Alfred Hitchcock’s idea of ”pure cinema” was based on his education in the silent film era, but you can see its echo throughout his filmography. He believed the film should be enjoyed on mute, because the key images – birds flocking to telephone wires – told the story as much as the dialogue. You can imagine what he would have thought of Wes Anderson movies, where every scene in every movie involves two people telling very clever jokes at each other while moving as little as possible.
“Wes Anderson: The Archive” at the Design Museum in London is the first major museum exhibition dedicated to the director, and provides a context for appreciation outside of his films. The exhibition features more than 700 pieces of ephemera related to his films, including costumes, props, stop-motion puppets, miniature models, paintings, notebooks and Anderson’s own storyboards. These are drawn from the personal archive he has built up since then Rushmore (1998), when he began writing in his contracts that everything made for his films would be his property, after selling some items from Bottle rocket (1996). The exhibition is a collaboration with la Cinémathèque française in Paris, where it premiered last year, and has been expanded with around 300 additional pieces in London.
It makes sense that Anderson’s archive is so vast because a great deal of work goes into the stuff that builds his world. Painting Boy with apple It’s a MacGuffin Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) by a fictitious artist called “Johannes van Hoytel the Younger”. In fact, it was drawn by a fellow named Michael Taylor, but the art was directed by Anderson down to the type of fur that appears on the costume and the mysterious piece of paper in the background. A London dancer was the boy’s model, but the position of his hand on the torso is taken from a 16th-century Fontainebleau School portrait of Gabrielle Destré holding her sister’s nipple. There are enough detailed idiosyncrasies so that it can be read as a believable portrait of a young Renaissance nobleman, even in a brief flash on the screen.
I’ve heard the argument that Anderson’s best films are the ones aimed at kids and the stop-motion is most obvious Wonderful Mr. Fox (2009) allowed Anderson to move his girl. Standing just a foot tall, Mr. Fox is a ball-and-socket doll covered in mohair, alpaca and goat hair, but he’s as convincing as the rest of Anderson’s stuff. His short suit is designed in the same way as a human suit and his face is flexible for acting. The same applies to dogs in Isle of dogs (2018) despite replacing human heads.
Location for Asteroid city (2023) is described in the catalog as “not a city, but a large-scale artwork that functions as a hamlet on the edge of the Arizona desert (‘Pop: 87’).” If envisioned as a giant facility with moving parts, also known as humans, its engines could be customized vending machines that serve anything from real estate to martinis. The catalog also notes how the research undertaken on these included looking at real vending machines for meat, bread, socks and eggs from the early post-war years. The result is a series of character-packed tentpoles that entertain because they exude the depth of America. Anderson may control his actors tightly, but his objects are given wide latitude.
“Wes Anderson: Archives“On display at the Design Museum, London until 26 July 2026.
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