Wes Anderson Is A Big Fan Of Costume Copies
As Shewara and I discovered over the past week when we watched two of Wes Anderson's very fine films: The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004) and Bottle Rocket (1996). Life Aquatic, Anderson's most recent film, concerns the adventures and misadventures of a revenge-hungry underseas explorer and his crew (while accompanied by enchantingly catchy Portuguese covers of David Bowie songs). Bottle Rocket follows the delightfully ill-informed criminal escapades of two ex-mental patients, and a romance with a Paraguayan motel housekeeper.
I've always enjoyed Anderson's movies since first seeing The Royal Tenenbaums a few years ago. But now having seen three of his four movies (Rushmore still hasn't made it into my VCR/DVD player) I'm interested at how he manages to incorporate monochromatic costume copying into all his films.
In Bottle Rocket, all the characters in the movie's end heist sequence are wearing matching yellow jump suits, a tribute to their origins in a now-defunct lawn-mowing/theif operation. In The Royal Tenenbaums, Chas Tenenbaum and his two sons wear matching red Adidas athletic track suits; while in Life Aquatic all of Steve Zissou's crew members wear variations on red stocking caps. These variations turns into red turbans or a red baseball cap with no brim, but the essential design remains constant, especially for the main characters. I can only assume Rushmore incorporates this theme in there somewhere. I'm pretty sure it takes place at a prep high school, so maybe the matching school uniforms count.
Being a visual culture specialist, I could start to psychoanaylze Anderson here and talk about his hidden motivations or sociopolitical agenda behind this intriguing use of color. But I won't. I just think it looks fun.
In other news, Augusto Pinochet died today. I hope he suffered. Culo.
posted by Matt at 10:10:00 PM
3 Comments:
team zissou!
11:55 PM
Is psychoanalysis really a part visual culture studies? I'm just curious...I have seen Rushmore and they do wear school uniforms, but I'm not familiar enough with the film to know if they ever dress in another monochrome fashion.
On Pinochet, many people have been out celebrating his death in Chile. Have you ever read any books by Isabel Allende? She is the niece of Salvador Allende who was overthrown by Pinochet, and I. Allende was consequently born in Peru. She has written many novels in which the story takes place in an usually non-specific Latin American country under military rule. That could easily apply to many Latin American countries, but it's clear how she was influenced by the events surrounding her uncle and Pinochet in Chile.
11:30 AM
I'd say psychoanalysis is a pretty big part of visual culture studies, though many people (like me) take a great deal of issue with its use. It can be useful, but with many reservations.
I haven't read anything by Isabel Allende, but she has been on my list for a while. I knew she was a huge critic of Pinochet, so I'll have to read some of her books and bust out some critical literary theory.
11:49 PM
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