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Wes Anderson is an American film director and screenwriter. He is known for The Royal Tenenbaums, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, Isle of Dogs, the multi-award winner The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Background
Ethnicity:
Wesley Anderson is of English, Swedish and Norwegian ancestry.
Wes Anderson was born on May 1, 1969, in Houston, Texas, the United States, to the family of an advertising executive and writer Melver Anderson and an archeologist and real estate agent Texas Anne Burroughs. When he was eight his parents divorced. Wes, his older brother Mel and a younger brother Eric lived with their mother.
The parents' separation had a profound impact on Wesley not only in his childhood. It has also defined family relationships as one of the main topics in his films.
In time, Wesley's interest in reading, writing, and film-making helped him cope with family disintegration. He was interested in Scott Fitzgerald’s short stories, Star Wars, and Hitchcock films. When his father presented him with a Super-8 camera, Wes started to direct silent films starring his brothers and friends.
Education
Till the eighth grade, Wes attended a private day school. After that, he moved to Westchester High School and later transferred to St. John’s School in Houston. At St. John's he distinguished himself by play productions mainly based on well-known stories, films, and TV shows.
After graduation in 1987, he enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin where he studied philosophy. Alongside he attended a playwriting class where he met his future collaborator Owen Wilson. They became roommates and close friends.
It was also the period Anderson became interested in European cinema and the French New Wave. In fact, that was the passion that influenced Anderson’s directing style.
In 1991 Anderson earned a Bachelor´s degree in philosophy.
Being a student, Wes had a part-time job as a cinema projectionist. The turning-point in his director's career was his friendship with Owen Wilson. The two shared a similar outlook and sense of humor, both were writing short stories and before long they began collaborating on scripts.
The first screenplay they completed was the one for the film Bottle Rocket released in 1994. Although Anderson and Wilson had ambitions of producing a full-length movie, and the script had ballooned to over 300 pages, they only managed to film a thirteen-minute short before running out of money.
Still, the result was good enough and impressed the writer and producer Kit Carson who pushed Anderson to submit the short to the Sundance Film Festival (the largest independent film festival in the United States). Besides, Carson had sent the script to producers Barbara Boyle and Michael Taylor who in their turn had shown the script to the heralded film producer and screenwriter Polly Platt. She was working for James L. Brooks's Sony-based production company and recognized the potential in the pair's short film. Eventually, the short and the full-length script made their way directly to James L. Brooks. Through his connections at Columbia Pictures Brooks managed to help Anderson receive the budget for making a full-length Bottle Rocket in 1996.
The movie failed commercially but it kicked off Anderson's directing career. Critics made positive reviews and Anderson got one more supporter in the person of then-chair of Walt Disney Studios Joe Roth.
After Bottle Rocket came out, Anderson together with Wilson set about completing a screenplay they had started some years before. It was the script of Rushmore. They received a $10-million budget from Walt Disney Studios and released the film in 1998. Rushmore was set at Anderson’s alma mater - St.John’s. That was the first film with Bill Murray playing the part.
In 2001 Anderson directed The Royal Tenenbaums co-written again with Wilson. Among the cast members, there were Gene Hackman, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow. The movie became Anderson’s real career breakthrough and became commercially successful (it made over $71 000 000 worldwide). 5 years later in 2006, The Royal Tenenbaums was included in BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century.
In 2004 in collaboration with writer Noah Baumbach Anderson launched a comedy-drama The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou starring Bill Murray. One year later he co-produced The Squid and the Whale with Peter Newman, Charlie Corwin, and Clara Markowicz. It was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 where the movie received several awards and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize.
The next film Anderson went on to direct was The Darjeeling Limited co-written with Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola. The film was released in 2007 and included many of Anderson's signature themes such as abandonment and sibling relationships.
In 2007 Anderson started the production of his first animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox. The movie came out in 2009 and featured the voices of George Clooney, Bill Murray, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Michael Gambon.
Anderson continued to collaborate with Roman Coppola and in 2012 he directed their co-written coming-of-age film Moonrise Kingdom. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Anderson’s 2014 was marked by The Grand Budapest Hotel. The movie was both a commercial and critical success. It opened the 64th Berlin International Film Festival and won the Jury Grand Prix. Besides, The Grand Budapest Hotel won 4 Oscars: Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Production Design and Best Original Score. In BAFTA it won in the same categories, as well as for Best Original Screenplay. It earned $174 million worldwide at the box office.
The same year Anderson was credited as an executive producer in the film of Peter Bogdanovich She's Funny That Way starring Wilson and Aniston.
In 2015 Anderson announced that he would make one more animated film and in the autumn of 2017, a trailer of Isle of Dogs came out. The movie opened the 68th Berlin International Film Festival where Anderson received the Silver Bear for Best Director.
The upcoming film The French Dispatch is expected to be released in October of 2020. Among the cast members, there are Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Jeffrey Wright, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson.
From the very start of his directing career, Anderson received recognition from critics and influential fellows. He is a recipient of multiple industry awards, including the Best New Filmmaker at the MTV Movie Awards in 1996 for Bottle Rocket, the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2015, the Silver Bear for Best Director for Isle of Dogs in 2018.
Martin Scorsese in his editorial for Esquare named Anderson’s 1996 debut feature Bottle Rocket one of his 10 favorites of the ’90s.
(Mr. and Mrs. Fox live a happy home life with their eccent...)
2009
Politics
Anderson seems to be outside politics. There are no open data concerning his political identification.
A light touch of a political subtext has appeared in his movie Isle of Dogs. At the film’s Berlinale press conference Anderson explained: “We knew there was something happening politically [in the film]. It’s where the story came from, and what happens in the movies, it’s our fantasy of the politics in this made-up place. But then, because we have been working on this movie for a long time, the world began to change in the movie and we all said it feels right for the moment, so maybe there were tiny places along the way where we were getting new inspiration from real life.”
Isle of Dogs reflects the reality where a government itself can lead to segregation and exploitation in society violating the rights of separate groups.
Views
Anderson capitalizes on the idea of the death of the patriarch movement and depicts every male figure as a failure and arrogant blowhard attempting to figure out where he went wrong.
The filmmaker is also eager to reference nostalgia in all his pictures. Watching his films it becomes clear that he is heavily influenced by various eras and cultures as his films are rarely set in modern days.
Quotations:
"There's no story if there isn't some conflict. The memorable things are usually not how pulled together everybody is. I think everybody feels lonely and trapped sometimes. I would think it's more or less the norm."
"Every time you do a take on a movie, you're not sure if it's going to succeed. Even if you have a great cast, like we had, every scene you're kind of waiting for the release. 'Oh, yes; it happened. We got it!' There's always the possibility that it's just not going to work."
"I've never had a movie that got great reviews. I've had movies that got different levels of good and bad reviews, but you can more or less count on plenty of bad reviews."
Personality
Anderson is known for his quirky, character-driven movies and determined actions. He always pays “relentless attention to detail.” The filmmaker directs audience's attention to what he wants when he wants. Thus, Anderson has established himself as a respected screenwriter and director. He has been referred to as one of the few actively working auteurs, a term associated with historic filmmakers like Mike Nichols, Luis Buñuel and Jean-Luc Goddard.
Physical Characteristics:
Height: 185 cm
Quotes from others about the person
Donna Kornhaber, an English professor at the University of Texas at Austin who has written a book about Anderson’s work: "There’s something very bold and very Texan about the way he is willing to bring his [love of movies] to the forefront, to be so referential and also so individualistic."
The actor Bryan Cranston who voiced the role of Chief in Anderson's Isle of Dogs: "What Wes does he seems to open that up and write what he imagines. By doing that, he opens up that can of worms. He’s got to go learn that culture, that language, that sensibility. He’s got to pull that in. He creates more work for himself and agonizes over it, as any good writer, I think, does, and has a lot of care and consideration. And he’s a lovely man, just a lovely man who is open and congenial and collaborative."
Bill Murray (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs):
- “Anderson has a very ordered mind and he sees that if things are ordered in a certain way he can just go to the next thing. Like if you go to his house, things are really put together. I mean that place is… there’s stacks and there’s things, but nothing is out of place. It’s all in place. And you think, is this an art installation or is this a home? But that’s the way he lives his life.”
- “He does not get deterred from what he wants to do. If he makes a plan he goes and does it. He executes.”
Liev Schreiber: "He's just such a kind person. I think that was part of what inspired my [Isle of Dogs] character, Spots. He's genuinely benevolent and a decent dog. Loyal and true."
Bryan Cranston: "Wes is very erudite and fashionable and soft in his features, soft in his manner, in his kindness and his generosity and his openness. He is the most un-Texas-like Texan I've ever met."
F. Murray Abraham: "Wes has this wonderful exuberance and innocence. I've been working in this business so long that when you find someone with that kind of talent who is not jaded… He's like the Little Prince all grown up, innocent and brilliant. It's almost as if he's determined not to be depressed. Not to give in to the ills of the world."
Interests
French New Wave movies, books
Sport & Clubs
tennis
Connections
Anderson is currently in a relationship with Juman Malouf, a Lebanese writer, costume designer, and voice actress. The couple has a daughter, Freya, born in 2016.
Father:
Melver Anderson
Mother:
Texas Anne Burroughs
Spouse:
Juman Malouf
Brother:
Eric Chase Anderson
Eric Anderson illustrated all the packaging of the Criterion Collection editions of Wes Anderson's films Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and The Darjeeling Limited. He also created detailed maps of all the rooms in the Tenenbaum house for the production designers to use as guides.
Besides, Eric sometimes has roles in his brother's films. For instance, he became the voice of Kristofferson Silverfox in Fantastic Mr. Fox.
