WES ANDERSON’S THE FRENCH DISPATCH

If you loved The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Royal Tenenbaums or TheSquidandtheWhale, then without a doubt you know how tender, funny, and incredibly smart director, Wes Anderson’s work can be. Known for the cinematographic beauty and aesthetic symmetry of his films and for the dry, sardonic wit he imbues his characters with, Anderson is back with The French Dispatch, initially slated for release this month.

WORDS MARISA CUTILLAS

The movie focuses on the French branch of an American magazine that is inspired on one of Anderson’s favourite papers – TheNewYorker, known for its illustrated, topical covers, its commentaries on popular culture, and its coverage of the eccentric side of Americans. What do we know about the film so far?

THE STARS

Anderson never disappoints when it comes to choosing actors and this film’s cast is no different. The ensemble includes the fantastic Timothée Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name, Little Women), as well as Anderson’s favourite actor aside from Owen Wilson – Bill Murray. Also appearing are Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Adrien Brody, Benicio Del Toro, Léa Seydoux, Liev Schreiber, Willem Dafoe, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Anjelica Huston and many more renowned artists.

Timothée Chalamet

A LOVE LETTER TO JOURNALISTS

The film comprises three short stories within a larger framework. What all have in common is the homage they pay to journalism and its role in capturing defining cultural moments and movements. It is set in a fictional 20th Century French city. The action begins when the newspaper’s editors meet to pick three stories from their publication to republish in tribute to their late editor-in-chief.

JUMPING TIMELINES

As is the case in The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch features various timelines and stories, using different aspect ratios and blackand-white photography to differentiate between them. Anderson’s team created a whopping 125 different sets for the film, which was filmed in Angoulême, France – home to an abandoned felt factory that Anderson converted into a film studio.

VISUAL INSPIRATION

The French Dispatch, says production designer Adam Stockhausen, was inspired by the visual style of Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon. Stockhausen claims that Anderson was taken by “how this 35-minute film focused on a beautifully grimy city, really gorgeous, [with] murky stuff on all of the architecture and then these glorious colours that come popping out from that.”

Anderson was also influenced by Orson Welles’ adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, “where all the sets were built inside this train station, and you can kind of see off the edges of the sets and see the architecture of the train station beyond it. That was a driving image for the prison set (one of the stories takes place in a prison) and you feel the location always. Even if you’re inside a room that we’ve entirely built. We’ve built it with no top, and we built the walls out of mesh, and you kind-of never lose the sort of overarching sense of the space that you’re in.”

NO LIMITS

The French Dispatch has a budget of $25 million, making it one of Wes Anderson’s most expensive films. In addition to its impressive cast, it also relies on the work of some of the cinema industry’s finest talents – including cinematographer Robert Yeoman, composer Alexandre Desplat, and editor Andrew Weisblum. As mentioned above, Adam Stockhausen has designed all 125 sets.

THE RELEASE DATE?

The release date has been slated for October 16 but with the current health situation, this may change. As is the case with Denis Villeneuve’s Dune (predicted to be a big box office record maker), the producers and director alike hope to release their films at a moment in which audiences can enjoy them in their logical home – a movie theatre!