Being Wes Anderson

Somewhat overdue, I caught up watching the The Darjeeling Limited last night. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect and was in a pretty negative mood about the whole thing to start with.. Taking long loudly breaths, rolling my eyes abit and making sarky remarks as to why everyone was wearing marc jacobs suits, pointing out all and every mongoloid quirk of the characters and counting down to the first Mark Mothersbaugh song, 15 minutes into the thing my wife finally told me to shut the fuck up and I eventually enjoyed the rest of the movie...

Rushmore is one of my favourite films, and I thought The Royal Tenenbaums was one of the best movies of 2001, but since the Tenenbaums, I feel Anderson pretty much fell into tre trap of being Wes Anderson. It wasn't like he was making new movies anymore, he was just redoing 'a wes anderson movie' (i.e. The Tenenbaums) with a (somewhat) different decor reusing the storyline a little bit tweaked. While both Rushmore and Tenenbaums are masterpieces in their own right, after that you have come to known pretty much exactly what to expect out of a wes anderson movie, and while I actually kinda enjoyed both Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited, the extreme formula-thinking in how he makes his movies inherited from the Tenenbaums really puts me off the whole thing..

Anyway, if you feel an urge to become the next semi-indie-king of Hollowood, there's really not much to it. Here is a basic 10 step program to making a Wes Anderson movie. If you simply apply the 10 easy steps, I see guaranteed stardom and meet-and-greets with the Coppolas in your very near future!

Step #1 The Burial
Someones death, preferrably an absent father figure must always play a central part of your plot and inspire the pondering of life of the main character(s).

Step #2 Coordinating and poor communication
Your characters need to be wearing matching outfits, working as a contrast to their problems connecting emotionally with eachother.

Step #3 Hurting Owen
This will probably be the hardest part of getting your 'Wes Anderson movie' up and running. But it will most definently pay off at the box office. It is essential that Owen Wilson is involved in some kind of accident, preferably involving a car, resulting in him being covered in some kind of plasters or band aids, thus further emphasizeing the fragile emotional state of the character, plus looking somewhat funny (not funny ha-ha, but indie smart funny that is...)

Step #4 The Journey
Your character(s) need to undertake a long physical journey to mirror the 'profound inner journey' taking place simultaneously. Please note, travelling by airplane just wont do, you have to use slow-ass retro style transportaion like a steamtrain (Darjeeling), Fishing boat crusing the world (Tenenbaums), Expedition Yatch (boat) once again (Aquatic). When on short journeys, try to make sure you are travelling eighter on a moped, go-cart, a mini submarine and if you absolutely have to travel by car, make sure the manufacturing year predates yourself.

Step #5 The Absent Parent
You need atleast one selfabsorbed, passiveagressive, but yet really quirky and hence loveable Parent that dissapeares for no apparent reason, an event that will no doubt lead to the characters subsequent death (See #1) (the is the wes andersons indie equavilent of 'don't go investigate scary sounds semi-naked' in horror flicks). Wes daringly stepped away from the formula of always using the father as the protagonist in Darjeeling, and used the mother for this part, but that's probably because he got so carried away he killed off the father before the film even started..

Step #6 Everybody's dysfunctional
Another key issue is to not just make the family of your epos dysfunctional as a whole, but the individual characters needs to be dysfunctional to the point, had this been the real world, they would have not been able to function in society without being instantly institutionalized or living under a bridge.

Step #7 Sitting on Sofas
Once again, a key point you must get right. Synchronized sitting on sofas, chairs, carseats, whatever. Just make sure the characters are sitting three-and three to get a good fill of the screen, staring directly into the camera (a.k.a. the 'Wes-shot'). The synchronized sitting is truly the Pièce de résistance of any good Wes Anderson movie, and should serve you as well in your cinematic endeavour! Combine this with some good'ol synchronized walking and you got a hit my friend!
The sitting and/or walking can, or can not be done in slow motion, here you have some artistic leg-room in your film, but do not forget that wheather it is in slo-mo or not, it must at all times be accoumpanied by a song from the sixties or seventies by eighter one of the four following bands: Kinks, Rolling Stones, The Clash or Velvet Undergound, again, here you can get creative, using anyone of the four bands, just make sure the song was a hit once, for the recognition factor.

Step #8 Funny Names containing the letter 'Z'
It is pivotal that your movie contains atleast a dozen Zissous, Uzis, Nazzarenos and Mandeezas.

Step #9 Retro Wallpaper
Under no, i repeat, no circumstances must your wes anderson movie not contain retro 70s wallpaper in atleast every third scene. Miss this detail and you might as well go to film school! A little tip - this will be great in combination with the massive amount of synchronized sitting your film will contain.

Step #10 Drugs, Funny Headwear & Eyewear
While not always shown, I have always assumed it as an unspoken fact that all of the cast is constantly on heroin or heavy painkillers (See #6). Just apply the 'this is your brain on drugs'-think and develop the characters upon that assumption. And hey, don't forget that taking drugs while wearing something funny 'atop, or a pair of oversized retro glasses really takes it into the hilarious category!

I was originally going to list 5 things that would make a Darren Aronofsky movie suck even harder, but after some serious contemplation, I've decided that no such things exists, the maxium possible human amount of suckiness has already been reached.