THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
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19 85
THE PRESENT
INTERVIEW
with Wes Anderson
The American original gives a revealing interview as his celebrated new film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, opens around the country.
Mr. Anderson, do you see your films as self-contained worlds where you are in control of everything? That’s probably true. I think there is some psychological thing where some artists like to make order and organizing and shaping something gives them some kind of feeling of accomplishment. But I also think there are some artists who are more interested in expressing something chaotic.
Name:
Werner Herzog comes to mind… Or when you think of Robert Altman, for instance. His whole approach, his whole method of filming was designed to capture spontaneous moments that he could then shape and organize later. What he was really interested in, from actors anyway, were the accidents and what he doesn’t shape, where he just steps back and lets something grow. But at the same time I think he was probably also very much a kind of conductor. So it’s not controlling, but nevertheless guiding and shaping to the same effect… So maybe that’s what all art does.
film producer,
But your movies are more controlled and designed than most. Definitely a lot more designed than an Altman movie. A lot of the time we have built something to play our scene, and we really haven’t built anything outside of the frame. This is the way we’re going to do it, because that’s all there is and that’s all there is going to be! And we’re probably not going to have another choice when the time comes. But over the years I may have gotten more planned with how these movies are going to be filmed. It works better for me. I hope that the actors don’t feel trapped.
Wesley Wales Anderson Birthday: 1th May 1969 in Houston, Texas, USA Profession: Film director, screenwriter and actor
“I don’t want to have an invisible style, but I don’t care about having a trademark.” 6 – 1985
Did you ever have an actor that couldn’t deal with your style of directing? One of the most challenging and best actors I worked with, many years ago, was Gene Hackman. He was not a relaxed, comfortable person in my company, but he did like a complicated shot where you have to be here and here and where there is a challenge for him. He liked the idea of doing a scene where you do something here and then you have to run around the back of something and appear somewhere else, like theater. What I hope is to create situations where the actors will be able to be alive like real people even in the context of something that is quite manufactured. Do you want your films to be recognizable because of your style? I don’t want to have an invisible style, but I don’t care about having a trademark. My writing and my way of staging the scenes and shooting – people can tell it’s me, but that’s not by my choice. It naturally happens. It’s just my personality as a director. Do you ever feel time pressure when you are on set realizing some of those more complex shots? Well, I am not usually in a situation where we can fix it later. We are usually doing it one way and we won’t be able to change the whole thing. There are a lot of things that we can fix in the cutting room, but we’ll only be able to improve what we have shot. Over the years I feel more pressure, but I don’t think it’s because someone is putting that pressure on me. It’s really more that I feel more a sense of satisfaction when we keep it organized and we have a plan and do it right.
FILM FACTS Filming Dates: January 14th 2013 - 5th April 2013 Realease Date: March 7th 2014 Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama Director: Wes LAnderson Writers: Wes Anderson, Hugo Guinness, inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig Production: Fox Searchlight Pictures
ROTTEN TOMATOES Audience Score
86%
Tomatometer
��%
liked it
249 fresh
4.3/5 average rating
7 – 1985
Certified Fresh
23 rotten
“I like to save money, I like to keep the costs down, but that’s mainly because I want to be able to make sure all the money we are spending is in the movie, it’s the part that’s up there, and nothing is wasted.�
AWARDS ���/��� Wins/Nominations
�/�� Baftas
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Golden Globs
8 – 1985
�/� Oscars
BOX OFFICE
Do you feel economic pressure for your movies to perform well? I like to save money, I like to keep the costs down, but that’s mainly because I want to be able to make sure all the money we are spending is in the movie, it’s the part that’s up there, and nothing is wasted. As far as the movie making money, I don’t know how to influence that. I feel like there would not be much of a point in me saying, “Let’s do the movie this way, because it will be more popular.” You can’t guess. But in terms of trying to make a movie on a certain budget, Life Aquatic was very expensive and too big. Even while we were doing it I felt, “This is not appropriate for this film. It’s not going to make enough money to do this.”
Budget
Do you usually start out with an image or a story idea? It’s different for different ones. I remember quite well that the first movie I made was very much visual ideas. And it was not really things that were related to the story, it was more of a setting. But Grand Budapest Hotel for instance I had a character that we were very interested in. We just had a little idea for this character and a bit of a story, and I also had later the idea that I would like to do something related to Stefan Zweig.
Worldwide Gross
What kinds of films do you feel like you draw on the most? The kind of movies that I want to make draw probably equally on European and American movies and maybe some Japanese or Indian, too. But the biggest are European, American, and British traditions. I am more interested in a classical kind of moviemaking. I like to be dazzled in the movies and I don’t feel I am very reserved in the way I direct. But they come from a tradition of cinema. You also have stuck to the tradition of shooting on film and have yet to shoot a film digitally. True, but I don’t know. In a year, in two years, I don’t know if it will be a reasonable option to shoot on film. Sometimes I see a movie now that is shot digitally and I don’t even know. I am interested in all different kinds of filmmaking. I don’t know if I see something slipping away. There are lots of very strong-minded, personal filmmakers and they will always do what they believe in.
9 – 1985
RECURRING ACTORS Anderson's films feature many recurring actors, crew members, and other collaborators, including the Wilson brothers, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum and Edward Norton.
F. Murray
Zéro Moustafa (old) – Abraham Waris
M. Dino – Ahluwalia Bob
M. Martin – Balaban Adrian
Dmitri Desgoffe und Taxis – Brody Seymour Cassel Brian Cox Willem
J. G. Jopling – Dafoe Michael Gambon Jeff
Deputy Vilmos Kovacs – Goldblum Lucas
Pump Attendant – Hedges
NONRECURRING CAST OF THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
Anjelica Huston
M. Gustave H. played by Ralph Fiennes
Harvey
Zéro Moustafa (young) played by Tony Revolori Serge X. played by Mathieu Amalric
Ludwig – Keitel Frances McDormand Bill
Writer (young) played by Jude Law
M. Ivan – Murray
Writer (old) played by Tom Wilkinson
Kunichi
Actor – Nomura
Agatha played by Saoirse Ronan
Edward
Inspector Albert Henckels – Norton
Clotilde played by Léa Seydoux
Kumar Pallans
M. Georges played by Wallace Wolodarsky Pinky played by Florian Lukas
Jason
M. Jean – Schwartzman
Wolf played by Karl Markovics
Fisher
M. Robin – Stevens
Günther played by Volker Michalowski
Tilda
Madame D. – Swinton
Lieutenant played by Neal Huff
Andrew Wilson
Grande played by Dame Lisa Kreuzer Mr. Mosher played by Larry Pine
Luke Wilson
Anatole played by Daniel Steiner
Owen
M. Chuck – Wilson
Herr Mendl played by Rainer Reiners
10 – 1985
BOTTLE ROCKET
RUSHMORE
THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS
THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU
THE DARJEELING LIMITED
FANTASTIC MR. FOX
11 – 1985
MOONRISE KINGDOM
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
ISLE OF DOGS
M. Gustave: “Why do you want to be a Lobby Boy?” Zeró: “Well, who wouldn't, at the Grand Budapest, sir? It's an institution.” M. Gustave: “Very good.”
19 68
CREATING A WORLD
THE WORLD OF STEFAN ZWEIG
Anderson’s movie is inspired by the works of Viennese author Stefan Zweig, (1881-1942).
100 P.
1926
1939
144 Pages
75 P.
BEWARE OF
CONFUSION 176 Pages
386 Pages
14 – 1968
self-published books before his suicide 1942
THE WORLD OF YESTERDAY
1925
AMOK
1922
FEAR
24 HOURS IN THE LIFE OF A WOMAN
1920
AMOK
ANDERSON’S SELECTION INCLUDES:
500 Pages
1982
2011
2013
THE POST-OFFICE GIRL
THE GOVERNESS AND OTHER STORIES
THE COLLECTED STORIES OF STEFAN ZWEIG
1976
terday, to his publishers and it thus stands as a testament to a long since destroyed bygone “Golden Age of Security”. Zweig was one of Europe’s most well known and widely acclaimed writers in the 1920s and 1930s but his fame has diminished over the years; he’d be completely unknown if it wasn’t for Pushkin Press – and NYRB in the US. Pushkin has been publishing Zweig’s melancholic masterpieces for years, tragic tales of grand but ill-fated passion and closely guarded secrets.
JOURNEY INTO THE PAST
Zweig’s Vienna was a city of culture and intellectual debate, and his contemporaries the likes of Sigmund Freud and Arthur Schnitzler. This idyll, of course, was not to last, and Zweig was amongst the many Jewish intellectuals forced to flee Austria with Hitler’s rise to power, moving first to Britain, then the US, before eventually settling in Brazil where he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. Just the day before, Zweig had posted the manuscript of his memoir, The World of Yes-
136 P.
328 Pages
240 Pages
720 Pages
15 – 1968
Ah, Mendl‘s: the most delicate pastry shop in all of Nebelsbad, with the most delicious signature treat. The Courtesan au Chocolat is pretty, delicate, and its color palette fits perfectly with the pastels of the Grand Budapest. It‘s sinfully rich, but apart from being calorie-heavy, it‘s as innocent and harmless as Agatha. Except, of course, for the fact that a Mendl‘s pastry can sometimes contain a hidden metal file or hammer… Mendl‘s is in many ways a symbol of deception. Not only are Mendl‘s pastries used to smuggle tools inside a prison, but also Zero and Gustave disguise themselves as Mendl‘s employees when they infiltrate the Grand Budapest in the film‘s climactic scene.
Here, it’s a ZZ, short for the Zig Zag Division, a logo that looks so adorable engraved on martini shakers and ping-pong tables that you could almost, but not quite, forget t hat its adherents are going to destroy the world. The insignia looks creepily similarto the SS insignia, and the suggestion is that the war Zubrowka has entered is WWII.
The film devotes a wall as big as a mountain range to an oil painting. Its color scheme suggests a nursery: baby blue, pastel-pink, and deep purple.
The emblem is, representative of the secret Society Of The Crossed Keys. Keys because a concierge holds the room keys for the hotel (and apparently at some point people used actual keys—who knew?). More abstractly the keys may represent a type of power and responsibility held at the concierge position, the ability to lock and unlock each room and each guest… and the responsibility not to. The crossing of the keys must be symbolic of the brotherhood shared by the Society‘s members. Their loyalty not only to their respective hotels but also to one another is obvious due to their willingness to immediately pause what they‘re doing and help out the stranded Gustave.
SYMBOLS AND TROPES 16 – 1968
"This is van Hoytl's exquisite portrayal of a beautiful boy on the cusp of manhood: blonde, smooth, skin as white as that milk, of impeccable provenance, one of the last in private hands, and, unquestionably, the best. It's a masterpiece. The rest of this shit is worthless junk." – M. Gustave
17 – 1968
M. Gustave: “I owe you my life. You are my dear friend and protégé and I'm very proud of you. You must know that. I'm so sorry, Zero.” Zeró: “We're brothers.”
19 32 THE FILM
The Grand Budapest Hotel is a twelve-layer wedding cake of a film, yet as you’re devouring it, you don’t necessarily think about all the work that went into it – only that it’s delicious.
THE STORY We begin with a young woman reading a book by a man, who tells us of a time he was staying at the once-lavish and now rundown Grand Budapest Hotel. At the hotel, he meets its mysterious owner: the once-richest man in all of Zubrowka, Zero Mustafa. Zero, who's a fan of the author's work, invites him to dinner, where he proceeds to tell the wild tale of how he came to be in possession of the Grand Budapest. (Introduction) This is his story. Then again, maybe it's actually the story of Zero's employer, one Gustave H. Gustave is the expert concierge of the hotel, and he expects the best of all the other employees. Zero is the new lobby boy, and Gustave gives him very strict, precise training so that he may live up to the standards of their marvelous hotel. We quickly learn that Gustave is an incredibly chivalrous man and enjoys entertaining elderly women in want of some attention. (Part 1 – M. Gustave)
One day, Zero finds that one of these women, Madame D., was found dead at her house, where Gustave and Zero immediately go. They find that Madame D. has left Gustave a very valuable painting, Boy with Apple, and her family is not pleased. Serge, the family butler, helps Gustave wrap the painting as he smuggles it out of the house, placing a letter in the back of the painting, unbeknownst to Gustave. (Part 2 – Madame C.
On the outside, the executor of Madame D.'s estate, Deputy Kavocs, is murdered by Jopling, a henchman that works for Dmitri, the not-very-nice son of the late Madame D., for not cooperating with the family's wishes. (Part 3 – Checkpoint 19.)
Once out of jail, Zero and Gustave begin their search for Serge, who initially spoke against Gustave but whom they suspect was threatened into doing so by Jopling and Dmitri. After calling upon the Society of the Crossed Keys, a secret club of concierges, they make their way to a snowy monastery where monks direct them to a confession in which Serge awaits. He reveals that he was under pressure to speak out against Gustave (Jopling killed his sister when he went into hiding) and tells him of a second will that takes precedence in the event Madame D. was murdered. However, Serge is strangled by Jopling before he can continue. Zero and Gustave chase Jopling down the mountain, eventually pushing him off a cliff. Henckels, who has been on Gustave's trail for a while, has finally caught up to him though, so they flee… right back to the Budapest. They're disguised as Mendl's employees and have Agatha infiltrate the hotel and smuggle out Boy with Apple, which is stored in a safe. (Part 4 – Crossed Keys.)
1985
V. D. u. T.)
In not much time, the military police, led by Henckels, an old friend of Gustave's, show up and arrest Gustave for Madame D.'s murder (don't worry, you didn't miss anything: he's innocent). Zero, with the help of his girlfriend Agatha (who works at Mendl's pastry shop), smuggles digging tools into Gustave so that he and his new inmate friends can escape.
1968 GBH
LUTZ
Introduction
20 – 1932
Part 1 M. Gustave
Part 2 Madame C. V. D. u. T.
Then suddenly everything goes awry. Dmitri shows up and hunts down Agatha to take his picture back and Gustave and Zero chase after Dmitri who opens fire on them, starting a spontaneous firefight between all soldiers currently being housed in the hotel. Henckels tries to calm everyone while Agatha, and shortly Zero, fall off the hotel, during which they see Serge's letter in the back of Boy with Apple as it hangs from a balcony. Inside the Hotel, we see Henckels open the letter containing the secondary will which leaves everything (including the
Grand Budapest Hotel) to Gustave. The rest is history. Not really. Zero and Agatha marry but Agatha and their infant son die from disease two years later. Gustave is shot when he stands up to soldiers. Zero, being Gustave's heir, becomes the owner of the Grand Budapest, which he keeps in remembrance of Agatha. Then we zoom out through the lenses of our many frame narratives until we are again with a girl reading a book from the author who wrote the story that Zero Mustafa told him, dining in the old, lonely hotel. (Part 5 – Crossed Keys.)
1932
TRAIN
GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (GBH) CHECKPOINT 19
NEBELSBAD ALPS
MENDL‘S
Check-Point 19 Crimina Internment Camp
LUTZ
The Society of the Crossed Keys
21 – 1932
The Second Copy of the Second Will
FILMING SPOTS The Republic of Zubrowka is an imaginary Eastern European country, coming from the brilliant mind of Wes Anderson – and his co-writer Hugo Guinness.
5 Bad Schandau
2 Waldenburg
6 Hainewalde
3 Dresden
7 Görlitz
Osterstein Castle
GERMANY
Waldenburg Castle
7
3 4
2
1 Zwickau
5
Zwinger Palace Augustus St. Pfunds Dairy
6
1
Elevator Bad Schandau Hainewalde Castle
4 Rathen 8 CZECH REPUBLIC
Bastei/Rathen Saxon-Eastern Ore-Mountains
Department Store Karstadt-Hertie City Hall Görlitz Silesian Museum Trinity Church
POLAND
GERMANY
Carlsbad
Hotel Bristol Palace
8 Park Colonnade
Jeleni Skok (Leaping Deer) Grandhotel Pupp CZECH REPUBLIC SLOVAKIA ZUBROWKA
10 SWITZERLAND
Schilthornbahn 9 Stechelberg Jungfrau
AUSTRIA HUNGARY
Budapest
Budapest Castle Hill Funicular
ASPECT RATIO
The scenes at the beginning and end take place in the present, and the aspect ratio 16:9 reflects this. When the movie goes back in time to 1968, the aspect ratio changes to 21:9. As Zero tells the story of how he came to work at the Grand Budapest Hotel. — the aspect ratio changes again to 4:3.
There is something of the Midas touch about the Saxon town. It was the birthplace of Emil Jannings, who was in 1929 the firstever recipient of the Oscar for best actor, for his performance in Josef von Sternberg’s The Last Command. Most recently, Kate Winslet got her hands on a best Actress statuette after visiting Görlitz to shoot The Reader. The locations brought a whiff of authenticity undermined only by that film’s suggestion that the townsfolk tend to ignore their mother tongue in favour of Germanaccented English. Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which is in the running for nine Oscars. While the powder-pink façade of the film’s main location is actually a model, the interior is the Görlitzer Warenhaus, the town’s art nouveau department store, built in 1913. If the film wins, surely it won’t be long before a dedicated movie-locations tour is established in the town. Look to your right and you will see the clock tower from which Daniel Brühl picked off US soldiers in the film-within-a-film in Quentin Tarantino’s
16:9
21:9
1985
1968
Inglourious Basterds. To your left, you’ll see the window out of which Jackie Chan leapt when he was here shooting Around the World in 80 Days (in that instance, Görlitz played the part of Paris). The Book Thief and The Monuments Men have also done their bit to ensure that the tag “Görliwood” is now in serious danger of sticking. The town’s good luck extends to more than just Oscars and tourism. It emerged from the second world war with scarcely a scratch on it. “The architectural centre is intact,” says Andro Steiborn, a producer who has worked with Michael Haneke. “So it’s one of the few places in Germany where you can shoot historical sequences.” It was also the beneficiary, in 1995, of an anonymous donation of $675,000 to put toward improvements. One local newspaper suggested that Nicolas Cage – yes, Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage – was the mystery benefactor. Well, it would be nice to think that the actor, famed for buying pyramids, dinosaur skulls and haunted houses, had been doing something worthwhile with his money.
GÖRLITZ There is not, as yet, any prize given for “best supporting location” at the Academy Awards. But Görlitz has a history of doing well at the Oscars.
23 – 1932
4:3 1932
THEY WEAR WHAT THEY ARE
We glean so much from what a person wear on-screen. They can determine how a film is remembered in public consciousness. Anderson oft chooses to uniform his creations. Sometimes the uniforms specific jobs. We can read their interiors by studying their exteriors. They wear what they are.
GUSTAVE H. When Gustave tumbles from symbol of luxurious tradition, with his welltailored concierge costume, to disgraced criminal, he trades his tailored suit for a striped prison uniform with too-short sleeves and half-mast trousers grazing the ankles.
MADAME D. Madame D., in her Klimtesque velvet coat and her long yellow gown would have made of her dapper represents hotel culture at its zenith: an age of parties and champagne, fourposter beds and foie gras.
24 – 1932
ZERO As mentioned before, Anderson loves uniforms, that specific jobs. Zero, who‘s a the Lobby Boy at the Grand Budapest Hotel wears always his purple uniform with his hat.
AGATHA On first glance, Agatha is just a typical pastry girl wearing a candy-colored, pistachio-green dress, a peach cable-knit sweater, and thick wool socks.
JOPLING Jopling’s knee-length leather coat: a stable unswerving silhouette, just as much about a World War II-era Kradmantel, this is, in essence, a motorcycle dispatch rider’s coat designed to keep the wearer warm an dry. A near-parody of the archetypal baddie in black, Joplin nevertheless calls up mythological associations that make laughter stick in the throat.
AUTHOR The two characters of the old Author and the young Author wear their own full version of the Norfolk suit. From the Victorian era right up to the 1920s, the Norfolk was considered a sporting garment. Spotting a Norfolk on-screen, and outside of a country environment, can imply that we’re seeing a well traveled gent.
25 – 1932
“Rudeness is me expression of fe People fear they what they want. dreadful and un person only nee loved and they w like a flower.” –
erely the ear... y won‘t get . The most nattractive eds to be will open up – Gustave H.
Thanya Khantho New Design University, St. Pรถlten Grafik- & Informationsdesign Informations- und Editorialdesign Univ.-Prof. (NDU) M.Des. Enrico Bravi Wintersemester 2017/18