The Andersonian, the Quirky, and “Innocence”

Abstract

Several strands have come into focus within the critical work on Wes Anderson. One strand establishes and considers him as an auteur,¹ a self-evidently important task for the critical discussion of a director whose oeuvre, even more so than most auteur filmmakers’, exhibits such manifest consistencies in approach and theme; related and indebted to this strand has been the repeated use in scholarship of the word “Andersonian” to evoke his characteristic aesthetic.² Another trend in the scholarship has been to attempt to capture something of what the Andersonian aesthetic might be—in terms of specific stylistic choices, such as his uses of framing,³ music,⁴ and mise-en-scène,⁵ and also in terms of the fundamental and more all-pervasive issue of his films’ very distinctive tones.⁶ A final critical strand has been concerned with the ideological implications of Anderson’s films; with a few notable exceptions,⁷ this area of the criticism has tended to paint an unfavorable picture of Anderson’s movies—representing them variously as apolitical,⁸ ahistorical,⁹ conservatively nostalgic,¹⁰ endorsements of white privilege,¹¹ or even tacitly fascistic.¹² This chapter will be primarily relevant to the first two strands of work on the director, extending considerations of Andersonian tone to include a recurring feature of his films that is frequently noted but has not yet received extended consideration of its own: their seeming preoccupation with childhood and, more generally, “innocence.” I also hope, however, to begin a conversation about a possible relationship between this aspect of the Andersonian and ideological strands of criticism on the director by placing such matters of tone and innocence within a particular sociohistorical context.