A New Theory

A theory has been rattling around my head for a few weeks now. It's not entirely thought through, in fact it's more of a passing thought, but more one that doesn't pass.

I got quite obsessed with The Darjeeling Limited when it came out, and by extension Wes Anderson's entire oeuvre. I re-watched Rushmore (still as perfect as the first time I saw it) and The Royal Tenenbaums (a lot darker than I remember) and even The Life Aquatic (a bit better than I remember, but not much). This Anderson frenzy began around the time the Glasgow Film Theatre started its run of It's A Wonderful Life in December, and with so many people overheard in the foyer talking about its "feelgood" qualities, I began to to foment this theory, perhaps to let out my irritation.

Because I get very irritated when people talk of It's A Wonderful Life as a "feelgood" movie. It is not. It is far more complex than that. Frank Capra is far more complex than that. It's A Wonderful Life starts with a suicidal man. It takes us back to his youth where his carefree self dreams of moving away from his small town to do things, to literally build bridges. He dreams of being a great architect. But then his father dies, and the business his father worked at is under threat from a nasty man. So the young man puts his dreams aside (just for a while) in order to save the business. Once he has saved the business he decides to go back to those dreams, to pick them up where they left off. But the town has other ideas. The other men at the business need him, and he meets a girl. He stays in the town, becomes a local man of good repute, the all-American hero, an all-round good guy. But what happened to those dreams? Where are those bridges he was going to build? I don't see any. He hasn't built a single one.

Oh yes, of course he doesn't commit suicide, he realises what a wonderful family he has, but this family is a small-town family, the same small-town he always wanted to leave. He hasn't built bridges, he hasn't travelled the world. The only good feeling in the film is of the "well I suppose as far as compromising one's dreams go, this isn't so bad" kind. This guy may be happy, but it's not the type of happiness he wanted. It's what everyone else wanted.

Now take Anderson. Oh he's too light, too much style, not enough substance, not enough emotive power. Let's make a list of thematic concerns in:

Rushmore:
- lonely young boy
- death of mother
- stifled dreams
- unrequited love
- patheticness of innocence

The Royal Tenenbaums:
- familial strife
- a father tells his family he is dying. He is not
- incest (sort of)
- attempted suicide
- unrequited love
- mental illness and paranoia
- the death of a beloved wife, mother to 2 young children
- estrangement of fathers (multiple ones)
- racism
- the failures of love
- divorce
- drug addiction (multiple)
- restlessness
- failure
- lack of parental approval

The Life Aquatic:
- world-weariness
- divorce
- best friend dying
- estranged fathers and sons
- jealousy/rivalry
- failure
- lack of answers

The Darjeeling Limited:
- absence (through death) of father
- estranged brothers
- mental illness (possibly)
- estranged mother
- failures of love
- attempted suicide (hinted at)
- actual death - the unfairness of life

You may be beginning to see my point. Anderson is our Capra. Both are as misunderstood as the other. Both are seen as light, happy, fluffy. They are anything but. They realise that the lighter side of life has an undercurrent of melancholy to it, that laughter can sometimes be sad. Aren't Capra's boy-men (Mr Deeds, Mr Smith) made to look foolish, out of touch, made fun of? Their innocence is sad and melancholic, people take advantage of their lack of understanding of the modern world, the big city. These film-makers don't make "feelgood" movies, they make films that reflect life as it is. What a ridiculous term "feelgood" is anyway.