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From the Mixed-Up Films of Mr. Wesley W. Anderson: Children’s Literature as Intertexts

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The Films of Wes Anderson

Abstract

For a director whose body of work includes seven features, a handful of short films, and a few television commercials, Wes Anderson has garnered considerable attention from film critics and scholars. He has been the subject of one monograph, one special journal issue, and several articles in leading film and media studies journals, including three in Cinema Journal alone. Regardless of their critical conclusions, his proponents and detractors seem to agree that he is an original filmmaker with a unique style—so much so that Stefano Baschiera contends “every single frame shot by the director of Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) [is] both distinctive and easily recognizable” (118). In the introduction to this volume, I outlined numerous traits that are characteristic of Anderson’s films, but I want to make clear, as Anderson has, that he is not wholly original. Despite the substantial amount of critical interest, few critics have offered extended analyses of the various influences that Anderson draws upon, plays with, and reinvents in his work.

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© 2014 Peter C. Kunze

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Kunze, P.C. (2014). From the Mixed-Up Films of Mr. Wesley W. Anderson: Children’s Literature as Intertexts. In: Kunze, P.C. (eds) The Films of Wes Anderson. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137403124_8

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