First And Last: Comparing The Early And Later Work Of Hollywood’s Hottest Directors

WES ANDERSON: BOTTLE ROCKET (1996) / THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (2014)

There are few other directors in Hollywood at the moment who have a style that is as instantly recognizable as Wes Anderson’s. Quirky characters and quirky backdrops, a quirky (and regular) cast in often quirky costume, an endless range of camera shots, persistent eccentric cheerfulness running alongside an underlying melancholy – these are just a few of the things that make Anderson one of the most original and interesting filmmakers working today.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is a showcase of what we now consider to be classic Anderson. The intricately themed detail of the sets makes it feel more like watching live theatre than a movie. The almost-edible colour palette saturates, and varies from shot to shot. The quick-moving dialogue flows continually between cleverness and sudden pockets of wry humour.

Newcomer to the Anderson fold Ralph Fiennes is perfect as Monsieur Gustave H, as if there is some kind of potion actors can take labelled “for the aid of becoming an Anderson actor.” Even the physicality of the actors has a signature touch from Anderson, their postures always immaculately poised, their movements often brisk and sudden.

But as familiar as all these elements are to the Wes Anderson school, his earliest work is actually much simpler. The regular Wilson brothers are here in Bottle Rocket, as is his favoured slightly old-fashioned style, but Bottle Rocket is much more straightforward in terms of its plot and artistic vision. There are less characters, fewer locations and a slightly less mad final set piece.

What is just as noticeable in Bottle Rocket as it is in The Grand Budapest Hotel however, is the astonishing variety of camera use. In both films, Anderson takes the audience through what could essentially be used as a 101 class on camera-angles: Locked down shots, deep focus shots (no “Ah well, no-one’s going to see this” for Anderson’s set designers), pan shots, sudden point of view shots, switches in aspect ratio – the rawest ingredient of Anderson has clearly always been his tendency to treat what’s on the screen as though it’s a hot potato, and whereas he might not always have been as flamboyant as he is in The Grand Budapest Hotel, this golden thread that he has drawn through each of his movies is present in all its shining glory in his debut. It is an absolute joy to watch that evolution from one end of his career to the other, and endlessly exciting as to what he might do with it next.