Wes Anderson latest - "The French Dispatch (of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun.)" My short review..

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Steve Hoffman, Jan 19, 2022.

  1. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    "The French Dispatch" by Wes Anderson. Couldn't wait any more so I bought the Blu ray. I enjoyed it but be warned, if you dislike Wes Anderson's storytelling style, AVOID this movie; it's the most Wes Anderson-ey of all his films! I love his style so this was a no-brainer for me.

    Director of photography Robert Yeoman shot The French Dispatch on 35 mm film using Kodak Vision3 200T 5213 for the color sequences, and Eastman Double-X 5222 for the black-and-white sequences, on Arricam Studio and Lite cameras provided by a studio in Paris. The look is vintage 1932 1.37:1 Academy visual ratio for the most part part and the coloring is French New Wave style. Again, if you like Anderson, this is typical him.

    The story is about a fictional French town called Ennui-sur-Blasé, covered by reporters from the USA's (made up) Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun newspaper, from the 1940's to 1975. The film has been described as "a love letter to journalists set at an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th-century French city"..

    Basically, Wes Anderson got into reading articles from old New Yorker magazines and decided to make a film about his favorites. Simple as that. In the closing credits, there is a dedication to the following writers who wrote for The New Yorker: Harold Ross, William Shawn, Rosamond Bernier, Mavis Gallant, James Baldwin, A. J. Liebling, S. N. Behrman, Lillian Ross, Janet Flanner, Lucy Sante, James Thurber, Joseph Mitchell, Wolcott Gibbs, St. Clair McKelway, Ved Mehta, Brendan Gill, E. B. White, and Katharine White. And Bill Murray's "editor" is supposed to be Harold Ross, the co-founder of The New Yorker.

    So, unless one is really into that, the movie might seem like an excercise in quirky fluff, but one must watch carefully to get it all, and, more than once. Each shot is filled with more than one can take in. Trust me. And watch on the biggest screen you have. This movie was designed for a movie theater screen, not a computer screen. All-star cast, of course. Everyone is in this, even The Fonz!

    So, the movie is little segments of modern French history (like the student revolution of 1968) filtered through the quirk of a New Yorker style article, put on the screen, basically by Wes Anderson's obsession. What could go wrong?

    So, the three of you that might like something like this will be rewarded. The movie can be off-putting, but worthwile. Don't say I didn't warn you! I plan on watching it again tonight. Not even in multiple screenings will we be able to pick up on everything. Probably the way he likes it.. I plan on watching this time, with the pause button at the ready.

    06-French-Dispatch-Characters-Ranked-gq-february-2020.jpg SDZCJPAQ7ZIVNCH6ZCN43FEOQY.jpg 03-French-Dispatch-Characters-Ranked-gq-february-2020.jpg 02-French-Dispatch-Characters-Ranked-gq-february-2020 (1).jpg 02-French-Dispatch-Characters-Ranked-gq-february-2020.jpg
     
  2. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    I'm looking forward to seeing this. Loved Budapest Hotel and we recently enjoyed Moonrise Kingdom and Isle Of Dogs.
     
  3. EddieMann

    EddieMann I used to be a king...

    Location:
    Geneva, IL. USA.
    There is not a Wes Anderson movie before this one that I disliked. In fact I usually like them so much that I’ll sit through them multiple times. They are the type of movie that if I stumble across one of them, I stop what I’m doing and watch. Which by the way is sadly not a feature of the streaming age in which we now find ourselves. Let me back up, maybe dislike is a little harsh. Perhaps I was bored or disinterested. I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Maybe I should watch it again. I’ll give it another shot sometime soon
     
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  4. ex_mixer

    ex_mixer Senior Member

    Location:
    New Jersey
  5. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    When Wes Anderson gets hooked on something, he gets HOOKED. Gets me hooked as well. After his Grand Budapest Hotel I read most everything by Stefan Zweig, just because Wes did. Well worth it..
     
  6. Juan Matus

    Juan Matus Reformed Audiophile

    Thanks for the explanation maybe I'll check it out! Definitely helps that I know more of the story behind it now. The preview didn't really make sense and unfortunately to me it just looked like another over the top quirky Wes Anderson film that I've already seen in some form half a dozen times.
     
  7. Dan C

    Dan C Forum Fotographer

    Location:
    The West
    Agree that this was "Wes Anderson" turned to 11.

    I loved every second and frame. Also took me a little while to understand what he was doing switching between B&W and color within the same scene, which I think he used to mimic the feel of reading a magazine from back in the era, with sprawling stories that switched between B&W and color pages due to printing costs and technology of the time.

    Every frame is genius, and while overall the film is whimsical, the final act was incredibly moving and lovely without feeling forced. Brilliant ride.

    Watched it in 4K on our OLED at home, but really wish I had been able to see it in a theater first.

    BTW, here's some great insight into the cinematography and filming process.
    DP Robert Yeoman used Kodak color and B&W 35mm filmstocks for… | Kodak

    dan c
     
    Last edited: Jan 20, 2022
  8. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    I loved it! As usual, terrific use of colour and great cast
     
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  9. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    Hmmm, he shot daylight without an 85 filter. Good move for capturing a certain look..
     
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  10. brew ziggins

    brew ziggins Forum Prisoner

    Location:
    The Village
    On first watch, The French Dispatch struck me as terrible, Wes Anderson parodying himself - as SH noted it is the most Wes-ish thing he's done. But after reading some reviews and better grasping the New Yorker tribute, a second watch was greatly rewarding. A masterpiece.

    Been on a bit of a Wes tear lately, revisiting Grand Budapest, Steve Zissou, Mr Fox and Isle of Dogs prior to French Dispatch. Love them all, but Isle of Dogs is da bomb - completely nuts.
     
  11. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    On your OLED did the color look pretty similar to the shots posted in that Kodak color. The reason I ask is the trailer for this movie shows it less saturated which I prefer. Tungsten lighting and balanced color film does render a certain color DNA palette when white balanced even though they didn't use an 85 filter on daylight scenes. I studied tungsten (halogen) lighting with my digital camera when I first taught myself digital photography and noticed after white balance natural colors like toasted apple pie crust and home made bread look more nuanced and natural, no cartoonish saturated colors.

    Thanks for posting the Kodak article. Now I know the difference between Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson, both have made quirky looking movies lately. Wonder if they're related.
     
  12. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    200T Kodak color negative film means Tungsten balanced. It's gorgeous when white balanced and a lot less work on color to get that natural look. Any other artificial light like LED or Flotubes introduce their own patina mainly in whatever color spike inherent in their manufacturing which usual means too much magenta or green and can take a lot color correcting more so than hot lights. Doesn't matter if it's film or digital, but film adds its own nuance due to their specially engineered dyes.

    Below is the look of white balanced hot lights on organic natural objects. I had to discover this using a digital camera because there wasn't any pro film labs for consumers that did it justice. Artificial light tends to distort the hue of these kind of colors including skin tones toward a magenta or greenish patina. Not hot lights.

    [​IMG]
     
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  13. bhazen

    bhazen I Am The Walrus

    Location:
    Deepest suburbia
    As Darjeeling Limited is one of my personal favourite films ever, I'm in the target audience for this one. :cool: Wes rules!
     
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  14. drh

    drh Talking Machine

    Woolcott Gibbs is a name not well remembered these days, but during the Ross era (the days of James Thurber and E.B. White) he was a backbone of the magazine. He not only was an editor but himself wrote criticism, occasional pieces, fiction, you name it--even, at one point, a Broadway show, rather a brave move for a man who had the reputation of a terribly difficult critic. He came to my attention because E.B. White quotes him in The Elements of Style, and one day, having seen that passage any number of times, I said to myself, "Who was this Wollcott Gibbs guy, anyhow?" and looked him up. For those who might also be interested, an entertaining volume of selected Gibbs writing has been published under the title Backward Ran Sentences, a reference to something he wrote in a profile of Time founder Henry Luce, done in a parody of the inverted syntax he preferred: "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind...where it will end, knows God." The biographical sketch/intro is worth the price of the book.

    The book is available on Amazon, and for all I know it may be available for less elsewhere. Note that it's more a good browsing read, taking in a few pieces here and there as they catch your fancy, than the sort of thing to read cover-to-cover. Not everything resonates with us today, as is usually the case with writing that concerns once-hot issues long settled. To take one example, that piece about Luce probably was a lot funnier to readers of Time when it was written, as Luce as a public figure and the magazine's adherence to reversed sentence structure have been gone for decades. Reviews of theater productions long past probably also fall in that category, but I'll confess I found it fun to survey how a respected, influential, but definitely crotchety, demanding, and opinionated critic viewed, say, the premiere of a new play by Tennessee Williams: suddenly, the "It's by Tennessee Williams, we shall all bow down" of the high school English literature class becomes "It's by Tennessee Williams, his latest bid to capture an audience, and it's not without problems." If you like that kind of piece, you'll probably enjoy the book.

    [​IMG]
     
  15. JohnG

    JohnG PROG now in Dolby ATMOS!

    Location:
    Long Island NY
    Made sure I saw this at the movies (it didn't play in theaters very long) and anticipate seeing it a home where I can really take it all in.
     
  16. Pizza

    Pizza With extra pepperoni

    Location:
    USA
    Wes is the best!
     
  17. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    Last edited: Jan 20, 2022
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  18. bhazen

    bhazen I Am The Walrus

    Location:
    Deepest suburbia
    +1 re: it being the most Wes Anderson-y film ever. :cool: He seems to be a really literate, eclectic auteur, making films which play with one's sense of nostalgia.

    Watched it the other night. With all the moving sets, animated sequences, different design looks, colour vs. b&w, "freeze" tableaux, etc. I couldn't help thinking that this must've been a complicated, expensive production. Anybody know about that? ... My big disappointment with the DVD is, no extras (making-of documentaries, interviews etc.). ...

    It's the first film I've bought where I find myself wishing I had a larger TV screen. I'm sure some great 'inside' references passed me by on first viewing.
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2022
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  19. Holerbot6000

    Holerbot6000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    I think being a fan of classic period New Yorker definitely helps. I also like Anderson's movies a lot more now that he has become so visually eccentric and stylized. The student revolution segment didn't work as well for me, but I loved the artist segment and Jeffrey Wright's faux-James Baldwin was fantastic.
     
  20. Professor Batty

    Professor Batty Forum Resident

    Location:
    Anoka Mn
    I know one of the graphic designers (Annie Atkins) who has worked on the last three Wes Anderson films. She said that his productions are extremely well-run and that he does not believe in long hours and hosts a most humane working environment—no wonder that everyone wants to work with him. The French Dispatch may be either the most literate cinema, or the most filmic literature, ever made. He is really pushing the envelope on both art forms (to say nothing of the art direction!) The writing on the Jeffery Wright episode is absolutely brilliant, I had to watch it again with the captions on to catch all of it.
     
  21. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    on our watch pile...my wife ordered this before I did! She's a Wes fan as well...we own all of is available films on home video...Damn I love Tilda Swinton.
     
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  22. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Léa Seydoux! :love:
     
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  23. JohnG

    JohnG PROG now in Dolby ATMOS!

    Location:
    Long Island NY
    she is quite stunning. We watched it last night on Blu, my wife has seen it with me at the movies last year but this time my daughter was with us. She loved Timothy Chalamet. I find the first story is my favorite. Adrian Brody is fantastic in it.
     
  24. Juan Matus

    Juan Matus Reformed Audiophile

    Watched it last night. I thought it was great. Will probably watch it again, so much going on was hard to pick up on everything.
     
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  25. TACOTACO

    TACOTACO Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I could just about stand 30 mins or so and then I gave up.
     
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