The Cinema of Wes Anderson

Whitney Crothers Dilley is a professor of English with a dual appointment in the Graduate School of Gender Studies at Shih Hsin University. She has published six books on literature and film, including The Cinema of Ang Lee: The Other Side of the Screen (Wallflower, second edition, 2014).

• Introduction: Wes Anderson as Auteur: A History1. Wes Anderson: His Position in American Cinema and Culture2. Gender, Youth, and the Exploration of Masculinity in Bottle Rocket3. “Sic Transit Gloria”: Transgressing the Boundaries of Adolescence in Rushmore4. The Interplay of Narrative Text, Language, and Film: Literary Influence and Intertextuality in The Royal Tenenbaums5. Opposition and Resolution: The Dissonance of Celebrity in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou6. Fragmentary Narratives/Incomplete Identities in The Darjeeling Limited7. Adaptation and Homage: The World of Roald Dahl and Fantastic Mr. Fox8. Reconstitution of the “Family” and Construction of Normalized Gender in Moonrise Kingdom9. Literary Influence and Memory: Stefan Zweig and The Grand Budapest Hotel10. “The Underdog Dogs”: Innocence and Evil in Anderson’s “A Boy and His Dog” Narrative in Isle Of Dogs11. “Silence! Writers Writing”: The French Dispatchas Homage to the New Yorker and Twentieth-Century Literary Journalism12. The Chasm of Grief and a Glimpse of the Unknowable: Death, the Desert, and Space Exploration in Asteroid City13. “A Trial Period ‘Of Being Your Daughter.’”: Family Conflict, Redemption, and Lasting Legacy in The Phoenician Scheme14. Wes Anderson’s Short Films and Commercial WorkConclusion: Memory and Narrative in the Works of Wes AndersonAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

A lively, informative, and essential guide to keep nearby while watching and rewatching Wes Anderson’s marvelous, truly original films.