‘God is in the details is a saying very much embedded in architects. Architecture is a profession where functionality and aesthetics merge to create a masterpiece. The world of cinema combines many talents and backgrounds to provide the most suitable and proper visual experience to an audience. That is where architecture and cinema share similar visual imagination and expressions. The French Dispatch of Liberty Kansas Evening Sun is set in a 20th-century French city of a fictional town named Ennui-sur-Blaise.
It is an American newspaper with a weekly publication. The film starts by introducing the newspaper’s top journalist, the passing away of the editor Arthur Howtizer Jr.(played by Bill Murray), and his wish to dissolve the publication with the last issue. Inspired by the journalists, writers, and illustrations of the New Yorker, the movie is a love letter to journalists. It is a visual ensemble of four featured articles and an obituary for the editor. The opening scene shows the back of the office building of French Dispatch with windows popping and a waiter carrying a tray of items along the stairs with other residents going about their work. The appearance of a frail workplace with exposed pipes and stripped-off plaster gives a flat impression. The editor’s office is a warm yellow with bookshelves, paintings, illustrations, and magazine covers painted or framed against the yellow wall. The window behind Howitzer’s desk looks at the street below, bringing faint sunlight in.
The film is directed by Wes Anderson, a well-recognized name for his whimsical, eclectic, and visually enchanting portrayals on screen. The films directed by him are known for the way the camera moves, using a lens of 35 mm film. His movies are known for proportional representation, appealing colours, and beautifully flat background sets. His work is widely critiqued and acclaimed because of its unique and impressionable style.
The Making of The French Dispatch | The French Dispatch
Architecture is deeply ingrained in a Wes Anderson movie. It is visually appealing with intrinsic and well-thought-of details. Though most of the movie was filmed by made-up set(130 sets to be precise), the city where the sets were built was in Angouleme, France. The movie’s settings were prepared post-war in France during the 1950s and 1960s when cities and people were recovering from the war; buildings chipped, colour fading, lamps, and streets battered. And thus, Angouleme was a perfect location for what they were looking for.
The interior of spaces has a French aura to them. Adam Stockhausen and Rena DeAngelo, the film’s production designer and set decorator, respectively, went through various French films for inspiration, understanding of the decor, setup, and use of colours. The team walked around the flea markets of Paris to buy furniture, vintage light fixtures, pans, lamps, and other antiques. The team studied the lighting of French houses and cafes post-war and found vintage pieces from the flea markets. Industrial detailing and fluorescent lighting were highlighted elements. Many sets of the film’s miniatures make them feel different from others. The dollhouse-sized sets were blended in with the life-size sets. The sets were first sketched with allotted measurements and then executed. Anderson has always been experimental regarding sets, and this movie was no exception. There were instances where the face of the cafe was physically slid away by a person to reveal the activities and spaces on the other side. (Abramovitch, 2021)
The Intensity of Black and White and the Playfulness of Colours.
The use of black and white with bright and vibrant colours at different intervals was only a part of the cinematography but also carried the protagonist’s moods and state. There have been snippets between storytelling and adventure where feelings and sentiments are carved. Instead of music or dialogue, a touch of humanness is brought by colours. In ‘The Concrete Masterpiece’, the black and white scenes portray the prison’s gloom and Moses’s mental state, and yet when the painting is taken off the cloth, we see the various colours on the canvas. Similarly, when Moses is inspired by the light and the surrounding grey ceiling, the strokes he imagines appear bright above him.
‘Revisions to a Menifesto’ also displays shades of grey, except the pop of yellow in the cafe, which depicts joy with students chattering and loud music playing inside. The most fascinating moments were in ‘The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner’, where the son of the commissioner, locked inside a door, asks a dancer(played by Saoirse Ronan) the colour of her eyes. She peers through the letter hole in the door to discover a brilliant pair of blue eyes looking back at him. When the police commissioner’s cook, Nescaffier, presents his dishes, the food is shown in its many versatile colours. (Larsen, 2021)
The French Dispatch is a visual treat paired perfectly with the simple and soothing sounds of a piano in the background. There are various layers to the storytelling, visually and theoretically, making space for interpretation. Wes Anderson’s creations are an acquired taste and one might have to be patient with the storyline, but you want to sit back and marvel at the perfection of every scene presented to you.
Watch the trailer of the film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcPk2p0Zaw4
The Featured Vignettes and their Architecture | The French Dispatch
‘The Cycling Reporter’, aka Herbsaint Sazerac(played by Owen Wilson) takes the readers and audience through the town of Ennui. Dismissing to focus on the higher class of society and cycling along the less privileged areas like the tram, pickpocket’s alley, the Butcher shop, the cafe, canals, and so on, he talks to the screen about the town. The scenes shift from the houses of Ennui, their slopped roofs with chimneys throwing up smoke, and the students’ spot. There is a comparison of areas in terms of change in appearance, functionality, and designation. After the narration, or in this case, the ending of the vignette, Howitzer is seen discussing the content of the articles with his writer in his writing chambers, and we get a peak of the workplace. The setting also gives a hint of the writer’s personality and character. Sazerac’s Chamber is filled with books and maps on the wall with space for putting his cycle together and cabinets stuffed behind and suitcases resting on them. Binoculars and cameras are scattered around the room. That says that Sazerac is an observer and a keen traveller.
‘The Concrete Masterpiece’ is the second vignette revolving around a mentally unstable prison inmate in Ennui, Moses Rosenthaler(played by Benicio del Toro), who is charged with murder and is a skilled abstract painter. Simone(played by Lea Seydoux) is a prison officer, who becomes his muse, inspiration, and half-hearted lover. The segment resumes with J.K.L Berendsen(played by Tilda Swinton) addressing an audience(thereby narrating to an audience) in the auditorium of an Art gallery where she formerly worked. She takes the audience through the life of Rosenthaler and Julian Cadazio( played by Adrian Brody), who takes Moses’ work out in the world, introducing people to modern art. The scenes develop around the narrow and concealed spaces of the prison with damp and hard earth for flooring and windows high up the walls for Moses compared to Julian, where he puts out the word of Moses’ painting posters with details of his exhibition around every corner of the city. (James, 2022)
‘Revisions to a Manifesto’ is a political section of the magazine where Lucinda Krementz(played by Frances McDormand) reports a revolutionary protest of students against the police of Ennui. Krementz is taken by the leader of the revolt, Zeffirelli(played by Timothee Chalamet), who helps write a manifesto. The streets and public areas are showcased destructively due to the protest. Krementz’s bedroom and workplace have very similar interiors with plain white paint and books piled up against the walls with very minimal furniture and the sound of her typewriter diligently reporting the surroundings. (Tangcay & Wallenstein, 2021)
‘The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner’, the last vignette, starts with Roebuck Wright(played by Jeffrey Wright) in a television interview recollecting the events of the time he was invited by the Police Commissioner(played by Mathieu Amalric) of Ennui for a private dinner prepared the celebrated chef, Lieutenant Nescaffier(played by Stephan Park). The event, however, turns wary when the commissioner’s son is kidnapped, revealing a different narration and characters. In an attempt to rescue the son, the streets are filled with shouts of guns in the dead of night with soft snowfall on the cobbled lanes. Cut to Wright’s office after the feature ends; his office is shown as a space of bright pink with florals in wallpapers and curtains and pots of plants scattered around the space with a writing table and ottoman arranged.
References:
Abramovitch, I. (2021, October 21). 6 Design Secrets from the Set of Wes Anderson’s ‘The French Dispatch’. Elle Decor. Retrieved December 4, 2022, from https://www.elledecor.com/life-culture/a38027529/the-french-dispatch-set-design/
James, D. (2022, January 26). Color and miniatures define the look of ‘French Dispatch’. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 4, 2022, from https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/awards/story/2022-01-26/french-dispatch-production-design-adam-stockhausen
Larsen, J. (2021, November 11). The French Dispatch as Eschatological Coloring Book. Think Christian. Retrieved December 4, 2022, from https://thinkchristian.net/the-french-dispatch-as-eschatological-coloring-book
Tangcay, J., & Wallenstein, A. (2021, October 23). Adam Stockhausen on the Production Design of ‘The French Dispatch’. Variety. Retrieved December 4, 2022, from https://variety.com/2021/artisans/news/building-the-quirky-sets-for-wes-andersons-the-french-dispatch-1235096124/
