim Jarmusch sBroken Flowers [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Russell represents a particular American type, the manic-depressive whiteliberal intellectual, and his films in various ways represent the struggles ofthat genus to make sense of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.There is some acknowledgment in them that liberal intellectualism per se isinadequate to the task.In Flirting with Disaster, he affectionately mocks both hippie idealism andManhattan yuppieism; in Huckabees, neither philosophy nor earnest activismseems up to the job of confronting corporate rapacity; and Three Kings presentsa political world so complex that it defies both ideology and good intentions.At the same time, Russell s sympathies throughout remain with the liberals,the intellectuals, and activists.He is to some degree sending up his own pointof view, but it is still his point of view.The postmodern, post Cold War, post-everything world might be so riven by uncertainty that all approaches to itrequire caveats and conditional disclaimers, but Russell still believes in makingthe effort to connect: across generations, cultures, races, classes, sexes, etc.Hismovies find hope in the attempt, even if the results are inevitably mixed. 114 POST-POP CINEMAAs maybe befits his experience as a labor organizer, Russell is particularlyattuned to class and its signifiers, and he doesn t give anyone a free pass.He canpresent a comic figure like the truck-driving Fritz Boudreau without makinghim seem either stupid (he s not) or lovable (ditto).The casual bigotry of theworking-class soldiers in Three Kings is offset by their genuine curiosity aboutthe Arab culture they encounter.Albert in Huckabees, the collegiate liberalprogressive, is shown to be more condescending toward the young Africanhe befriends than the suburban conservative family that has adopted him.Where there is fault, it is always in making assumptions about other people,and whether those assumptions arise from ignorance or idealism is somewhatbeside the point. 6WES ANDERSONt makes sense that the adolescent Wes Anderson resembled to some degreethe adolescent Max Fischer, the hero of Rushmore (or, more accurately,Ithat Max Fischer resembled Wes Anderson).Anderson apparently stagedelaborate drama productions at the private school he attended in Houston,1just as Max orchestrates all manner of extravagant extracurricular activities(including writing, directing, and starring in a war-is-hell student play aboutVietnam, complete with helicopter and flashpots).As his films have becomeprogressively more stylized, Anderson has been easy to imagine as Max withever bigger budgets, able to spring for ever grander conceits.His movies arelyrical, sad, funny, and fantastical, in ways that reference literature and theateras much as cinema.He is an avowed aficionado of J.D.Salinger (Max Fischeris an obvious descendant of Holden Caufield, and the title family of The RoyalTenenbaums could be cousins of Salinger s Glass family), and his elaborate setdesigns are works of self-conscious stagecraft.But there is a breeziness about his films that keeps oxygen moving throughtheir sometimes claustrophobic plot and set contrivances.That oxygen ispartly or maybe largely thanks to the persistent presence of the unfailinglybreezy Wilson brothers, Owen and Luke, who appeared in and/or cowroteAnderson s first four films.Owen Wilson in particular, onscreen and off,seems to act as the obsessive Anderson s puckish foil.The Wilsons are the most significant of Anderson s partners, but like PaulThomas Anderson, he has built an extended family of regular collabora-tors.His includes the cinematographer Robert Yeoman, the Devo-frontman-turned-film-composer Mark Mothersbaugh and the editor David Moritz, 116 POST-POP CINEMAalong with recurring cast members Bill Murray (who has appeared in threeof his films) and the elderly Indian actor Kumar Pallana.And like the otherAnderson, Wes Anderson has shown a recurring fascination with family struc-tures and intergenerational bonds and rivalries.After his first film, the sweet-natured crime caper Bottle Rocket, his next three movies revolved at least partlyaround parents (or parent figures) and children.In Rushmore, Max Fischeradopts the wealthy Herman Blume as a sort of ad hoc father (while lyingto Blume and his schoolmates about his own father, whose scruffy barber-shop embarrasses him).Both The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquaticwith Steve Zissou have problematic fathers at their centers, embodied by GeneHackman and, again, Murray.(Anderson can take credit for giving Mur-ray roles that helped create and refine the weary, middle-aged male types hewent on to play in Sofia Coppola s Lost in Translation and Jim Jarmusch sBroken Flowers [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]