If I had the chance to do it all again...

I'd have made my 25-best a 30-best, and I would have added: Syndromes and a Century (pictured), Grindhouse, No End in Sight, The Savages, and a player to be named later Offside.
But as I'm still officially on vacation and one of my goals was to catch up on some reading, I'm not going to apply myself to the question overmuch, or defend the choices just now. These reconsiderations were prompted by both my own musings and the suggestions/protestations of some commenters below. Although it's still "no" to American Gangster (distinguished dud) and 3:10 to Yuma (enjoyable but slight with a near-unforgiveable Hannibal Lecter punchline.)

One of the things I wanted to do whilst ensconced in lovely Missouri with My Lovely Wife and Welcoming In-Laws is catch up on my reading, and one of the books in my satchel is the first compilation of movie writing by the great Kent Jones, whose ever-probing acuity illuminates not just individual films and filmmakers but the condition of cinema in the here and now its very self. Physical Evidence: Selected Film Criticism, it's called, and reading it is making me eager to re-experience some favorites Jones and I share (various Hou Hsiao-hsien works, for instance) and also to reassess some Jones enthusiasms that didn't really hit me where I or any part of me lived the first time around. That would be Spanglish, and my memory of it is such that I'm not sure another viewing will bring me round—although I appreciate, in part, the specificity Jones cites in its defense, I'm not sure his evocation of Cassavettes in praising the Tea Leoni role/performance really makes it—but he's a forceful enough arguer that I'm willing to spend the time to look at and think about it again...if only to strengthen my own posisiton.

Jones' characterization of the art of Wes Anderson, part of an essay on The Royal Tenenbaums, holds as true now as it did then, and I almost inserted it into the comments section of my best-of-year post, wherein Steve M. of Kinophilia and Don Lewis of Film Threat were having a lively, um, debate. I reproduce a pertinent section of it below the fold:

What has made Anderson a tough pill to swallow is his extremely rarefied, almost Brahmin-ish sensibility. His work betrays an overall sense of an artist who's grown up in a polite, quietly repressed environment, accustomed to hiding under the covers with a flashlight and folding his emotions into make-believe, silently cultivating a poetic universe of self-protection. In this homemade, handcrafted world [...] there's a strong aroma of sixth-grade shop class, of the ashtray you made for your mom and found in the back of the closet after twenty years. Engraved pocket knives, shirts worn backwards as smocks, old Stones albums, and forgotten board games carry weight and presence as tokens of loss. Given the current vogue for just-plain-folks-ness and the branding of "elitism" as the biggest sin of all, it's no wonder that Anderson gets defamed by man-of-the-people types. At his best, his cinema is built from layer upon layer of self-consciousness, tottering not by mistake but by design, always on the verge of exposing a quivering emotional core. It's a highly idiosyncratic way to make a movie, and the fact that Anderson's films veer so close to ridiculousness so often makes them, in my eyes, all the more remarkable.

Damn. That is movie criticism. Jacob Weiner, author of the heinous Anderson slam "Unbearable Whiteness" (no link, go search for it on Slate if you must), ought to recycle his computer and...well, I want to say "throw himself into the East River" but as this is the season wherein we are advised to practice "goodwill toward men," I'm gonna say he ought to...recycle his computer and throw himself into the East River. Sorry!

The other book in my satchel is a longer one, by Tolstoy, and I'm gonna get back to it now. Which means it'll be a while before my next post. I'm still on holiday.

Comments

[eugenen]

Jones is right on, all the way up to the part about the "quivering emotional core," which just isn't there.

[Allen B.]

Nope, not there at all, uh-uh. The welling-up that occurs within me when Gene Hackman and Ben Stiller pass some quick but deep words of reconciliation in 'Tenenbaums' or when Owen Wilson shuffles off this mortal coil in 'Life Aquatic' are just some kind of projection on my part. Please. I'm certainly biased, because I think the emotion is right there on the screen, but try listening to one of his commentaries, or read and interview or two and it's clear how much he loves these characters.

[Allen B.]

To be clear, that might not help matters at all, of course...if Anderson (or any other artist) doesn't do it for you then they just don't do it for you. But to then go on and claim there's nothing there, period, is to attempt to turn an opinion into a fact.

[eugenen]

1) But how is simply asserting the opposite not also "turning an opinion into fact"?

2) Anderson is sort of a pet cause for me; for a while I was ready to write him off as an artist I Just Don't Get, like Almodovar, but Darjeeling just pissed me off. Of course I don't begrudge anyone who gets something out of his movies; I'm just not one of those people.

[Allen B.]

Actually I added the second comment because it sort of seemed like my first one was trying to assert the opposite. I think WA has plenty of heart but wouldn't say those who disagree are wrong...which is what "which just isn't there" sounded like to me.

[Steve]

Aw fuck! I had to go have a family holiday and miss some of this stuff...

Anyway, my argument exists (and only really works) if you accept what Jones et al are saying: all Anderson's movies are exercises in self-reflexivity, just like all Hitchcock's movies were exercises in scaring audiences batshit.

It's what he does within that (admittedly narrower) framework that's sometimes so impressive, and the argued-over flashback scene struck me as the critical step forward, elevating Darjeeling Limited above the until-then-deserved Tenenbaums Go To India/Max Fischer Gets Laid double feature promised by snarkier critics.

[Film Fatale]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I was underwhelmed at 'American Gangster' and was surprised at all the buzz it's been getting. I don't know if there's anything wrong with it, other than it's a restrained flick and the subject matter calls out for a more aggressive stamp. Really if not for Ruby Dee the whole movie would be a skip in my book.

Great film criticism re: Anderson as well. I'm a fan of his work, but it appeals to my love of details more than anything. There is something very emotional about his work that just speaks to me, which is what I think great film is all about. Well done Glenn!

[Chris Goldstein]

Wes Anderson is a pretty little rich girl with great taste in clothes and furniture. And like most PYT's, he has nothing much to say other than "I'm sad." His movies are fun and nice to look at, and there is a place for that, there will always be a place for that. He is a sheltered artist for people who wouldn't dare sleep in a Red Roof Inn. After seeing There Will Be Blood, I don't think there should be any doubt who is the most important American filmmaker under the age of 40. It's not even close. And I'll take David Gordon Green over Wes Anderson any day.

[Glenn Kenny]

Chris, you hit upon something interesting, and unfortunately, rather unpleasant, in your analysis. I think what Anderson (Wes) does is something deeper than "fun and nice to look at" and of course you know that I think that "There Will Be Blood" is a greater film than "The Darjeeling Limited." I'm glad to live in a world where they both exist. But your reductive characterization of Anderson-the-Wes smacks of Class Warfare as Cinema Analysis, and it won't do. It's the inverse of Anthony "Little Lord Fauntleroy" Lane's "New Yorker" review of David Gordon Green's "All The Real Girls" (a film you and I both value highly, I presume), in which he can barely—just barely—suppress his disgust at white unmonied American males living below the Mason Dixon line. (If I were at home I could reference the review and provide daming quotes...but I'm not.)

One is not an insubstantial artist by definition just because one was raised in affluence. Yeah, the brothers of "Darjeeling" are dysfunctional in a well-designed way, but that doesn't mean their hurt doesn't register, or that Anderson's burying it. One of the reasons I believed "Hotel Chevalier" should never have been separated from "Darjeeling" proper is that is sets Jack's hurt, and his determination to appear above that hurt, in such perfect perspective, and sets up the movie's real theme—the fictions people create to deny themselves the feeling of pain. In any case, I think Kent Jones' analysis allows for what you're saying about Anderson, but your perspective holds what he is against him. It's unfair in the same way Lane's sneering at Green and Green's people is.

[Chuck]

I haven't seen Darjeeling so I'm not going to weigh in on that particular matter, but Anthony Lane should win some sort of award for managing to dismiss virtually every adored or notable film this year: Jesse James, No Country, Lust, Caution (I don't care what people say, I loved it), Sweeney Todd, etc. Not only were most of these pans, but they were tossed if in a few paragraphs, as if the mighty Lane can't be bothered to deal with such frivilous little trifles.

I imagine that Denby was given There Will Be Blood to review simply so the New Yorker can be said to have liked one film that was released last year.

[Glenn Kenny]

I hear you Chuck, I hear you. But when it comes to Lane, except for the occasional citing, as above, my policy derives from the old Sonny Boy Williamson tune. The one called "Don't Start Me To Talking, I'll Tell Everything I Know."

[Steve]

Anthony Lane is a goofballs with no sense of cinematic taste (as in buds, not Haute Couture.) His reviews have less to do with analyzis than busting the spine of his thesaurus.

[Steve]

...analysis. (Good thing he doesn't read blogs.)

[Steve]

Come to think of it, Anderson derives a TON of his humor from the fictions these people create for themselves - in other words, fictions that just aren't available to the lower class.

Consider: Gene Hackman calling Danny Glover "Coltrane", Margot Tenenbaum's play "Levinsons in the Trees", Max Fischer's list of potential colleges, everything that Steve Zissou does, Owen Wilson's white-liberal assumption that a trip to India equals automatic spiritual cleansing.

I think he falls into his own holes (usually by repeating himself) half the time, but suggesting that he's just a petty white boy with no self-awareness is sloppy.

[Josh]

I know I shouldn't look at it like this, but since you gave Offside the same star rating as The Savages, I insist you include it as your film "to be named later." Unless you and Chris Goldstein find the film unmanly somehow. That would be a reasonable objection.

[Glenn Kenny]

I dunno about Chris, but I thought "Offside" had stones to spare. Consider it in—I'll make the update now! Thanks for the reminder.

[Chris Goldstein]

I liked Offside. And, for the record, I like women filmmakers; Sofia, Lynn Ramsey, Su Freidrich, Alison Maclean, Campion. But I have an aversion to bimbos, and Wes is a bimbo, and like any good bimbo, what he's most concerned about is clothes and interior decorating and what kind of tchochkes he has on his coffee table. If I remember correctly, when Bottle Rocket came out it was Owen Wilson who was touted as the films de facto author, and not Wes. I think Owen's contribution to Rushmore is greatly underrated, and I'm going to assume that every line of dialogue he spoke in Darjeeling originated with him. I see Baumbach's touch all over Zissou and the two Coppola Boys obviously had large part in writing the roles for Jack and Peter. My point is this: through canny self-publicity, silence and cunning, Wes has convinced a lot of people that he is the brains behind the films, and I don't think that's true. I think he's the best Art Director of his Generation. I think a good deal of the the heavy lifting - script, direction of actors - is left to partners, and until someone who has actually worked on a WA film can set me straight, I will continue to believe this. And I'm not saying I don't like his movies, because I do, it's just that I'm sick and tired of the popular, vacant pretty girls getting all the attention.

[Chuck]

I'm not sure if we should be questioning Anderson's authorship over his own films and I don't mind that he's dealing in the same socio-economic bracket over and over. Many filmmakers do that. My issue with the man is unoriginal but unavoidable: must Anderson deal with his issues in the exact same way, time and time again? Ironically, I think Life Aquatic is as accomplised as anything he's made, but in the context of the work, he just seems to be peddling in circles.

Let me cite another example: Ang Lee. The man returns, in a broad sense, to the theme of what the individual wants being in conflict with what society wants time and time again, but he finds DIFFERENT outlets for that obsession. Lust, Caution is, in my humble opinion, the man's best film.

Again, I know all of this has been rehashed endlessly, but I needed to put my spin on it, I suppose.

[Josh]

Woo hoo! Dementedly gratified to see that you took my advice.

As for poor Wes Anderson, can't we all at least agree that the American Express ad he did was like, the greatest commercial ever? He certainly seems like he's running the show in that one.

[Matt Zoller Seitz]

It's interesting how selectively certain complaints are applied. Wes Anderson is criticized for making movies that are too meticulously, even oppressively designed, yet without knowing any such complainant personally, I can guarantee that he or she likes other artists against whom similar complaints can be lodged (Paul Thomas Anderson, Peter Greenway, Martin Scorsese, Jacques Tati). Same goes for the "Wes Anderson is a rich kid making movies about privileged people whose problems aren't real, or urgent" or whatever. The same complaints can be made about everyone from Woody Allen and Whit Stillman to Jane Austen and John Updike, but often aren't.

The Kennedys' lives are entertaining enough if you're reading about them in the supermarket or watching a documentary on the History Channel, but if you're living that experience, to paraphrase "Bottle Rocket," it ain't no trip to Cleveland.

Hollywood movies deserve to be criticized for propagating the idea that an upper middle class to wealthy existence is, or should be, the economic and cultural norm. But certain works set in such a world can be honest, original and surprising, and I think Anderson's movies absolutely are.

I don't bring this up simply to open a can of worms regarding double-standards, blind spots and the like, though I suppose one could go there. What I'm more interested in is a specific discussion of why Anderson's movies are shallow, or why they do or do not move a particular viewer, and what aesthetic choices Anderson makes that evoke or don't evoke an emotional reaction -- and a disclosure of what personal experience or philosophy the viewer brings to the viewing experience that might cause him or her to accept or reject Anderson's style (these things being inherently subjective anyway).

My own upbringing could not be further removed from that of Anderson and the Wilsons, who did live the sort of life depicted in Anderson's movies (particularly "Bottle Rocket" and "Rushmore"). My own childhood was more like the country music I heard on Dallas jukeboxes in the 1970s -- dark, nasty incidents that would have curled Johnny Cash's hair, and a lot of endless driving around town in 100 degree heat in cars with no air conditioning. Yet I find all of his films mesmerizing and often moving, and it's the layering of all that stuff -- the dollhouse compositions, the knicknacks and eccentric clothes and college radio station deep-dish-playlist music cues -- that make the pockets of joy and pain more surprising and complicated. It's like digging through a steamer trunk filled with exquisitely preserved family mementos and coming across a yellowed draft of a suicide note. Unsigned.

If you find Anderson insufferably insular, privileged and trivial, but find particular films by Woody Allen or Whit Stillman -- or particular novels by Austen, or Edith Wharton -- to be intelligent and provocative despite their upper class setting, I'd be curious to know why that is. Docking Anderson critical points because of the milieu in which he sets his fiction seems as shortsighted to me as giving bonus points to another movie simply because it's about working class or poor people. Docking Anderson for being excessively concerned with composition or production design or style generally -- especially in a commercial narrative -driven industry that tends to reward films that are weighted toward dialogue and performance rather than picture and sound -- seems likewise shortsighted, or at the very least, a position that requires examples of what doesn't work in Anderson's movies, and examples of similar elements that do work in other movies.

It's the totality of the work that matters, right?

[Steve]

I agree entirely, Matt, but Anderson's aesthetic is more aggressive (and thus, more obvious in the repetition) than many of the filmmakers you cited. (Scorsese is the exception)

I do agree though, that docking someone points for the socioeconomic context of their characters' lives is a bad trap to fall into. You can always encourage artistic growth and branching out in new directions, but many critics prefer to punish people for the class they were born into.

[Brandon]

I don't think my white, male, lower-middle class Midwestern American background has much to do with why I am critically torn over a filmmaker like Wes Anderson. For me, it's all about the accessibility and legitimacy of emotion on screen.
I am in agreement with countless others in admiring his style and very literate cinema knowledge, but when it comes to content it always seems like he is reaching for something that his movies are just too purposefully artificial to grasp (Maybe that's the point; our world can't reach beyond constructed artifice anymore either).
I loved RUSHMORE, but have been consistently let down ever since.
It just doesn't seem like the main characters are ever doing anything other than pretending to feel - which is why RUSHMORE works for me, but his other films don't. Max Fischer is not an adult quite yet. He constructs a life of romantic artificiality and pretending, but ultimately finds some real life experience and emotion in the process. None of his other characters (age-defined adults or otherwise) come across as having really learned anything about life by the time the movie is over. They are given some abrupt scene, piece of dialogue, or song in which to do so, but it just doesn't FEEL genuine to me.
It occurs to me as I think about The Rolling Stones as the soundtrack to a funeral, that maybe Wes Anderson IS the (early) Rolling Stones of film; borrowing and apeing, but not yet having developed a stolen artform into his own quite yet.

Though maybe I'm judging too harshly, I wouldn't expect anymore "ecstatic truth" from Renoir's THE RIVER (which Anderson has professed to have been inspired by after having been shown it by Martin Scorsese): it is about as far removed from the "reality" of India as possible; intentionally insulated within its bubble of an out-of-place, upper-class family (sound familar?).
I've never been able to really articulate my trouble with Anderson's films. Thanks for reading, anyway.

[don lewis]

Nah, I hear you and agree Brandon. And I also fall on the side of not getting down on a filmmaker because they operate in the same socioeconomic circles in each of their films. That's just silly. You write what you know.

The comparison to the Stones is pretty sharp. I remember reading an interview with Owen Wilson and Wes and they were talking about trying to find just the right actor for Max Fischer. They wanted him to have a "halk cooked look.....like a young Mick Jagger"...not fully-formed. I always thought that was cool.

But again, I'm with Brandon. Anderson's attempts to inject life into his scenes and characters fall flat because I just don't think the guy understands human beings and their emotions. Or maybe he's just intentionally working in an arm's length/severe detachment point of view.

[anonymous]

Re: Wes Anderson and class

Anderson's first two movies, both shot and set in Texas, feature characters struggling to overcome their middle-lower economic statuses, while the players in his last three films hail from affluent, privileged backgrounds...okay, that much we know.

Not to put forth yet another reductive explanation of How Things Went Sour for Wes, but as a once-rabid fan, I've found that the farther he strays from Texas, the less successful and engaging his movies are. It's not a matter of my being unable to relate to or be entertained by rich white people in exotic locales: the scripts' cleverness and uniformly fine performances from well-cast actors ensure that end. What constantly bothers me is how his characters now confront their spiritual crises: basking in financial security and the benefits of the status quo, they're shaken from their emotional stupors by increasingly contrived states of duress (deaths, suicides, pirate gun-fights, drownings, etc.) whose arbitrariness depreciates the movies' overall impact. And yes, the precious production design and tight-assed camera movement doesn't do the stories any favors, either.

When he finally gets the Dahl out of his system, Anderson should take a step back from his charmed lifestyle/environment and maybe reevaluate why he got into this game in the first place. Revisiting Texas might be a step in the right direction. Not to mention reenlisting Owen behind the camera and Luke in front.

[Matt Zoller Seitz]

Agreed about Wes' first two movies containing striving middle-class characters (in "Rushmore" he was the lead). But "Rushmore" is exceptionally privileged in its worldview -- what makes Max funny is that he behaves like a tycoon even though he's a barber's son, and this attitude is eventually rewarded once he's learned how to work well with others. And all of the lead characters in "Bottle Rocket" live a sort of F. Scott Fitzgerald/J.D. Salinger sort of life, not at all what you'd call hardscrabble. Or did you mean the Mexican help at the hotel?

[Matt Zoller Seitz]

And I think we're going to have agree to disagree that Things Went Sour for Wes. I think "The Life Aquatic" is an enormous evolutionary leap forward (though not entirely successful in every way, to be sure) and "The Darjeeling Limited" is so complex and surprising that it flummoxed pretty much everybody, including people who enjoyed it. It's a curveball the liks of which he's never thrown before -- using all the by now familiar (and to some, irritating) compositions, color schemes, musical taste, etc., to do something different.