NYFF Interview: Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson’s films strike a polarizing cord among the critical community.  On the one hand, the meticulously crafted, intricate framing and deadpan delivery have garnered him “auteur” status among today’s working directors.  On the other, his films almost always revolve around insular, upper-middle class white men suffering from arrested development. 

The French director, Jacques Tati, comes to mind during an Anderson film.  Film is about interpretation of the moving image and it’s the images in Anderson’s films that really tell the story. The film is in the art direction, music and atmosphere just as much as the screenplay and characters.  Some would say this has an “alienating effect” on the viewer, but maybe that means the viewer has issues to get over, not the filmmaker.  I met up with Wes Anderson in New York this week.

Question: That’s a great suit you have on.  Do you go on set like that, or do you ever wear a t-shirt and jeans?
Wes Anderson:  Well, I don’t really like to wear a t-shirt and jeans. 

Q: What first sparked your interest to make The Darjeeling Limited?
WA: The first thing was I wanted to make a movie in India.  That was sparked because through a series of events, movies I’d seen throughout the years, and a recent book that I read, plus one of my best friends is from India, really got me wanting to shoot a movie there.  I also wanted to make a film about three brothers, because I grew up having three brothers.  But another thing was that I thought I’d like to write with Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola, in a way, that was the biggest draw for me.  The story came from all three of us, together.

Q: It’s interesting that India has a high sense of style and color.  How much of this did you create versus what was already there?
WA:  I love that about India and there’s practically nothing that we invented, it’s all just naturally there.  I didn’t actually go there until three years ago, because I felt like I wanted to film there.  When I went, I wasn’t really shocked at what was there, it seemed like how India is in a lot of films, greatly expanded of course.  The country is just such a huge place with so many different sub-cultures.  To me, there was just no direction you could look at and not find something interesting.  It’s a very moving place to visit. 

Q: Do you believe in reincarnation now or any other Buddhist philosophy?
WA:  It’s interesting, one of my favorite directors is Satyajit Ray and he’s one of the inspirations for this movie.  His directorial style really interests me because he worked almost like a novelist really.  He made a film practically once a year.  He had his own little troop he worked with and they made very personal stories.  I also admire the work of Pedro Almodvar recently, he’s a regional filmmaker, he has his group of people, resources, and he just makes one film after another.  I really admire that. 

Q: Speaking of working with the same people, you’ve worked with cinematographer Bob Yeoman on everything you’ve filmed.  Many directors like to change from film to film, why have you continued to work with him?
WA: I feel like Bob, who’s also a very good friend of mine, is just a really great photographer.  I mean I’d be happy to work with someone else if Bob didn’t want to do the movie, or if he’s unavailable.  But I like working with my friends and I know we work very well together.

Q: Talking about your writing collaborators, you’ve also worked with Owen Wilson and Noah Baumbach, could you talk about how you decide whom you want to work with?
WA: It’s sort of different every time.  Owen and I were writing short stories and we were helping each other out.  That’s how we really got to know each other.  But we went to the movies all the time, so with him it was just sort of automatic, like we didn’t have any choice.  Then with Noah, we started writing an idea for a film without completely realizing we were doing that.  It wasn’t The Life Aquatic, it’s something we haven’t finished writing.  Whenever we would go to dinner, we’d just start making up scenes for this thing and writing them down.  But Jason and Roman happened because we were all in France at the same time.  I knew I wanted to work with Jason again because we had remained good friends since Rushmore.  Roman came in when we were filming The Life Aquatic and he was a tremendous help on the set and he’s somebody that I enjoy being around.  So we were all there together right when I wanted to get started on this film.  I felt a good vibe, so I took advantage of it.

Q: What is it about “family” that makes such fertile soil for storytelling?
WA: Because for the first twenty years of my life my brothers are who I spent the majority of my time with.  I mean we all get along well but we fought a lot and we fought most of the time were together, yet they’re the people I’m closest to in the world, so that really interested me.  Other then my own brothers, I’ve spent a lot of time with Luke, Owen and Andrew Wilson so I feel like they’re also my brothers, because I’ve lived with them in different places.  Jason and Roman I feel very close to as well and they’re a big part of my life.

Q: You said The Darjeeling Limited was a smaller production.  Will your next film, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, also be a small production?
WA:  Well its bigger then Darjeeling because that’s a movie where we have to build everything with miniatures etc.  It’s going to be stop-motion.  There’s this guy named Mark Gustavson, who’s been working with me closely on this.  But it’s very low budget for an animated film, not even forty million dollars.  We just got the money so we’re still really just designing the characters.  It’s been complicated, we were at one studio that went under and we’ve really just been through a variety of phases before getting the ball rolling. 

Q: What films did you see as a kid that made you really want to become a filmmaker?
WA:  I think that one I would list would be Hitchcock, because with him the films don’t become about the star, it really becomes about Hitchcock.  Then I think, probably Star Wars and Indiana Jones.  Later on, I began to watch a lot of French films, but all the films I liked were based around the directors and that’s why I liked them.

The The Darjeeling Limited opened the 45th New York Film Festival and Fox Searchlight Pictures opened the film on September 29th in New York. The pic opens wide in theaters in October.