Sound And Vision: Wes Anderson
In the article series Sound and Vision we take a look at music videos from notable directors. This week we look at Jarvis Cocker's Aline, directed by Wes Anderson.
Wes Anderson's latest works all wear their influences on their sleeves. While the films all might feel like Wes Anderson's normal twee, symmetrical, pastel-colored schtick, there are some parts of those films that feel so inspired by some of their forebears, that they infuse the regular Anderson-style with some new elements that breathe life into them. For instance, The Grand Budapest Hostel has a world weary bittersweet nostalgia that feels very much inspired by the Eastern-European films that it pays homage to, while Asteroid City splits the difference between Chuck Jones and Bertold Brecht, borrowing from them both a metatextual remove that feels cartoony ánd existential. The French Dispatch on the other hand borrows liberally from The New Yorker, its articles and cartoons; and from francophone cities, art and culture. It is equal parts New-Yawk elite and French ennui.
In The French Dispatch, there are moments where Anderson animates sequences in the style of Franco-Belgian comic books like Tintin and Blake and Mortimer, a style dubbed Ligne Claire, for the clarity of its lines, and lack of extraneous details. Still, French and Belgian comics are a lot broader than just the Ligne Claire as there is a whole tradition of what is dubbed 'le Bande Dessinee', where the styles are as diverse and the genres and topics are as exhaustive as American Comics.
For the music video for Aline, sung by Jarvis Cocker as the in-film character Tip-top (who shows up mostly on posters and album covers), Wes Anderson borrows heavily from other French and Belgian comic book artists, where I see shades of Joann Sfarr, André Franquin and the duo Dupuy and Berberian, with a dash of Where's Waldo, and some influence from The New Yorker cartoons to boot.
You see, like The French Dispatch itself in the film, an American newspaper department located in France, or the film itself proper, the Franco-NewYorkian influences can't be really pulled apart. The style of the film splits the difference between Europe and the Big Apple. The same case can be made for the song itself. Aline is a cover from the French singer Christophe (even the album cover pays homage to him), covered by an English artist and brit-popper. Jarvis Cocker's accent is clearly English, which makes the song fall in an uncanny valley between British and American influences and the French source. That same uncanny valley is deliberately sought out throughout the French dispatch, which is full of stories about people in stand-offs with other people, be it students with the police, hostages versus criminals, or prisoners and art connaisseurs. In most of those stories a symbiose is found, through art and playfulness.
The style of The French Dispatch is looser than most Anderson features, having shots from behind paintings; cameras attached to objects; SnorriCams; even a few hand-held shots. The same looseness is present in the music video for Aline, where Tip-top dances through a French city, pests and dead bodies present and all; with a swagger and abandon that feels like it's indebted to the looseness of some French Bande-dessinee artists. This is Wes Anderson having fun. The presence of the named characters of the film and their credits might give the idea that these are abandoned opening credits, but if they are, I couldn't find a source online stating why and how. As it stands it's Anderson's sole music video, hard to separate from the film proper, but still worth a watch even without having seen The French Dispatch. It's one of Wes Anderson's most fun, deliberately light-weight projects, just like the film it is tied into.
