The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson, October 22, 2021) Movie • Page 8

Serh · Aug 6, 2021

Serh said:

Sean Murphy · Aug 6, 2021

i can not wait for this

Cameron · Aug 9, 2021

Just unbelievable cast, and that poster just reminded me.

Serh · Aug 10, 2021

the hits keep comin

imthegrimace · Aug 10, 2021

She’s playing Harley Quinn? Weird.

SeanOsman · Aug 10, 2021

imthegrimace · Aug 10, 2021

Can’t wait.

Serh · Aug 13, 2021

imthegrimace · Aug 13, 2021

At least he’s branching out and using someone new like Jason Schwartzman

Serh · Aug 13, 2021

sounds about caucasian

Anthony_ · Aug 13, 2021

oh didn't realize they had started production on the new one, nice

Serh · Aug 16, 2021

Scarlett Johansson Joins New Wes Anderson Movie – The Hollywood Reporter

iCarly Rae Jepsen · Aug 17, 2021

imthegrimace · Aug 17, 2021

So just everyone at this point?

coleslawed · Aug 17, 2021

they’re just gonna reuse the Knives Out 2 cast

Serh · Sep 1, 2021

Anthony_ · Sep 1, 2021

yesssssssssssss

Anthony_ · Sep 1, 2021

Also every time I see this thread bumped I'm expecting another goddamn delay

imthegrimace · Sep 1, 2021

Tony rules

Anthony_ · Sep 7, 2021

How Wes Anderson Turned The New Yorker Into “The French Dispatch”

iCarly Rae Jepsen · Sep 14, 2021

Wes Anderson’s French Connection – French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF)

Serh · Sep 22, 2021

Jason Tolpin · Sep 22, 2021

ooooh.

Ferrari333SP · Sep 29, 2021

How Wes Anderson Turned The New Yorker Into “The French Dispatch”

Anthony_ · Oct 4, 2021

Wes Anderson returns with a dense New Yorker homage, The French Dispatch

“Dense” might be the only appropriate adjective to describe both the New York Film Festival’s complete lineup—which encompasses works from new voices and old maestros, restored classics and uncovered gems, artist discussions, experimental programs, and a bevy of short films—and Wes Anderson’s latest film, The French Dispatch, a visual recreation of an issue of the eponymous weekly, itself a knock-off of/homage to The New Yorker.

Anderson submerges his audience in profound detail from the first moments, which explain the American origins of the magazine and its founder, Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray). Structurally, the film deploys New Yorker-esque section headings to sub-divide three self-contained tales (or “stories,” in journalistic parlance) and a scene report of the publication’s fictional home base, Ennui-sur-Blasé. Actors deliver exposition at the same rapid speed as Anderson delivers visual punchlines. Symmetrical compositions obviously abound, but they rarely linger long enough for anyone to be entranced or annoyed by them. (It’s worth noting that Anderson employs a handheld camera here more often than he has in the past decade.) The sheer number of characters and scenes and incidents will leave even the most attentive viewer dizzy and drunk on style.

Anderson has never been particularly interested in pandering to those disinterested in his particular flavor. Even judged on those terms, The French Dispatch is a niche proposition. There’s the aforementioned sheer concentration of material, of course, but also the unabashed New Yorker fandom (many if not most of the French Dispatch staff have real-life New Yorker counterparts, and at least two of the tales are based on real pieces), the cinematic homages to the French New Wave (especially Godard’s La Chinoise in the second section), and the nostalgic veneration of high/fine/French culture. All of this will either amuse or annoy. Even for those predisposed to his sensibility, the film might look like “one for him.”

Each of the tales and the scene report can be sketchily described as “love letters” to different artistic mediums, but they all feel like romances. The first tale, “The Concrete Masterpiece,” follows an incarcerated painter (Benicio del Toro) who finds his muse in a beautiful prison guard (Léa Seydoux) whose work eventually gains the attention of an avaricious art dealer (Adrien Brody). The second, “Revisions To A Manifesto,” finds journalist Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand) on the scene of a May ’68-inspired revolution, tracking the movements of a leading student revolutionary (Timothée Chalamet) and his frenemy (Lyna Khoudri). The third, “The Private Dining Room Of The Police Commissioner,” takes the form of a culinary report by a James Baldwin-esque writer, Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright), which covers a meal prepared by chef and Lieutenant Nescaffier (Stephen Park) for the Commissaire (Mathieu Amalric) that’s interrupted when the latter’s young son is kidnapped by an underworld gang. The common denominator for all of these stories is ardor, either for a person, an art form, a cause, or even just an unexpected event that reinvigorates a passion for one’s reason for living. Anderson exhibits a disarming earnestness for physical and ineffable beauty. Sex, fine art, food, and the written word are all one and the same in The French Dispatch.

Anderson’s films are all comedies on some level, but The French Dispatch takes a MAD magazine approach, stuffing each shot with enough sight gags and visual puns that you could potentially perform a frame-by-frame analysis and still not catch all of them. There’s a general silliness at play here that takes some of the starch out of the film’s premise, like how the student revolutionaries use chessboards as one of many battlefields on which to wage their war, or how the obligatory third-act chase adopts the visual styling of a New Yorker cartoon. Thankfully, it never veers into full wackiness. Nevertheless, Anderson employs a light touch with serious topics, if only to create fluid transitions between scenes and locations, and to not get too bogged down in the melancholic muck.

However, as is the case with all Anderson films, the lightness is deceptive. Each section of The French Dispatch concerns bloodshed in the form of murder, suicide, and war. Beyond the literal violence is a bone-deep wistfulness towards lost ideas and artifacts and people. It’s no coincidence that The French Dispatch covers the magazine’s final issue; finality permeates the entire film. Anderson embraces the past without succumbing to a reactionary stance. He does this by focusing on people reaching out to people and giving them their proper due, either in life or in print.

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