Wes Anderson is a hard case.
As a director whose indebtedness to past cinematic masters is matched only by his influence on current indie filmmakers, Anderson is a crossroads unto himself: often imitated; never duplicated. His films—idiosyncratic, dead-pan, uncomfortably self-aware—are brightly colored, oddly paced slices of life that seemingly exist in an alternate reality: an abstract, non-existent America that is instantly recognizable despite its artificiality. His sly, sarcastic, trademark humor is a peculiar hybrid of knowing winks and unexpected innocence. His hip, urbane stories and emotionally distant characters, combined with an incredibly high ratio of cinematic references per square inch, have made him a favorite with film scholars and cinephiles everywhere. He is the uncrowned (yet unquestioned) king of the musical montage, an auteur whose style rises very nearly to the level of content—and he makes a mean American Express ad.
And yet, intentionally or no, he is a divider, not a uniter.
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