The word 'auteur' is French for 'author', essential the idea behind auteur theory is that a filmmaker exercises an authorship over his/her work as if they were a novelist. This results in their work always consisting of a stylistic, technical or narrative signature that is unique to them, allowing the audience when watching a film to instantly be able know who directed it. Since the dawn of cinema, we have had the pleasure of witnessing many auteur's doing what they do best, which is making films that are unique and inherently them; may it be Hitchcock and his ever present big twists or Tarantino and his hyper violent nonlinear narratives. But in this modern day, only one filmmaker working do I really feel optimisers the word auteur the best, which is Wes Anderson and if you read my Moonlight Kingdom review you will know I'm a massive fan. Forget Moonlight Kingdom or Royal Tenenbaums, because Rushmore in particular ranks as my all time favourite Anderson film.
Every school has them, that one kid who seems to have at least 40 hours a day, while the rest of us mere mortals only have 24 to wrestle with. Then not just seemingly having more hours than the rest of us, this one kid is also able to achieve and do so much more in a week then most people do in a life time. Rushmore has one and his name is Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), an obnoxious, precocious 15 year old who is just about involved in every extracurricular clubs known to man; it could be as dull as competitive box packing club, as pointless as a hopping backwards whilst blindfolded club or even as impossible as a synchronised diving whilst playing the violin club. If there is a club, I can guarantee that not only is Max Fischer the president of that club, but was probably the found of it to. But you're thinking with all that extracurricular activity, how would he have time to do well academically also? Well even the extraordinary Max Fischer can't be a part of all those clubs and still get straight A's, his failing and is in the danger of being kicked of Rushmore, which promises to make a lot of people happy, including the head teacher himself, the school bully and his once pint sized friend now turned bitter enemy . Then when you thought that was harsh on him, to top it all off, he has to compete for the affection of the beautiful yet quaint teacher Rosemary (Olivia Williams), with his much older, idol and best friend Herman Blume (Bill Murray), who also just happens to be a millionaire too. Sounds like trying to sink the Titanic with an ice cube or trying to accurately measure how tall Mount Everest is with a 6 inch ruler; basically what I'm trying to say is things seem pretty impossible for Max to able to both win the girl and stay at Rushmore too. But this is Max Fischer we're talking about! He can't even spell the word failure – no literally he can't, he flunked English too.
Being only Anderson's second feature after Bottle Rocket, you can forgive Rushmore hasn't quite got the same Picasso-esk cinematography, that with its rich, vibrant and bright textures is so effortlessly able to set each scene a blaze with colour, that is beautifully demonstrated in his later films like Moonrise or The Grand Budapest Hotel. However Rushmore still possesses Andersons flair for creating seemingly perfect and coherent characters on the surface, but when you actually venture under the glossy finishes, you realise they are more mad, crazy and dysfunctional then you could ever imagine. And it's for that very reason why I loved the characters of Herman and Max so adamantly, who while on the surface seem so dissimilar; Max being so pronounced and well put together while Herman on other hand is always a car crash waiting to happen, but deep down they are just lonely souls seeking the honest feeling of love and acceptance. My favourite sequence of theirs was when they were trying to sabotage each other; Max by putting bees in Herman's hotel room and then Herman in retaliation destroying Max's bike. The sequence was so imaginative and provided a shed load of many great laughs, reminding me greatly of Tom and Jerry. What I also love about Wes Anderson, is that he never gets lazy when it comes to characterising his supporting characters, they are always so dynamic, unique and if we were to follow their lives instead, it will also make for a great movie. When it comes to picking the best supporting characters, it's so difficult because they all have such compelling personalities and idiosyncrasies, there is Max's father who is a barber but is always strangely mistaken for a neurosurgeon, there is the bully with the really thick Scottish accent and then there is Dirk who is so adorable that he puts Macaulay Culkin in Home alone to shame. Empire was right when it ranked Rushmore in the top 200 films of all time, because I'm in no doubt that Wes Anderson's banger should be on everyone's bucket lists of films to watch.
Every school has them, that one kid who seems to have at least 40 hours a day, while the rest of us mere mortals only have 24 to wrestle with. Then not just seemingly having more hours than the rest of us, this one kid is also able to achieve and do so much more in a week then most people do in a life time. Rushmore has one and his name is Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), an obnoxious, precocious 15 year old who is just about involved in every extracurricular clubs known to man; it could be as dull as competitive box packing club, as pointless as a hopping backwards whilst blindfolded club or even as impossible as a synchronised diving whilst playing the violin club. If there is a club, I can guarantee that not only is Max Fischer the president of that club, but was probably the found of it to. But you're thinking with all that extracurricular activity, how would he have time to do well academically also? Well even the extraordinary Max Fischer can't be a part of all those clubs and still get straight A's, his failing and is in the danger of being kicked of Rushmore, which promises to make a lot of people happy, including the head teacher himself, the school bully and his once pint sized friend now turned bitter enemy . Then when you thought that was harsh on him, to top it all off, he has to compete for the affection of the beautiful yet quaint teacher Rosemary (Olivia Williams), with his much older, idol and best friend Herman Blume (Bill Murray), who also just happens to be a millionaire too. Sounds like trying to sink the Titanic with an ice cube or trying to accurately measure how tall Mount Everest is with a 6 inch ruler; basically what I'm trying to say is things seem pretty impossible for Max to able to both win the girl and stay at Rushmore too. But this is Max Fischer we're talking about! He can't even spell the word failure – no literally he can't, he flunked English too.
Being only Anderson's second feature after Bottle Rocket, you can forgive Rushmore hasn't quite got the same Picasso-esk cinematography, that with its rich, vibrant and bright textures is so effortlessly able to set each scene a blaze with colour, that is beautifully demonstrated in his later films like Moonrise or The Grand Budapest Hotel. However Rushmore still possesses Andersons flair for creating seemingly perfect and coherent characters on the surface, but when you actually venture under the glossy finishes, you realise they are more mad, crazy and dysfunctional then you could ever imagine. And it's for that very reason why I loved the characters of Herman and Max so adamantly, who while on the surface seem so dissimilar; Max being so pronounced and well put together while Herman on other hand is always a car crash waiting to happen, but deep down they are just lonely souls seeking the honest feeling of love and acceptance. My favourite sequence of theirs was when they were trying to sabotage each other; Max by putting bees in Herman's hotel room and then Herman in retaliation destroying Max's bike. The sequence was so imaginative and provided a shed load of many great laughs, reminding me greatly of Tom and Jerry. What I also love about Wes Anderson, is that he never gets lazy when it comes to characterising his supporting characters, they are always so dynamic, unique and if we were to follow their lives instead, it will also make for a great movie. When it comes to picking the best supporting characters, it's so difficult because they all have such compelling personalities and idiosyncrasies, there is Max's father who is a barber but is always strangely mistaken for a neurosurgeon, there is the bully with the really thick Scottish accent and then there is Dirk who is so adorable that he puts Macaulay Culkin in Home alone to shame. Empire was right when it ranked Rushmore in the top 200 films of all time, because I'm in no doubt that Wes Anderson's banger should be on everyone's bucket lists of films to watch.