408 - The Royal Tenenbaums, United States, 2001. Dir. Wes Anderson.

Monday, February 12, 2108

408 - The Royal Tenenbaums, United States, 2001.  Dir. Wes Anderson.

What if you had six days?

Just six days.

What would you do with your time?

Royal Tenenbaum wants to make up for lost time.

He has children he has not seen in a long time.

And grandchildren he has not seen any time.

He is about to have the greatest six days of his life.

Playing games with his grandchildren.  Playing sports.  Playing pranks.

And visiting the cemetery.

That is thing with him.

His grandchildren love it.

His wife is over it.

His son Chas is not buying it.

His wife's boyfriend Henry Sherman is going to expose it.

Royal is not sick at all.  He just told Etheline that he was in order to get back into her good graces.

At least it is fun while it lasts.

The Tenenbaums are a family of geniuses with great talent and plenty of money.

It is too bad that they do not have love.

They want to.  They try to.  It is just that life can be complicated.

And people can fail at things.

We understand, says the film.  We are all human.  We are all too human.

Chas and Richie are the brothers.  Played by friends.  (Ben Stiller and Luke Wilson).

Richie and Eli are the friends.  Played by brothers.  (Luke Wilson and Owen Wilson).

Margot is the sister.  (Gwynneth Paltrow).  She is adopted.  She has secrets.

A secret smoking habit.

Secret lovers.  Many of them.  Over many years.

A secret thing for her brother Richie.  It is okay, though.  They are not related.  There is no blood between them.

Gene Hackman is Royal Tenenbaum.  Angelica Huston is Etheline.  Bill Murray is Margot's husband Raleigh St. Clair.  Danny Glover is Etheline's boyfriend Henry Sherman.

Seymour Cassel is Dusty.  The bellboy at the hotel where Royal now lives, who pretends to be his doctor.

Kumar Pallana is Pagoda.  His dear friend and servant who once stabbed him with a knife and then saved his life.

Alec Baldwin narrates.

Wes Anderson revels in multiple set ups with extravagantly precise production design.  A shot of this.  A shot of that.  Many shots of many things.  Lots of props.  Lots of color.  Lots of compositions.  Minute details.

And long takes without cutting.  The shot of Gwynneth Paltrow getting off the bus.  The shot of the car wreck near the end.

A film school in a film.

Anderson tells us he did think a lot about Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) as he was making this film.  Another film set in the house of a great family in great decline.  By the original master of the long take.

And he played the music that would later be played on the soundtrack while they were filming, to give the cast and crew the feeling the music conveyed.

The legendary Gene Hackman and the up-and-coming Owen Wilson made two films together that year.  The Royal Tenenbaums and Behind Enemy Lines.  Hackman would make only two more films before retiring.  We are thrilled he made this one.  For scale, no less.  And we thank Wes Anderson for doing what it took to get him, as we all love Gene Hackman.

Now,

Anybody interested in grabbing a couple of burgers and hitting the cemetery?