Film & TV blog: Auteur Theory (Wes Anderson)

Auteur Theory
What is Auteur Theory?
Auteur Theory is when a director uses the same style throughout all of their productions such as; Camera Angles (Over The Shoulder, Birds Eye, Close up etc.) Film Features (Slow motion, bouncy etc.) Actors.

A lot of directors could be considered Auteur's, the one I'm going to be writing about is the unique Wes Anderson.

Wes Anderson an Auteur?

Wes Anderson is a Texan Director, he is 44, born May 1st 1969, Houston, Texas. He is most known for his unique style with films, Anderson's film career began in 1992 with the short film "Bottle Rocket" he co-wrote it with Hollywood actor Owen Wilson. Bottle Rocket then went on to become a feature film in 1996 beginning Anderson's professional film career. From then to now Anderson's filmography goes: Bottle Rocket (1996), Rushmore (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), The Squid and The Whale (2005), The Darjeeling limited (2007), Fantastic Mr Fox (2009), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).

The two films I'm going to be using to find comparisons for Auteur are The Royal Tenenbaums and Rushmore.

The Royal Tenenbaums Trailer

Rushmore Trailer

Camera Angles/Shots

An occurring camera shot used throughout The Royal Tenenbaums is a two shot close-up/mid shot here are some examples of these:

Rushmore two shot close-up/midshots:

These are just some examples of shots that Anderson uses in his films another is birds-eye view. In The Royal Tenenbaums he uses the angle on the very first scene, on Rushmore he uses the angle in a scene where Bill Murray's character 'Herman Blume' is diving into his swimming pool at his Son's party.

Another shot style that Anderson likes to use in his films is slow motion. In The Royal Tennenbaums we see slow motion when the family is reunited and Margot and Richie see each other:

In Rushmore we see slow motion when Max and Herman are sabotaging each others lives:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh04EaZQs0U
(The video I found on youtube isn't on the blogger search)

Another visual style Anderson uses throughout his films is the mise-en-scene colour palette as the two shot images show above he uses colours like; Red, Yellow & Grey in costume and dusk colours in the background/setting.

Something repetitive you see in most of Anderson's films are the actors used the 3 main actors in a lot of his films are:
Bill Murray

Owen Wilson

Jason Schwartzman

Not only is Owen Wilson a recurring actor in Anderson's films but his old time friend also co-wrote Anderson's first three films.

This is the point where a lot of people would argue that yes these are some similarities in Anderson's films but each of Anderson's films are different so does that really make him an auteur?

I'd say yes Wes Anderson is an auteur although every one of his films are different they all have similarities I only used 2 examples in this but in every one of his films you will see the same things: Mise-En-Scene Colour Palette, two shot close ups & mid shots, slow motion and actors. Just to show this here's another example Moonrise Kingdom:

Actor, Jason Schwartzman

Bill Murray

Also in the above images you see the colour palette, with the bright yellow scarf and dusk yellow tents in the background of Schwartzman's scene and the yellow and scarf and red raincoat on the character in Bill Murrays plus the dusk background and two shot mid shot. Finally a slow motion scene from Moonrise Kingdom:

@0.40