Wes Anderson and Steven Spielberg use sci-fi the same way

Deep inside the credits of Wes Anderson’s new movie asteroid city It has a strange name. A special thanks section at the end of the book lists Steven Spielberg, one of the most commercially successful directors of all time, alongside Anderson’s friends and past collaborators such as Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow. . These two filmmakers seem pretty far apart. Spielberg is best known for making entertainment for the masses, whether in the form of thrilling, fantastical adventures, or his solemn journey through 20th-century horror. Anderson is known for meticulously constructing his deadpan comic worlds.and asteroid cityBut their connection becomes clearer. They both use science fiction to explore the loss and melancholy of broken families.

Anderson isn’t known for directing sci-fi and fantasy, but those aren’t Spielberg’s primary genres anymore either.Beyond the crack that his films seem to take place on a completely different planet, Anderson’s last overt sci-fi film was 2018’s dystopian stop-motion tale. Inugashimawhile in 2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel It contains elements of fantasy and alternate history and is a 2004 Life Aquatic by Steve Zissou Fantastic, fictional creatures appear. asteroid city Probably credited to Spielberg as it draws inspiration from the 1977 film encounter with the unknownSpielberg’s first full-fledged sci-fi movie “When Alien Ships Meet Humans in the American Desert” asteroid citythe events are somewhat similar to close encounter.

close encounter The film famously ends on a journey that Spielberg would have been unsatisfied with later in his career – Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) decidedly left his wife and children to visit. Board a spaceship and ascend into space with mysterious beings to an unknown point. (Technically, Roy’s family has left him at this point due to Roy’s alien obsession, but leaving Earth seems a little more decisive on his part. felt.) asteroid city, the aliens wield not much physical power over the central family headed by Auggie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman). The mother of Auggie’s four children has already left home, albeit involuntarily. A few weeks before the trip to the desert, Auggie died of a cancer-like illness. On the day of the alien’s visit, Auggie finally breaks the news to his children.

But this alien encounter changes the Steenbeck family, especially Auggie’s teenage son Woodrow (Jake Ryan), who are both fascinated and disturbed by the idea that humanity is not alone in this universe. The evidence that we are potentially unimportant overwhelms him. This is a remarkable reaction. For Anderson’s characters often seem to pre-empt that narrowness and cling to their tastes and world as a way of exerting control in a messy and unpredictable world. is. Woodrow’s grief for his mother is perfectly consistent with his crisis of faith. Because few things can feel more daunting and precarious than a family change.

That’s something Spielberg understands particularly well, and it’s almost always present in his sci-fi movies. ET extraterrestrial life form It depicts a family torn apart by divorce. His father has moved out, his ex-wife is struggling, and son Elliott (Henry Thomas) feels insecure and alone.Spielberg’s space war In the midst of a terrifying alien attack, an absentee alternate father is given a (terrifying) chance to restore authentic parenting. minority report The piece gives a more devoted father (played by the same actor!) some sort of settlement after a devastating loss. artificial intelligenceArguably Spielberg’s best and boldest sci-fi film, it tells the story of a robot boy programmed to simulate familial love who drifts away when the family he serves no longer needs to fill a special void in his life. .

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Like Spielberg’s work in the genre, Anderson’s sci-fi novels often feature families already disintegrating at the beginning of the film. Atari (Koyu Rankin) loses her parents at the beginning of the film. InugashimaThat makes it all the more important for him to bring back his exiled dog and best friend Spots (Liev Schreiber) from the island. (It’s similar to the protective enthusiasm Elliott feels for his non-human friend, ET.) Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) The Life AquaticLike Ray from Tom Cruise in space waressentially gave up his role as a father and chose to pursue the life he envisioned as a carefree young man, but Steve has since passed away and the child (referred to as “probably my son”) is left to Steve. have grown into adults before giving birth. get in touch with him.

Filmmakers’ characters are often very different. So is their technical approach as directors. Whereas Spielberg favors propulsive movement in his narrative, Anderson deftly uses small gestures in the frame, often appearing impossibly detailed cartoons. Because of these very different forms of spectacle and their respective interests in fantastical staging, both filmmakers are sometimes mistaken for pretending to be childish or innocent.

But while both see fantastical imagery through the child’s perspective, they also use the dynamic depiction of the children and train sets that Spielberg portrayed in the film. favermans — no wonder there’s an image of a train bookend asteroid cityor the Darjeeling Limited Beyond simple work, mostly done inside one Spielberg’s face Awe. Instead, they each convey a sophisticated understanding of how we process loss and how we relate it to our place in the larger world.

Spielberg’s sci-fi traps always seem to exist to articulate a familial chasm that can’t be bridged. Remember Agatha the Precog? minority report, John Anderton (Cruise) describes her vision of an alternate life for her lost son, and her vision is as heartbreakingly vivid as the real memory. Alternatively, tiny robot David (Haley Joel Osment) lives for thousands of years, with programming persisting past the decline of humanity to emulate.

Image: Warner Bros.

On the other hand, Anderson sometimes takes a more meta approach, in keeping with the characters’ self-consciousness.of asteroid cityFor example, sci-fi stories about alien encounters are just one layer of a world within Anderson’s world. The story has been staged as a play and structured as a television show, composing scenes from afar as a way to grapple with the infinite nature of the universe. Science fiction is a way of peering into the unknown, even if at some point you have to flinch.

This is the depth that Anderson and Spielberg imitators tend to miss. (There’s one more unexpected commonality between the two of him, both of whom have produced numerous imitations.) Spielberg’s imitations tend to come from movies. Nostalgic ideas from the 80’s I know what his movies are like, but imitators often think E.T. There are also some Amblin movies that Spielberg made decades ago. Anderson’s imitations are more likely parodies or impressions of his style. (Some of the actual feature films are influenced by his style, though they don’t quite capture his tone, but look at you, Paddington!)

But what the imitator lacks, and what the real shares, is that loss and grief recalibrate our personal worlds, recontextualizing them and transforming them in strange or even frightening ways. There is also a sense of opening them.

Despite Spielberg’s reputation for uplifting, his sci-fi interventions are clearly not family-healing in any of the stories. space war It’s more the exception than the rule in this regard, and the film shows the family going through a truly horrifying level of carnage (not to mention the actual murder by Ray) on their way to a happy ending for now. contained. It has a similar fire baptism effect (albeit on a much smaller scale). The Life AquaticSteve must survive further losses. close encounter– Kind of like a moment between humans and other species.

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Steve’s heartbreaking response to Jaguar Shark, “Do you remember me?” is more solipsistic than indicative of makeshift family concern. But it provides a window into the panic and emptiness he feels when he realizes that the people closest to him aren’t as permanent on this earth as he is.

Anderson offers a more traditional solution. Inujima, It features his heroic deeds and positive changes to a near-future dystopia. Atari’s quest has been accomplished and a new form of domestication has been achieved.This is perhaps the simplest summary of any of Spielberg’s big sci-fi projects. ready player one.

asteroid cityOn the other hand, this implies that the Steenbeck family, like the family in the film, will have to weather the loss as best they can. E.T., minus the emotional crescendo of catharsis scored by John Williams. Despite the framing device that calls attention to the subtlety of the desert-set part, it tells the story. asteroid cityThe movie still ends in its play-within-a-play, despite its storyline. Far more than many filmmakers attempting to make audience-pleasing renditions of Spielberg, Anderson is able to conjure true wonder in his version of his sci-fi. But like Spielberg, his work resonates because no matter how strange we experience it, it doesn’t ignore the empty space left in our lives.