it's been, well, twenty issues of the infinite turnpike's “second run”, so to speak. attentive readers will remember that the first go at this concept lasted infinitely less, with only about six or so issues. this attempt has already been more successful, which I can blame on the state of my life at the moment, compounded with the flexibility of the turnpike's current structure. i'm fairly pleased with that fact, and my hope is to keep it going for as long as i'm able to, and for as long as my two-dozen readers are interested. when I started this attempt, I was posting each newsletter on twitter and instagram, but i've stopped doing that for some time now. first of all, twitter supresses external linkes because it's a bad website now, but second of all, I realized that I don't particularly care about the metrics or about expanding my audience. as long as there is a handful of people interested in reading what little I have to say on a week-by-week basis, i'm more than happy. thanks for reading!
recently I rewatched t”he royal tenenbaums”. that is to say, I rewatched “the royal tenenbaums” twice – first, on my own, and the day after that, with my girlfriend, who had never seen it. I used to hold “the royal tenenbaums” as my favorite wes anderson movie, and one of my favorite movies in general, but since that time i've grown to favor “grand hotel budapest” more, as readers of this newsletter may know. so I was really interested in going back to an early-teens favorite, with a more mature outlook. turns out I still love this movie! so here's three scattered thoughts on different aspects of it:
1 – the Look
“tenenbaums” is the movie that solidifies the “aesthetic” of wes anderson. his previous film, “rushmore”, certainly carries some strong hints of what is to come, but the famous “Look” of anderson's films had not yet fully coalesced into something coherent. by the time “the royal tenenbaums” comes out, the “Wes Anderson Aesthetic” officially exists in a way it doesn't before. and it has never really stopped existing since – anderson's films since “tenenbaums” have all used that look, to varying degrees of intensity. for people who are not into anderson's work, this is a common criticism, that the look of his movies is twee, pastel, and sterile. and while I don't agree with this criticism, I do get it, in the sense that if you can't get into the look of a wes anderson movie, that's probably too high a barrier for you to enjoy the rest of it. still, i'm thankful that we can have an eclectic director that makes high profile movies with such a noticeable look to them. I think it's a good thing for film culture, in general.
2 – Pagoda
played by indian actor Kumar Pallana, Pagoda is the sidekick to Gene Hackman's Royal Tenenbaum. if we want to look at the relationship between wes anderson and race, I think he's as good of a place to start as any. a common criticism of wes anderson is that his movies are too white, that the cast of his films is overwhelmingly white. and while I think this could have its merit as its own critique, I find myself significantly more interested in actually looking at the minority actors that are cast in his movies. Pagoda as a character is pure comic relief, he gets none of the interiority that the entire rest of the cast does. there's not really any moment where we get to know him better, he gets nearly no dialogue, and overall exists just to be Royal's funny indian sidekick. compare him to Danny Glove's Henry Sherman, Royal's rival in love for the hand of Anjelica Houston's Etheline Tenenbaum, and the gulf is immense. I think there's a lot of really interesting analysis that could come from looking at the way the few minority characters that appear in wes anderson movies are like, but that analysis has to go beyond looking at stats on a cast sheet, and to actually look at the text. “grand budapest” feels like an interesting place to compare to “tenenbaums” - in this movie, the protagonist of the central narrative is the minority sidekick, and he also ends up the emotional core in a way that feels deliberate by comparison to this movie. compound this with anderson's recent roald dahl short film adaptations, in which he plays some of the problematic racial elements differently, and I think there's a lot to dig into. maybe i'll get around to it at some point, but i'll be honest: I don't know if i'm the guy for that.
3 one final note
do you know how good a movie has to be for me to come out of it basically rooting for incest?
anyway, thank you all again for sticking with this silly experiment, and I hope to keep it going for a while. see you next week!
The movie recommendation was great, it's always nice to see the style of a director come to life !