Cinema

The French Dispatch: A work of Art or Not?

Is Wes Anderson’s latest film an masterpiece or a triumph of design and craft alone?

I am troubled by a film I saw.

I enjoyed it greatly. It was a masterwork in craft and of design. I was dazzled and excited in the process of watching it, and I look forward to watching it again sometime soon, and exploring it in greater depth. It felt like a piece that deserves a near frame-by-frame analysis.

But is it art?

There is a convenient shorthand I use to determine for myself is something is art or not. It as the intersection in creation between craft, design, and substance. I would define craft as the art of creating and / or finishing something to a high standard. Design is the concept or plan with a view to fulfilling a function or purpose — the style if you like. Substance is the meaning, message or idea or discussion that the creator is trying to explore, distribute, or discuss. Art therefore is crafted design with substance

The obvious everyday examples would be books or music, where the craft is the word and/or music composition, the design of it being to entertain or engage, the substance being whatever the song or book is about — not all books or music is art by this definition, and that is perfectly ok — this is not to say that craft and design are worthless without meaning. We can also include under this understanding quilts that carry a family story, jewelry that that acts as a signifier, etc. Performance and visual arts also obviously fall into this category too. And sometimes they don’t — good stand-up comedy or ceramics can be an art, and a good set of whiskey glasses, or performances where the actor is given no say in the matter are concoctions of craft and design. And this is not to say they are bad, just not art. Some like to use the definition “twee arts” to refer to craft work but I think that is reductive all around — good craft is good craft and should not be undersold, as is also the case with design.

I have found it a very broad definition, and usefully so. Art should encompass and echo all life, and as such deserves to be the head of an open and opening church.

And last night I watched a film and I am now in a quandary. The film was The French Dispatch, and I truly enjoyed it, as I have all the work of Wes Anderson (white cis het male with intellectual leanings — check). It was clever, it had depth, it was beautifully performed, written, and finished. But I find myself today wondering. Do I consider it art or not, if it fits my definition. I am not certain why I feel the need to categorize. Had I not enjoyed it, I would not be concerned with this. Had I felt it was less ornate, less baroque, it would not seem important to decide on this. But I find myself trying to figure out the answer to this question. Is it art?

Looking back on the other films, it was seldom in doubt. To take the three of his I have most recently seen: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou; Moonrise Kingdom; and The Grand Budapest Hotel; it is clear. With all his work, you have a very discernable sense of the concept or idea — visual schemata echo throughout his work and in his films individually. The integration of his aesthetic with the crafted finish of the work adds to its value. And then we find our substance. In the case of a master artist like Anderson, it is seated even in the design and the craft.

Take The Grand Budapest Hotel and its windows, explored for fun in this article, but worth a very real examination. Why has Anderson gone to such lengths to cram so many into the film. As I understand it, the whole of the film is in many ways is an opportunity for us to peer at a world that is gone. From the very start, we have a woman opening a book — the ultimate window or door into another world — and we are seated outside a surrounding narrative that we do not think of until the very end practically. This is apt as the meaning of the film, the substance, is to look at a world departed from the outside, not lauding it, and not lamenting it either, but looking at a man who appears to be perfect but is truly messy when you get behind the windows, and who puts his faith in the souls of people before the exterior veneer that most preoccupies the fascist element in their society. The metaphor in the design, so beautifully realized in the craft, is enriched by its meaning.

Moonrise Kingdom, with its awkward people clumsily living inelegant lives, is another example of the importance of substance in design. The whole of the film is filled with nostalgia, echoes of a past which may or may not have been but feels real enough to almost touch. Not quite as drenched in the Wes Anderson quirkiness, but full of these fond remembrances. The adults live the regret of past mistakes, second guessing their lives, while the kids simply do — they live, they run away, they kiss, they act. As anyone who has been a child will know, we didn’t always do, and afterward we mostly regret that we didn’t: sometimes those are the memories of childhood that seep through in spite of the good. Set the children along the one adult who does not regret, who does — Tilda Swinton’s Social Services — the ultimate second and third guesser, who has plans for everything — ultimately undone by what she could not possibly predict. We have a clear case for the messiness of life, and for attempting to live and connect with people. The notional adult hero of the film, the utterly regretful Sharp (Bruce Willis) may have spent his life regretting some of his choices, but his commitment to living with consequences instead of preventing them does allow for him to engage beyond the nostalgia and experience a true connection in the present.

In The Life Aquatic, we have the delightful whimsy of his real world model style film making throughout, that mark of the surreal that is such a delight in his films, right throughout and down to the resolution where they meets the shark. There, in the perfect and overpacked impossibly Wes Anderson-y submarine (yellow to boot), we meet a more realistic and beautiful, if CGI, shark — a sharp contrast with everything else we have seen. It captures perfectly the meaning of the film, where Zissou lives a life of artifice as he fails to deal with the loss of his friend, the discovery of his son, the end of his marriage, and his ultimate unhappiness and irrelevance — no longer has he the opportunity to avoid life in its real form, and he has a moment of true emotion, surrounded by people who have enabled his life of artifice to flourish, but who are sincerely there for him in a way he had always missed. Similarly, this is the point where the music that fills the moment is no longer Seu Jorge’s songs — at a remove through the words being in Portuguese — nor the electronica that coldly features throughout, but a lush orchestral score that is at odds with everything that has gone before. Things have changed at this point. Their lives are different. Change comes to all things, no matter how calcified.

And this is where I am lost. I loved The French Dispatch, and look forward to watching it repeatedly, and will doubtless have thoughts that contradict some of this that I feel today. But despite the wonderful craftwork and the stylish design, it doesn’t seem to have any great substance right now. It is a truly great homage to the kind of journalism and writing that has been a credit to the US, past the writers mentioned in the film, to HD Thoreau, and Emerson. There was far more than a passing nod to the French New Wave cinema of the 60s too. Is this, it is enough, the film is worth more than most I have seen this year so far. But is homage enough to qualify as a message, to make all the fun of it into a work of art, an object of un-aging beauty? Is it the work of a master, or a masterpiece in itself? Is The French Dispatch art? Or do I need to revise my definition of art?

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