Harry's HWK2: Auteur

Auteur Theory: Wes Wales Anderson

Films: Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Isle of Dogs

          

1. Wes Anderson Filmography and Information

Biography

Wesley Wales Anderson was born in Houston, Texas. His mother, Texas Ann (Burroughs), is an archaeologist turned real estate agent, and his father, Melver Leonard Anderson, worked in advertising and PR. He has two brothers, Eric and Mel. Anderson's parents divorced when he was a young child, an event that he described as the most crucial event of his brothers and his growing up. During childhood, Anderson also began writing plays and making super-8 movies. He was educated at Westchester High School and then St. John's, a private prep school in Houston, Texas, which was later to prove an inspiration for the film Rushmore (1998).

Anderson attended the University of Texas in Austin, where he majored in philosophy. It was there that he met Owen Wilson. They became friends and began making short films, some of which aired on a local cable-access station. One of their shorts was Bottle Rocket (1994), which starred Owen and his brother Luke Wilson. The short was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was successfully received, so much so that they received funding to make a feature-length version. Bottle Rocket (1996) was not a commercial hit, but it gained a cult audience and high-profile fans, which included Martin Scorsese.


Directed (Filmography)
Bottle Rocket (1994), Rushmore (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), American Express: My Life. My Card. (short film, 2006), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), Hotel Chevalier (short, 2007), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), Moonrise Kingdom: Animated Book Short (short, 2012), Prada: Candy (short, 2013), Castello Cavalcanti (short, 2013), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Isle of Dogs (2018).

Anderson was recognised when he and his friend that he met in the University of Texas made a short film which aired on a local cable-access station called Bottle Rocket (1994). The short film received a lot of good

2. Casting & Crew

Frequently Casts 
Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Andrew Wilson, Bill Murray, Kumar Pallana, Dipak Pallana, Brian Tenenbaum, Stephen Dignan, Bob Balaban, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, and Anjelica Huston. However, out of his two movies that I chose (Isle of Dogs and Fantastic Mr. Fox) he recasts Bill Murray and Roman Coppola. 

3. Genre
Most of Wes Anderson's movies have a base sub-genre which is the centre of most of his movies which is drama and then he adds elements of other genres typically comedy but, it could consist of crime, animation, romance, adventure, family, fantasy and more depending on which movie you watch. This mixing of genres means that most of his films are hybrids, which means that it has more than one genre in it for example, Fantastic Mr. Fox's genres are adventure, crime and family similarly, Isle of Dogs' genres are adventure, fantasy and sci-fi.

4. Film Techniques
M - Mise-en-scene: The mise en scene is everything on the set. Setting, Costume, Actor/Action, Lighting, Props. The set in his animated movies is usually built up and sometimes busy with side characters doing something. The attire that the main characters reflect the character's personality for example, Mr. Fox (George Cloony) in Fantastic Mr. Fox is very well dressed and groomed on the other hand, Chief (Bryan Cranston) wasn't washed for a long time and appeared black and thought the movie he refused to be groomed or touched by others.

E - editing techniques

S - music and sound
C - use of camera: Wes Anderson: Wes Anderson's use of camera is very different from modern day film making seeing as, most films use CGI to move the camera around the set and create more of an experience for the audience. Whereas, Wes Anderson is more of a tripod in one spot and frame around the shot with the character in the centre of the frame and anything else relevant to the side or in the background.
FX - special effects