There was a time when being into Wes Anderson made you a proponent of quirky indie cinema. These days, liking his stuff doesn’t make you a cinephile with niche interests, or really even particularly cool. Now firmly in the mainstream, some of Anderson’s recent films are so stylised as to feel like parodies of his own work. And yet, the universe he has created is still just as wonderful as it has ever been. At the Design Museum’s massive exhibition dedicated to the director there is the chance to step into this ever-so-charming and colourful world – if you’re a fan of Anderson’s films, you are going to love it.
Through more than 700 costumes, props, handwritten notes, scripts, storyboards, behind-the-scenes photographs, and more, Wes Anderson: The Archives travels through each of the director’s 12 feature films in chronological order.
Entering the exhibition, the words ‘No Crying’ are stamped above the doorway of a crimson-painted room (all the paint swatches were approved by Anderson himself). Visitors are then greeted with a wall of BTS polaroids, which includes a shirtless Bill Murrary flexing his biceps on the set of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and close ups of a young Jason Schwartzmann. A series of Anderson’s notebooks are laid out showing his ridiculously neat and boxy handwriting. Of course he writes like that.
The Archives shows visitors just how much detail has been poured into each of Anderson’s films: this is the crux of the whole display. We learn about how 12-year-old painters were auditioned to create a handful of pictures done by the child characters in Moonrise Kingdom. There’s a fantastic display of The French Dispatch magazine covers, the fictional publication illustrated by Javi Aznarez in the style of the New Yorker – the 12 covers were hand drawn for just one very brief shot. We see an intricate triptych of paintings inspired by 17th-century Japanese screens, created for the opening sequence of Isle of Dogs.
Each puppet, prop and set is meticulously handmade.
And oh! the stop motion puppets. The entire adorable casts of Fantastic Mr Fox and Isle of Dogs are lined up in glass cases. Being able to get so close, it’s incredible to see how each puppet, prop and set is meticulously handmade. A funny video shows Wes Anderson making something called a live-action video (LAV), illustrating how each movement, gesture and expression of every puppet was painstakingly planned out.
The apex of the exhibit is the giant and intricate scale model of the Grand Budapest Hotel which was used to film exterior shots in the 2014 flick that was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. The huge pink model looks like a neoclassical Barbie dreamhouse and I wish I could climb inside.
As you might expect coming from the back catalogue of cinema’s manic pixie dream director, it is all very lighthearted and sugary. There’s not much about Anderson’s life itself and I’d have been intrigued to learn more about his earlier, lesser-known work, which includes plays staged at The University of Texas starring future frequent collaborator Owen Wilson. It occasionally touches on the director’s wider influences – a series of eccentric black and white photos by Jacques Henri Lartigue that were the inspiration for Rushmore are displayed – but mostly it’s a big Wes-fest with little work from others on show.
Of course, everything is unbelievably charming and exceptionally whimsical. The exhibit closes with a series of pastel-coloured vending machines created for Asteroid City. One of them spurts out gin martinis with a twist, while another flogs ammunition. Some people might find it contrived – if you’re not into Anderson’s work, you might spend a lot of your time rolling your eyes and trying not to vomit at all the twee. But really, this is an exhibition for the fans. And an excellent one at that. Plus, it’s probably as close as you are going to get to being on a Wes Anderson film set.
