On Wes

Wes Anderson is a true artist. Now, it does not matter if you like his work or not, the man is a true artist, as evidenced by the following:

He has a clear style. Style is the outgrowth of a creator learning to create how others create and then using those styles to create one’s own style. It’s one’s personal recipe. The ingredients are clear when you ingest his work; you know a Big Mac when you taste a Big Mac. You know the Eifel Tower when you spot it. it’s distinct, and distinct style takes balls on the artist’s part, especially if they’re not well recognized and admired for it. I dunno Wes’ box office or streaming numbers, and little of a shit do I give for them at this juncture. This juncture is here to tell you about all the junk that I think makes Wes a great artist, and perhaps you, too, potential or active artist, can learn a thing, as I have.

So there’s style, and there’s a commitment to the style, a honing of the style. This is the artist digging ever deeper into their creative zone, unearthing parts of themselves to to birthed into the world. Like a soul on screen, in the case of Wes.

I blab about this because of two, nay, three of his most recent outings in the script-to-screen foray: Asteroid City; and two of the four of his newbies on Netflix, the Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, and The Swan.

I’m already feeling the length of this entry, so perhaps I’ll keep this brief, and will.

Blab I will about the first foray: Asteroid City. Cute and somewhat inconsequential plot whose highlights are the character flirtations, signature camera work, and breaking of the fourth wall.

Wes(ley?) loves to break that fourth wall, almost like he loves to take an overly serious character that tells and doesn’t show to the audience while silly actors and stagehands do their thing in the colourful and composite backgrounds.

That’s another hand-in-hand point of his entry: not just that he has style, but what style does he have? What’s going on in that brain of Wes(ley?)’(s) that he chooses to hone this strange approach to the medium of film? The quirk factor is ever-escalating for our dear Wes.

I’ve two more of these Netflix entries to delve into. A bite I shall have this evening, and another tomorrow (binging is a demon that blahs the soul).

Benedict Cumberbatch in the thing