From Dallas To Zubrowka: The Imagined Worlds of Wes Anderson

The Simple Science of Whackbat – “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (2009)
“Well, it’s real simple: basically, there’s three grabbers, three taggers, five twig-runners, and the player at whack-bat. The center-tagger lights the pine-cone and chucks it over the basket, and the whack-batter tries to hit the cedar-stick off the cross-rock.”

We’ve already delved into the many references, in-jokes, and allusions that populate the self-contained world of Anderson’s first animated feature, but needless to say the film is a hilarious, intelligent blend of Roald Dahl’s characters and settings with Anderson’s own perspective on fatherhood and its many challenges.

Take even something as brief as the game of Whackbat, a dense, invented game mixing cricket, baseball and a hodgepodge of other sources. While the sequence ranks among the film’s most humorous with its quick imagery and spirited narration by Coach Skip (Owen Wilson), it also acutely conveys Mr. Fox’s once-reigning athletic prowess (having repeatedly won PS II Co-Ed All Species MVP of the Fox Year), and the futile attempts from his son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) to live up to it.

In creating the game, Anderson turned to animator Brad Schiff, a self-proclaimed sports nut on the crew, for help. Email exchanges between the two, chronicled in “The Making of Fantastic Mr. Fox” book, show the evolution of the game, as well as suggestions from Schiff on animating Ash’s seemingly-perfect cousin Kristofferson (Eric Anderson) as he plays.

“He could twist as he jumps over taggers, like gymnasts do when they jump over the pommel horse or when they do floor exercises?” asks Schiff, and Anderson replies with certain narrative beats in which to place those physical moments. The director also references Walter Payton in Kristofferson’s movements, and simply writes “PERFECT” to the suggestion of him yelling, “Divide that by nine, please” once “hotbox” is called. Even if none or all of that made sense, watch the full sequence below.

A New England Island of Adolescents – “Moonrise Kingdom” (2012)
Three days before a ferocious and well-documented storm strikes the fictional island of New Penzance off the coast of New England, two preteen lovers leave their families to behind to start a new idyllic life together. Even before the incoming weather enters the equation, the tale of Khaki Scout Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) and bookworm Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) is fated for disappointment, but Anderson balances that melancholy fate with a genuine optimism in the end.

The director based New Penzance on Naushon, an island near Massachusetts where some of his friends live; though “Moonrise Kingdom” is set in 1965, Naushon prides itself on staying timeless. “There are no cars, you’ve got to take a ferry there, and there are only about 20 houses,” Anderson says. “It’s a place that is institutionally protected from any change, and when you go there, it feels like stepping back at least 40 years into the past.”

More so than any of Anderson’s other films, there is a real effort present to freeze New Penzance as a place of fading summers and earnest emotions—a sly nod to that idea exists in Fidelity Island and Honesty Rock, seen on the oft-displayed map (via The Big Think). Stacks of belongings also fill every frame of the various foster homes that Sam escapes, and in the geometric angles of the Bishop House (brought to life within a defunct Linens N’ Things in Newport, Rhode Island). In Suzy’s case especially, Anderson and co-writer Roman Coppola take much care and pleasure in creating the various book titles in her possession (even going so far as to animate sections of each—see the Short Film/Commercials section).