CHAS
He also stole bonds out of my safety deposit box when I was fourteen
[Royal looks at Chas, then back at the judge. He chuckles uncomfortably]
There’s a collective denial we all face as humans. We bear certain unbearable truths of the world only in the back of our minds in order to not collapse in a permanent puddle of despair. Our human grief is in constant denial with itself. It’s how we survive and it’s how many of Wes Anderson’s films are set up. There are near perfect worlds built to deny certain outside influences. They’re artificial constructs for the people and anthropomorphized characters to pretend that their version of society is the only one. In small ways, the facades are dropped, as when Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman, Rushmore) is kicked out of Rushmore and sent to public school and when fascist factions invade the bucolic Grand Budapest Hotel. Yet, even then, the characters build back up their fantasy walls within these new systems. Their denial then builds on top of their underlying drive. With Max Fischer his denial hides his intense anger, with Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman, The Royal Tenenbaums) and Foxy Fox (George Clooney, Fantastic Mr. Fox), their denials bely perverse and selfish bargaining, and for Francis Whitman (Owen Wilson, The Darjeeling Limited), his denial underplays his deep depression. It’s only us as the voyeur who, denying the outside world for 90 minutes, can, from our perspective, see the false front these characters are putting up.
One of Wes Anderson’s early and most charismatic collaborators, Owen Wilson has taken on the burden of this character trait in several films. He plays the above-mentioned Francis Whitman, eldest brother of the Whitman clan attempting to repair his fractured family. He pops in splendidly as envious, addict writer, Eli Cash (The Royal Tenenbaums). He plays an ocean enthusiast and potential son of Steve Zissou (Bill Murray), Ned Plimpton (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou). Lately he’s shown up as a writer about town Herbsaint Sazerac (The French Dispatch). Yet, there’s no more indelible and emblematic character of denial than Dignan (Bottle Rocket).
Dignan makes plans. He has tremendously big dreams for himself and his best friend Anthony (Luke Wilson). Most of the plans involve the two of them becoming career criminals, constantly on the run with only each other to rely on. It’s obvious how much Dignan has missed Anthony while he’s been voluntarily institutionalized. It also becomes obvious that Anthony is only humoring Dignan, a fact Dignan does everything in his power to ignore. Dignan doesn’t want to admit he’s in mourning for the loss of the one person who never tried to be a force against him.
It’s obvious that Dignan isn’t for everyone. He’s got a short fuse, a lot of energy, and he has a need to be in charge of the situation. Anthony accepts him for who he is, he believes in Dignan’s lack of cynicism, and his drive to accomplish something. Yet, for all of that, Anthony has changed. He’s gotten a new perspective on himself and it’s forcing Dignan to confront aspects of his personality he’s simply not ready to confront. Dignan longs for the relationship he had with Anthony before Anthony went away. He longs for it so much that he denies that any time has lapsed. He shoves himself, dragging Anthony along with him, into his grand scheme, which culminates in the finalization of his 75 year plan. Until the big heist falls apart around them, Dignan believes wholly in his resolve that this is the only way to keep Anthony by his side, he is fully committed to his state of denial.
On the opposite end of Dignan is Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand, The French Dispatch). She is in denial of her denial. An argument could be made that she’s depressed. Most writers are. Yet, Krementz’ grief comes not from a loss of self or a loss of a loved one, but the loss of independence. People in her life seem to think she lacks. They think that her pursuit of truth and exploration of the human condition means she has a void to fill. It’s plain that when necessary and wanted, Krementz will find a way to fill her void as per her dalliance with young revolutionary Zeffirelli (Timothée Chalamet). What she’s in denial of is that she does need to be seen and seen as a person.
Krementz is perfectly comfortable telling the truth. She tells Zefirelli she never lies. Though, in telling the truth she puts up barriers, pushing people away because they’re uninterested in her perspective. In one of Anderson’s many beautiful scenes of characters looking deeply into mirrors, Krementz dabs at the run of mascara beneath her eye. She played the tear off as a symptom of the tear gas seeping in through the window. She denies her friends the opportunity to pity her. Krementz doesn’t want them to know she has needs outside of her work because that would admit that she has something outside of her work.
It’s evidenced again as she noticeably cringes Juliette and Zefirelli’s heated argument about her. Against her better judgment and because she can’t admit she just wants Zefirelli to want her, she sends the two of them off to break the palpable tension between them. In so doing she denies herself a companion who satisfied her intellectual itch. It’s fitting that the final scene of her story is in her minimalist office, her typing, editor Arthur Howitzer, Jr. (Bill Murray) comes in for her copy, and rather than say anything, she points. She has pushed up her walls again in grief over loss because if she denies the sympathy of Howitzer, Zefirelli will be immortalized by her words. Zefirelli, not a grand love, but a companion and thrilling subject can still exist as she continues to write.
If Krementz seethes in quiet denial, Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel) basks in the pompous brightness of his denial. He is grieving for a world that he has only ever been a tourist to. Like men with his modicum of power over other people, but still in a lowly and servile role, Gustave believes he holds a high place in society, that he’s respected by those with wealth and influence. They certainly need him in the moment, but if it weren’t him, they would have someone else. He is replaceable with little loss to the quality of life. It’s represented by the fascist Zig Zags placing the hilariously named Monsieur Chuck (Owen Wilson) effectively and efficiently in the role. The world is moving on from men like Gustave.
It’s when Gustave finally reaches the station he’s always dreamed of that his denial becomes absolute and leads to his downfall. If he could have learned from his experience, if he could have looked forward, left it all behind, he could have survived. He wants to live the life he’s only watched, though. He wants to be able to throw his weight around. It quite literally hits him in the face. His insistence on this world, this microcosm, of cultured elite blinds him to every truth in front of his face. He’s astute about many things, aware of many others, but this massive cataract of denial about the larger world is his fatal flaw.
Those Andersonian figures that live in denial are sometimes his happiest characters. In the case of Krementz, content is a more applicable word. They have raised their walls, put their blinders on, and speed ever more toward their own goals and aspirations. In some ways they’ll never reach the other stages of grief. In others, they live them all simultaneously, shifting the other pieces of their psyche to the back of their minds in order to see the world as it makes sense to them. Denial is a fable, it’s a world where things will always be put into place. There is a symmetry to it all. All of Anderson’s films fit well as fables as they’re all heightened versions of our reality, letting us ignore the imperfections of the world outside for a glimpse at something that’s so beautifully constructed as all his characters wish their lives could really be.
