“The French Dispatch” in the cinema: Farewell, Edelfedern – culture

“The French Dispatch” is more of a hidden object than a film. The fastest player to find the most iconic actors wins. Tilda Swinton, Timothée Chalamet, Christoph Waltz, Elisabeth Moss, Bill Murray and Frances McDormand get in touch here with lightning speed while giving Wes Anderson’s new film the usual emotionless life. Well, life. As far as one can say with Wes Anderson, the high priest of deeply felt artificiality. But the furniture is beautiful! Very nice in fact.

Anderson’s episode film is framed by the editorial team of the imaginary magazine “The French Dispatch”, which is dedicated to the new Yorker is modeled on, but is produced in France, in a town called Ennui-sur-Blasé. Its soul is the grumpy and visionary editor-in-chief Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray), who sadly dies at the beginning of the film. What remains is his team, a selection of top-class journalists. Three of the stories they researched are then presented as a separate film in the film – in this sense, “The French Dispatch” is actually a very long, very colorful, very entertaining epilogue.

And an obituary not only for the death of the main character, but also for magazine journalism itself, a great personal passion that Wes Anderson is committed to here. Sure, magazines still exist, but they’re not doing well. The days when magazine journalists in 5-star hotels could eat rum truffles with Beyoncé before taking a limousine to their next appointment are numbered. (And we are all very offended! Editor’s note).

At the same time, and this is also shown by “The French Dispatch”, very little is changing at the core of things in journalism, as anywhere in the world. Journalists seem to have had nothing else to do since the existence of the trade than to defend themselves against deleting their (subjectively) best punchlines, pushing their deadlines further and further or lounging around in the hallway and talking about large articles that they will never finish .

As always, you can feel the care and attention to detail

At this point, reading the book “Käsebier conquers the Kurfürstendamm” by Gabriele Tergit must be recommended, which takes place even earlier than Anderson’s nostalgic despatch. It contains wonderful lines about the editorial system in Berlin in the 1930s, which in its essence does not seem to be at all different from today’s. “There’s a talented article about the mud, but it’s still freezing. People can’t write. Nobody can write a good report. Nobody can think of anything new,” says Tergit’s editor Miermann, and he has it forever Law.

But sorry. The plot of the film? In this case the plötte. Sure, it’s called Plots, but the nested, idiosyncratic things that Anderson conjures up are better described with the word “Plötte”. The first film in the film is called “The Concrete Masterpiece – by JKL Berensen”. Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio del Toro), a prisoner painter, has an affair with his guard and muse Simone (Léa Seydoux). He made a nude painting of her, which took the art market by storm – and almost drove some art dealers out of their minds and lives.

“Revisions to a Manifesto – by Lucinda Krementz” is about the same highly esteemed political journalist, Mrs. Krementz (Frances McDormand) and Zeffirelli (Timothée Chalamet), a student revolutionary with whom she starts an affair. And of course the essence and heart of the revolution. The third act, “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner – by Roebuck Wright” is a fragile symbiosis of kidnapping and restaurant criticism.

Timothée Chalamet and Lyna Khoudri as student revolutionaries in “The French Dispatch”.

(Photo: Searchlight Pictures)

As usual at Anderson, the sets, cinematography and art direction are executed with incredible care and attention to detail. Usually people get used to everything good very quickly, and since “The French Dispatch” is not Anderson’s first film, but his approximately one hundred and fifth, this phase of getting used to it has long been over. With the multitude of characters he is gossiping here, shavings are bound to fall, but some stay in your mind. Timothée Chalamet and Frances McDormand not only have passionate sex in the film (off camera, perverts! We’re not with Gaspar Noé here) but also good (seditious) chemistry, and Léa Seydoux convinces as a friendly, sadistic prison guard.

One would have wished they had their own films, or at least more space. Two of the three stories are about turmoil, while Anderson stays true to his style, pushing him even further to the extreme. He takes the same approach to the film as the band 100 Gecs try it out in pop – to override the stylistic devices until something completely new is created. This override creates a kind of frenzied standstill, actually a hidden object.

At its center, however, is Bill Murray, who as the wise editor-in-chief not only holds his editorial team together, but the entire film. One can learn from him that editors can actually do nothing other than talk to their authors well and print what is coming. And if you read this final sentence now, it must have happened exactly the same way.

The French Dispatch, USA / D / F, 2021 – Director: Wes Anderson. Book: Anderson, Jason Schwartzman, Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness. Camera: Robert D. Yeoman. Music: Alexandre Desplat. With Benicio del Toro, Frances McDormand, Jeffrey Wright, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Timothée Chalamet, Léa Seydoux, Owen Wilson, Mathieu Amalric, Bill Murray. Disney, 108 minutes. Theatrical release: October 21, 2021.

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