Tone, Style & Symmetry — Cinematic Style Of Wes Anderson.
Wesley Wales Anderson was born on May 1, 1969 in Houston, Texas. He is an American filmmaker. He is well-known for his colorful aesthetics, unique characters and storylines packed with nostalgic elements.
Wes Anderson’s movies are generally fast-paced and appealing comedies filled with themes focusing on grief, loss of innocence, dysfunctional families & unlikely friendships.
Tones :
Anderson’s movies are emphasized onto the screen by a simple attribute known as “colors”.
In his films, colors play a huge part as it’s used continually through the layout, the background and at times within the characters. Giving us a unique and aesthetically pleasing feeling.
The tone with which Wes Anderson proceeds in his films has distinctive approach to irony and the ability through which he makes the characters portray as lens, through which the audience can understand the plight of the plot and respectively, the overall narrative.
Style :
Often when we talk about film-making styles, each director is famous for their own unique way or have their own unique style of making a film. For example :
- Stanley Kubrick — is famous for “one-point perspective shot”.
- Quentin Tarantino — is famous for “well-crafted, fully staged wide shot”.
- Christopher Nolan — is famous for “noir-ish”, “visually stunning” and at times unconventional yet often highly conceptual narratives with high stakes acting in the foreground.
But coming to Wes Anderson’s films, his style is often direct. He gives the audience what they want.
Often, in an attempt to connect it with the inner child’s point of view with regard to the audience, Anderson creates films in the style of a ten-year-old… colourful, simple, and real.
In his films, color plays an important role. Most of the time, it symbolises ‘emotions’ in the foreground to compliment the scene or as a hint of the next action/scene set forth.
Case in point : The lobby scene when taking in comparison between the times; 1928 & 1968 of Grand Budapest Hotel, in the film “The Grand Budapest Hotel”.
Oftentimes, Color can also be used as a narrative device.
Most of his films have the nostalgic factor associated with it, which is easily relatable to the audience. He makes the audience escape in his world, through incredible sets, wonderful characters, brilliant writing and straight to the point narration.
Symmetry :
Symmetry is always a constant factor throughout his films.
It’s sort of a nice calling card.
The concept, the people, the setting, and the most important thing— “the scene” — are all given equal weight in Symmetry. In all honesty, it enhances the overall composition.
So, Wes Anderson uses : blocking, framing, lighting, composition, camera angle and camera motion, color, filtration and other techniques of cinematography to create a palette of cinematic scene.
To give you an idea about it;
In the scene between, Jude law(Author) and F. Murray Abraham(Zero) when they’re in the restaurant. As we can see from the scene below, the diners are in a symmetric shot and there is equal eye to eye length in the scene.
Symmetry gives the scene; a ‘pristine beauty’ as observed from the given above frame.
This is all basically achieved as Wes Anderson uses a 40mm anamorphic focal length and a 27mm lens respectively. In the movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel the format was 1.85:1, aspect ratio (referring to the proportion of a movie’s width to its height) and it was used prior only in the beginning and ending scenes of the movie. The Grand Budapest Hotel film was presented in an anamorphic widescreen ratio, 2.35:1.
Conclusion :
In short, a Wes Anderson cinema will be like a narrative book that is beautiful, bright, innocent, and uplifting at times, with basic storylines involving complex characters and, in the end, a morale from which we all emerge as better people.
I hope you have all enjoyed this article.
Thank you for reading !
