From Bottle Rocket to The French Dispatch: A Brief Tribute to Wes Anderson's Visual Storytelling

Wes Anderson puts up the poster for his new short film Bottle Rocket at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival.

by Laura Studarus

At the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, Wes Anderson premiered Bottle Rocket, a scrappy short film about two petty criminals planning the ultimate heist, only to walk away with a hundred dollars each. The black-and-white short contained hints of what would later become the director's hallmarks: ragged emotional exploration couched in off-hand humor, stylized camera movements, self-aggrandizing characters, and the Wilson brothers. But no one could predict the legacy he'd craft out of these extremely purposeful building blocks nine more films and a handful of shorts later.

If there's one criticism lobbed at Anderson's work, it's the lack of realism. But to reach for that complaint is to miss the point completely. These are modern fairytales, told by a man with so much enthusiasm for putting on a show, 2021's The French Dispatch - a post-World War II story of a newspaper shuttering after the death of their beloved editor - moves through colorful set pieces and story vignettes as if we're watching an actual play. Why reach for realism when you've got this level of old razzle-dazzle?

Emphasis on razzle-dazzle. From a sherbet color palette and symmetrical shots, to sets crafted with a hyper-attention to specificity, you know when you're watching one of Anderson's films. It's a calling card so precise, his aesthetics have spawned an Instagram account aimed at finding equivalent real-world spaces, a memorable Saturday Night Live parody, and even an Italian caf designed by the director where fans can caffeinate like one of his quirky characters.

LINK:	https://www.sundance.org/blogs/from-bottle-rocket-to-the-french-dispat...
	See more stories from sundance

More from Sundance Institute