Cannes, France – Cannes, France (AP) – Wes Anderson It is not driving the bus. Laurent is. That is the name of the driver that brings Anderson and his bus to the Cannes Film Festival.
While driving from their home in Paris to the south of France, Anderson explains on the phone: “I do not drive the bus. You must have, like four years of training and a bus driver license from the EU.
For years, Anderson, in favor of normal festival cars that transport the guests, brought their own bus to Cannes so that all cast can reach the premiere together. On Sunday, Anderson and Company (including Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Scarlett Johansson and Bryan Cranston) will accumulate for the premiere of the last “the Phoenician scheme”.
It is another example of how Anderson has done something quite unusual in a regular tradition.
With a remarkable regularity, Anderson has been creating films uniquely since its debut in 1996, “Bottle Rocket”. There are variations. Some are expansive family dramas (“The Royal Tenenbaums”). Some are more intimate (“Rushmore”). Some are more densely in layers (“asteroid city”).
“The Phoenician Scheme”, a thinner story than Focus Feature will launch on May 30, is Anderson who works in a high comic team. A type of playful and moving thriller, is starring Del Toro as the Magnate Zsa-Zsa Korda, who decides to name his daughter, a rookie (Threeleton) heir to his accumulated doubtful fortune.
The wheels continue to turn for Anderson, 56. But there are also signs of time that passes. The Cinémathèque in Paris presents a retrospective of Anderson, as well as an exhibition of accessories, costumes and artifacts of its expansive personal archive.
Anderson, who has a 9 -year -old daughter with his wife, the costume designer Juman Malouf, talked about those things and others on the way to Cannes to present “the Phoenician scheme”, a film that adds another appropriate mantra to the world of Wes: “What matters is the sincerity of his devotion.”
Anderson: We have been maintaining these things for so long. The experience of doing so was great. I would take me there to approve things. And my reaction was: “Well, we have more things.” Then we keep adding things. My daughter has lived with many of these things. The puppets of the “Fantastic Mr. Fox” have been in our apartment in New York since we made the movie in boxes. Over the years, she takes them out and plays with them.
Anderson: (laughs) Jason and Bill have a way of taking by surprise with a turn of the sentence. But I like that description. It is a kind of incredible experience to have had Jason involved in our films for so long given I was 17 years old when I met him. It is fun and a strange feeling. The decades have to pass so that you had so much time together. And it is quite shocking to do it. But there it is.
Anderson: I didn’t have something that I thought I wanted to communicate about what it is to be a father. The story really arises from an idea for Benicio and for this character. But I don’t think I had a daughter if she didn’t. That is my heart. It is a special type of father, in all the worst ways. However, there is something we relate to. It is probably somewhere in the DNA of the movie.
Anderson: If I said what is the first idea of the movie, it’s that face. It is not an image of the configuration, it is an image of Benicio in the foreground like this character. His face is so expressive and interesting. It is a special advantage that it has. He is quite fascinating just looking at him in camera, his chemistry with the exhibition of the film. In “The French Dispatch”, there were electrical moments on the set. But electricity was extended when we returned to the cutting room. The wheels began to turn. When we show “the French office”, although many years ago in Cannes, I mentioned Benicio there: “Be aware, there is something else that is coming.”
Anderson: Essentially, you have made your finger in the films that were written for a specific actor, along with Jason in “Asteroid City”. Owen and I were talking about Gene Hackman when we had 10 pages of a script. Ralph was the idea of the character in “Grand Budapest” before there was a page. But I never had one that I thought of someone in such a narrow close -up. With this movie, it is somehow the face and eyes and the closest close -up.
Anderson: First, Genes HackmanOne of the best film actors in history. He enjoyed the movie, I think, between action and cut. He said: “That was when I had a good time.” But he really did not enjoy the intermediate parts, which is most of the time. First he did not take it wildly with the script. I don’t think he loves the idea of being that guy. I think he thought: “There are many things that I don’t like about this man and I’m not sure I want to live like him.”
Besides, he was very young. He was shy and reserved, although it could also be quite explosive. We didn’t know each other well. Sometimes, when we had conflict, we often had open conversations about what just happened. And I felt that I learned a lot about him at that time. And often became much more gentle.
I do not want to assume a great friendship because I do not believe that it would have referred to our relationship (laughs) in those terms. But I really liked it. I just had so much tension and used at work, but sometimes I was a little abusive, especially for me. (Laughs)
Anderson: I think that is the case sometimes. When he saw the movie, he told me: “I didn’t understand what we were doing.” But he totally understood when he saw the movie. It worked for him. He liked it, and I think he liked what he had done. Later I thought: I would like to have stopped for three days of filming, edit some of the scenes carefully and then show him: this is what you are doing and this is what we are doing. I think maybe if I had done that, we could have had a softer moment.
Anderson: The path I have had as a film director, I don’t know if that is totally available at this time. I do not know if the type of movies I started to do would have been made on the same scale or with the same support or with any audience available. To get to the point where I can make the movies I make now, I just don’t know what route I would take. I think some things have changed fundamentally. But I’m not 25 years younger than me, so I just do what I do.
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Jake Coyle has covered the Cannes Film Festival since 2012. He previously interviewed Wes Anderson in Cannes about “Asteroid City” and “The French office.”
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