Untitled

{"id":3429,"date":"2024-06-04T15:43:48","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T19:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jappersandjanglers\/?p=3429"},"modified":"2024-06-04T20:47:59","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T00:47:59","slug":"o-tenenbaums-o-tenenbaums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jappersandjanglers\/2024\/06\/o-tenenbaums-o-tenenbaums\/","title":{"rendered":"O Tenenbaums, O Tenenbaums"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/a>

The Tenenbaums and hangers-on
Source: Flicker user Brian<\/a>
License<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Children of the pre-streaming era, post-cable era have their own special collections. Not only would you get the same commercials all the time but you\u2019d see the same movies too. Occasionally, there was a treat. Something unexpected would slip in, split your head like a watermelon, and expand your world. Mostly, however, you got Bloodsport <\/em>(1988) and Half-Baked <\/em>(1998). If you were really lucky, the bigwigs beamed a transfixing picture show into your bloodshot eyeballs with regularity. I was so lucky. The film was Wes Anderson\u2019s The Royal Tenenbaums <\/em>(2001).<\/p>\n

I\u2019d never seen a woman like Gwyneth Paltrow\u2019s Margot before. Blonde hair, thick eyeliner, a smoker. My mom smoked\u2014perhaps that had something to do with it. I found Margot entrancing, worship worthy, and utterly repulsive all at the same time. Her flat affect conveyed mystery. Everyone\u2019s total nonchalance did. The colors were bright; the mustaches and beards glorious in a time before Urban Outfitters, axe-throwing bars, and a revival of trad Catholicism had reified each into clich\u00e9. The Royal Tenenbaums <\/em>had a quiet dignity I wasn\u2019t getting from Chuck Norris pictures. I don\u2019t think the movie contains the word \u201cbemused,\u201d and yet I am sure Anderson\u2019s movie beamed it directly into the cellular structure of my brain.<\/p>\n

I decided to rewatch The Royal Tenenbaums <\/em>as an adult because more recent Anderson fare has left me wanting. Artifice has smothered those moments (like Luke Wilson\u2019s suicide attempt) that moved me even as a child who understood little about death, drug addiction, attraction to one\u2019s stepsister, or any other number of adult problems. I wanted to discern if anything had changed. If so, what?<\/p>\n

As I took it in, I couldn\u2019t stop thinking of R.W. Fassbinder\u2019s Love is Colder than Death<\/em> (1969), a gangster film intentionally shot statically, rigidly. Fassbinder\u2019s obsession with Brecht coats the screen. It\u2019s not a good movie. What it does, however, is force the viewer to consider urgently the relationship between form and content. Are gangsters still cool when we don\u2019t match the camerawork to their outbursts of violence? Do we look up to them, glorify them, when they march into and out of frame in stony ridiculousness?<\/p>\n

Anderson\u2019s style, I fear, has come unanchored from the stories he seeks to tell. Tenenbaums <\/em>is indeed \u201ctwee\u201d or \u201cweird\u201d or whatever other nebulous term we\u2019d like to use. These words sell it short, though. The deadpan tone offers Anderson a way to navigate the fine line between comedy and tragedy, between a family so broken it can barely function and so dysfunctional it can\u2019t help but lead us to break out in laughter. It softens the rough edges of disappointment, even as it highlights the bizarre mannerisms found among wealthy failures, nepo babies, and retired gifted kids. Anderson\u2019s style and tone are humanizing. Above all, he\u2019s not afraid\u2014as when Ben Stiller rushes his boys outside for a home fire drill\u2014to use a handheld camera, to subordinate the artifice to the emotional purpose of the narrative, to let one shape the other and be shaped in turn.<\/p>\n

I liked The Royal Tenenbaums<\/em>. A decade away left me with much to appreciate, even if it lacks the hypnotic quality that first drew me in (being about the age of the Tenenbaum children doesn\u2019t help). Above all, I was left thirsting, doubting, waiting\u2014bemused. What happened, Wes?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Children of the pre-streaming era, post-cable era have their own special collections. Not only would you get the same commercials all the time but you\u2019d see the same movies too. Occasionally, there was a treat. Something unexpected would slip in, split your head like a watermelon, and expand your world. Mostly, however, you got Bloodsport […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2640,"featured_media":3432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1731],"tags":[1793,3318,3926,4449,4452,4446],"class_list":["post-3429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-fassbinder","tag-mumblecore","tag-rainer-werner-fassbinder","tag-the-royal-tenenbaums","tag-twee","tag-wes-anderson"],"yoast_head":"\nO Tenenbaums, O Tenenbaums<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Anderson\u2019s style, I fear, has come unanchored from the stories he seeks to tell.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jappersandjanglers\/2024\/06\/o-tenenbaums-o-tenenbaums\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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