‘The Phoenician Scheme’ Is Here, With Wes Anderson!

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Big Picture – ‘The Phoenician Scheme’ Is Here, With Wes Anderson!

Release Date: June 6, 2025

Introduction

In this special episode of The Big Picture, hosts Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins delve into Wes Anderson's latest film, 'The Phoenician Scheme'. This episode not only dissects the intricate layers of Anderson's newest work but also features an exclusive interview with the auteur himself. Throughout the conversation, listeners are treated to insightful analyses, thematic explorations, and behind-the-scenes glimpses into Anderson's creative process.

Overview of 'The Phoenician Scheme'

Sean opens the discussion by introducing 'The Phoenician Scheme', describing it as a portrait of an aging tycoon, his daughter, and the complex financial plot that binds them. The film features an impressive ensemble cast, including Benicio Del Toro, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, and newcomer Mia Thriepelton.

Sean provides a synopsis: The protagonist, Zsa Zsa Korda (Del Toro), appoints his daughter, Liesl (Thriepelton), an aspiring nun, as his sole heir despite having nine sons. This decision thrusts them into a web of corporate rivalry and international espionage, leading to a series of adventurous escapades.

Character and Thematic Analysis

Amanda praises Del Toro and Thriepelton's performances, highlighting their essential roles in driving the story. She remarks, “Benicio Del Toro and Mia Threpleton are lights out as they carry the story... It has everyone, but they carry the narrative.” (04:57) Sean echoes this sentiment, noting that Del Toro's role might rival his performance in 'Sicario'.

The hosts delve into the film's thematic depth, touching on themes of familial relationships, mortality, and the corrupting influence of power. Amanda observes, “There's a lot of longing, bad dads, grief,” emphasizing the emotional layers beneath the film’s comedic and adventurous surface. (05:48) Sean adds that the movie serves as a semi-autobiographical piece, dedicated to Wes Anderson's father-in-law, Fouad Malouf, drawing parallels between Malouf and Del Toro's character.

Stylistic Elements and Cinematic Techniques

Sean discusses Anderson's unique visual style, comparing 'The Phoenician Scheme' to his previous works like 'Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou' and 'Asteroid City'. He notes the film's "chapterized" structure and rich, meticulously designed frames, which are hallmarks of Anderson's filmmaking. (05:48)

Amanda highlights the movie's use of color, composition, and symmetrical framing, which create an immersive and visually stimulating experience. She comments on the title sequence, describing it as “mesmerizing” and integral in setting the film’s tone. (57:44)

Interview with Wes Anderson

The highlight of the episode is the exclusive interview with Wes Anderson, conducted by Sean. Anderson discusses the evolution of 'The Phoenician Scheme', explaining how the focus shifted organically from a story solely about a ruthless businessman to one centered on the father-daughter relationship. He attributes this change to his own experiences as a father, stating, “I have a daughter, she's nine, and without her, I don't think the movie would be the story we decided to tell.” (54:28)

When questioned about the noticeable increase in violence within his films, Anderson explains his intent to blend shocking elements with delight, ensuring that the violence serves a narrative purpose rather than existing for its own sake. (54:55)

Sean probes into Anderson's creative burst, noting the rapid production of four films in five years compared to his previous pace. Anderson attributes this to a consistent team of collaborators and a streamlined production process, likening his setup to a “tiny small-scale studio system.” (60:20)

Wes Anderson’s Reflections on Filmmaking and Legacy

Anderson shares his thoughts on the enduring nature of his films, expressing a desire for them to stand the test of time and reflect the passage of his personal life. He discusses the upcoming Criterion Collection box set of his first ten films, viewing it as a way to showcase the evolution of his storytelling and visual style. (69:43)

In response to questions about the lifespan of his films, Anderson emphasizes his intention for each movie to be a standalone story while maintaining interconnected threads throughout his body of work. He enthusiastically recommends classic films he enjoys, highlighting 'Saint Jack' and appreciating its relation to his own work. (68:00)

Conclusion

Sean and Amanda wrap up the episode by expressing their admiration for Wes Anderson’s craftsmanship and the enduring appeal of his films. They tease future episodes and upcoming projects, maintaining the show's engaging and conversational tone. The episode concludes with light-hearted banter about potential titles for upcoming movies, reflecting the hosts' deep appreciation for Anderson's unique cinematic universe.

Notable Quotes

• Amanda Dobbins: “Benicio Del Toro and Mia Threpleton are lights out as they carry the story...” (04:57)

• Sean Fennessey: “This is the way that you feel about the characters.” (26:26)

• Wes Anderson: “I think I have a daughter, she's nine and that. And Benicio has a daughter a few years older...” (54:03)

• Wes Anderson: “The excitement to me is when something... unexpected and the detours that are going to be the surprise.” (65:28)

This episode of The Big Picture offers a comprehensive exploration of Wes Anderson's 'The Phoenician Scheme', blending critical analysis with personal insights from the director. It's a must-listen for fans eager to understand the nuances of Anderson's storytelling and the man behind the meticulously crafted films.

Transcript

[Zach Lowe]

Welcome to the brand new Zach Lowe Show. That's right, I'm back to have the same in depth NBA conversations you're used to. We're going to talk about the games, the X's and O's, the drama. The playoffs are coming up and now you get to see every episode in full on video on Spotify and on my own YouTube channel. Episodes drop every Monday and Thursday with a collection of guests you're going to love. So make sure you follow and subscribe to the brand new Zach Lowe show on Spotify or wherever you watch or listen. Listen to your podcast. Let's go.

[Sponsor Voice]

This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever finish a movie and the next thing you know you're totally obsessed. Like I'm talking about ordering a book about 70s film lighting or buying the soundtrack on vinyl. Kind of obsessed. Whatever it is, prime helps you get more out of whatever passions you're into or getting into. Head to Amazon.com prime and follow your obsession wherever it goes. This episode is brought to you by Lionsgate. From the world of John Wick comes the movie Ballerina, only in theaters June 6th. The greatest action franchise of the past decade is back, starring Ana de Armas and Keanu Reeves returning as John Wick. Everything youg Love is here. The mythology, the characters, the high intensity action. But this time, the universe expands with new faces, new settings, and even higher stakes. Ballerina in theaters now.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm Sean Fennessy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm Amanda Dobbins.

[Sean Fennessy]

And this is the Big Picture. A conversation show about Wes Anderson. On this episode, we will dive deep into the Phoenician scheme. The latest film from Anderson, a portrait of an aging tycoon, his daughter, and the financial plot binding them together. Later in this episode, for the first time in Big Picture history, Wes Anderson joins me to talk about his work, this new movie, how having a family influenced his work. I'm very excited. I hope people will listen to our conversation. Wes is, of course, an icon to the big picture. So it was pretty cool.

[Amanda Dobbins]

What? Can you give me a preview of the fit?

[Sean Fennessy]

Simply a white button down shirt, buttoned all the way to the top, long collar and immaculately coiffed hair.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Beautiful.

[Sean Fennessy]

That was pretty much it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

We were on Zoom.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

But it was. It was quite nice.

[Amanda Dobbins]

All right, that's great.

[Sean Fennessy]

Let's just do it. Let's just dig into the Phoenician scheme.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So it's a holiday here.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, I mean, his movies are very important to us. He may or may not figure into this project that we've been working on somewhere down the list. Oh yeah, I can't even remember.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh yeah, he does. But I like my heart stopped for a moment. Spoiler alert. Sorry, I was just like, oh God, we forgot Wes. And then. No, no, it worked out.

[Sean Fennessy]

We wouldn't.

[Wes Anderson]

It's good.

[Sean Fennessy]

Um, it's always exciting when he gets a new movie. This movie is a bit of the same, a bit different and it's an interesting story. As I said. It is about tycoon, an aging businessman named Zsa Zsa Korda, who appoints his only daughter, who is a an aspiring nun, to be a novitiate. A novitiate, thank you. She's going to be the sole heir to his estate. Despite the fact that he also has nine sons. Korda embarks on this new enterprise and they soon become the target of all of his rivals in the world of business and international espionage. And they go on some hijinks. You know, there's a lot of adventures. This is a very chapterized Wes Anderson movie as they have been frankly forever. Incredible cast in this movie, which is often the case now in his movies. Benicio is the star. Michael Cera is in this movie. Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Matthew Almerich, Richard Ayoadi, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis and an actress I'd not seen before, Mia Thriepelton, who is the daughter in the film. So I think we'll go pretty far in on this movie. It's a lot of movie to take in. You saw it last night. I saw it a second time with you last night. What'd you think of the Phoenician scheme?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, just a really big time for you as a daughter of father. Really very exciting girl. Dad. Cinema has come to Wes Anderson. No, I loved it. Come on. I'm excited to talk to you about it because you've seen it twice and as a result some of your takeaways in this document are very different than mine. I found this movie to be extremely funny and it to me plays as a comedy with bigger ideas either going on or being gestured at or there for the taking if you want them. But you can watch it as a caper and it plays really well. I thought both Benicio Del Toro and Mia Threpleton were lights out as like they have to be because it is about them. It's not a two hander. It has everyone that you just mentioned, but they carry the story and I think this role was written for Benicio Del Toro. And he is amazing.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think this is the best part he's had in a long time, maybe since Sicario.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And, you know, as with all Wes Anderson things, there are. It's. There's a lot going on in the frame, and it's like, highly designed and deadpan and funny. And then also, you know, if you're on his frequency, like, very soulful. And there's a lot of longing, Bad dads, grief, all that. So a lot of. There it was. In some ways, it was seeing all the Wes Anderson furniture rearranged in a new way. And I don't mean that as a detriment. I mean that as such beautiful furniture. Well, it's beautiful furniture. And it's also like, you enter his world and it's like, okay, what are we talking about this time and how are we gonna do it and how is it gonna make us feel? And I find that exhilarating. So I'm a huge fan.

[Sean Fennessy]

You could say that this started with the Grand Budapest Hotel. But for me, the last three films now, the French Dispatch, Asteroid City, and this film, I had the same viewing experience the first time, which is that I was immediately comfortable. I think that this. The kind of the color and the design of his worlds and the way that he frames them literarily, the acting style, I'm on board with all of it. A lot of people are not on board with it at this point, and that's fine. But if you were on board with it, you're happy. But I found myself trying to catch my breath to keep up with the pace and the amount of character and story that he's jamming into these movies. And his movies are 1 hour and 40 minutes, essentially. They're not these kind of epics. And so the first time I saw this film, I really enjoyed myself, but I wasn't sure that I could really get my arms around it thematically. I laughed at all the jokes. And I do agree that there's a lot of physical comedy and a lot of violence focused comedy in this movie, which is a new flavor for him. But the second time I saw it, I was like, this is a huge thematic film. Same thing with Asteroid City. We talked about it with Asteroid City, where it's like, you watch the first time, there's a ton going on. There's a lot of familiar faces, expansive new world, intergalactic story. Then the second time you watch it, you're like, this is a very simple story about longing and regret and the inability to connect with people. This movie was the same thing for me, the second time I saw it, I was like, this is a very deep story. This is a barely shaded autobiography at times about relationships in his life. The film is dedicated to his father in law, Fouad Malouf, and the Benicio character is clearly in some ways modeled on him. His father in law was a Lebanese businessman who had a kind of grand stature. And I would say Benicio has that, but also has this like self undermining quality to him because of the relationship with his daughter, which is a very profound feeling when you have a daughter. I talked to Wes about that. He said Roman Coppola, his co writer on the movie, has that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, it's palpable.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's a thing. You are the daughter of a father. Sure.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But even in the movie it's, you know, and it's. I think you started with French Dispatch, because French Dispatch, Asteroid City and now this movie are almost like kind of nesting dolls in their form.

[Sean Fennessy]

It is like a new trilogy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

There's a story within a story within a story. And there are. And the way that you're learning about things, you know, has had like the literal, you know, frameworks, like sometimes as a painting that he wants to put on things in movies. But there is so much going on and there are not different storylines, but different frameworks, for lack of a different word. But this is also, in spite of all that, like really just a father and a daughter. And it can be about, you know, geopolitics and it can be about the Bible and it can be about regret and like, it is about all those things, but it is very purely at the end, just him trying to figure out his relationship with this young woman. And it is, I think, really affecting and lovely in that way.

[Sean Fennessy]

Right, I agree. I was quite moved by it. Like I said, especially the second time that I saw it, we should talk about each of those things that you located, because I think they're all right. I think all of those ideas are in the movie. I do think that this movie, unlike the previous two, while it does have a series of stacked frameworks on top of each other and all these chapter headings and this actual scheme that you're kind of like mathematically following as the movie goes along, it's very linear. It's not. Let's go back to the old framework that we were setting you up with, with the story inside the story, or the TV show that is presenting the play that we were writing to get us to the story, or. Or let's go back to this article that was written some years ago that reflects the inner life of the journalist that we're talking about. This is a story about a man and his daughter and what is going to happen to the future of his business and this plot that he has. And that's pretty much it. And the movie that it reminds me of the most in his career is the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Yes. So Life Aquatic, also a father and a son story, but in this extravagant, elaborate world, that is a mission story. It is like a road movie, an adventure story where you're kind of going from one place to another to accomplish something together and figure out how these two people who have been estranged, this is again a story of estrangement, can be reunited emotionally. And even when I was talking to Wes, I was thinking about how like my opinion on Darjeeling Limited has kind of changed a lot over the years. And I really didn't get it and like it. And I thought like, I was like over for me and Wes Anderson when I saw that movie. And I thought, Steve, Life Aquatic was like the best movie ever when I saw it. And I've kind of gotten further away from it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

20 something feelings also, by the way.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, they are. But that's such a misanthropic movie. And I didn't think that was really in his spirit at all. I've come to understand life and his work very differently over time. But Life Aquatic, that was a long time ago.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And the fact that he can do all these new things with this, this new turn to violence, this honestly, I thought genuinely political point of view that the movie has about the way the power operates in the world, but also still be able to return to these core themes and feelings that have been defining his work for the last 25, 30 years.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

That to me is like the stuff of a great artist. You know, that he is someone who knows how to be forward looking and also be connected to the past stories that he's told. And so I think I don't want to be too defensive about the, like, Wes needs to find a new slant or whatever conversation around this movie. But there are some people who are like, I'm a little sick of the diorama approach and I'm going the other way now with him where I'm like, go further and go deeper, like, push harder. Find something else that is even weirder than what you're doing right now.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He is just such a singular filmmaker and especially to our generation, it's like, you know, you're in a West movie one second in. And I think very few filmmakers, like, kind of have. Have that buy in where they have managed to create an entire film language or, you know, very few filmmakers of our generation. So like, just keep doing it. Like, keep, you know, making your own little worlds. I was going to make some sort of, like, video game reference, but I don't play video games. But it does seem like, you know, that my understanding of it is like, you create this other space and just like, keep going. What else can you find? Yeah, And I. And I'm. Once you've bought the ticket into the space, which I have, I'm like, I'm good. I'm with. I'm with you.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. I think there is obviously an opportunity for him creatively to do slightly different things without abandoning the worlds that he has created. Like, I think of Hotel Chevalier, the short film attached to Darjee Unlimited, where it's like, tonally, that's a very kind of like, sad, angry French film. Inside of an American adventure story about brothers. This movie, it looks a lot like the pageantry of Asteroid City and French Dispatch, but I'm trying to figure out what is it that makes it so meaningfully different. To me, aside from that linear quality, I think some of it is like, its antic. Ness is really, really high energy. The movie opens with a plane crash, and before the plane crash, there's a violent explosion on a plane.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's true, but it's like.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's like Looney Tunes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, it's Wes Anderson violin. It's like paper mache, you know, it's. It's beautiful and funny. And also definitely, you see one half of a person's body at the end of it.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think that the decision is really fun and it makes it. I think that people would accuse some of his movies of being cartoons, but this one is actually closer to being a cartoon in terms of the execution across the board. There's a moment that I clocked immediately after the plane crash early in the movie, where all of the items that are on the plane are sort of scattered in a cornfield. And Benisto Del Toro's character is always reading. And there are all of these books. There's these sort of like nonfiction guides to flowers and insects and ancient civilizations.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, they're all like classical, and many of them are art texts as well.

[Sean Fennessy]

Which is kind of dovetails neatly with this theme that is going throughout the movie of the kind of the great works. And then who has access to the great works. This is a very Memorable title sequence in the movie in which, after surviving a plane crash, we're told it's his sixth plane crash, that Zsa Zsa Corda has survived, that he has tended to in a bathtub. And all his servants are surrounding him. It's an overhead shot.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's great. It's the title sequence.

[Sean Fennessy]

The title sequence. It's very cool. And all of these nurses are tending to him, and he's smoking a cigar and being patched up. And I guess he's in sort of like a milk bath, like a salt milk bath. And Stravinsky is playing and he's given.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Scrambled eggs and champagne.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. And so he's, like, wounded and living the good life. And it's like that perfect contrast of. This is a man of high taste who's, like a real motherfucker. He's a rapscallion. And why is he doing these things? And is he doing them for the right reasons? And can we get emotionally invested in rooting for this guy to succeed? But it's. It's intoxicating when someone who might not be such a good person has great taste and kind of knows what the, like, the greatness of the world can.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Be, which is like the Wes Anderson, like, archetype of all, you know, like bad dad, for lack of a better word. Though I guess they are technically, by our parenting textbook standards, all bad dads. But I don't even think for a minute. The movies love them from the very beginning. And so you as an audience member, whether it's Royal Tenenbaum or whether it's, you know, whatever Bill Murray character you want, including in this one, God.

[Sean Fennessy]

And literally, yes, a vengeful trickster God played by Bill Murray.

[Amanda Dobbins]

These older men, these authority figures who have not always done the appropriate thing, but glide through the world with such panache that you just want to be closer to them.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. I like the way that he frames the sort of, like, unease that he has around his daughter because very quickly after he survives his plane crash, he brings her back into his life. She's studying as a novitiate to be a nun, and he wants her to be the heir. And he has to kind of just convince her to drop God. And this is happening simultaneous to these visions that he starts having in the film.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

And there's a completely different kind of filmmaking style, black and white, different aspect ratio. And you see that Benicio. Maybe because he's just had too much brain trauma.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

That he is starting to confront his mortality almost literally amongst the tribunal of faith.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And I mean, it sort of looks like the pearly gates, you know, like there is some sort of like dais where various religious authority figures.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham, Charlotte Gainsbourne at some point.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know, they're all just. And they're all. And they're very solemn. And it like definitely there's a trial aspect to it. So I just assumed it was kind of. I almost took it as like, because he's died six times and it's sort of like a, you know, like each time you almost make it in and then. And then kind of what was the discussion before you get sent back?

[Sean Fennessy]

And so, you know, this movie, which is about this father and daughter and their relationship and it's about this man trying to achieve this mission is also really like a movie about mortality and facing death. You know, and that being on Wes's mind is really interesting. Obviously it's not the first time he's address the subject, but maybe not so literally where you've got a guy confronting physically the prospect of going into the afterlife.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. I mean, characters have died and also like Asteroid City is very much about grief, but it's from this, you know, it's from the people perspective that people left behind.

[Sean Fennessy]

Right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

As opposed to this, which is the main character kind of dancing with it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. And I think it's also a movie that like made by a middle aged guy thinking about the decisions he's made up into this point. You know, like a big part of the movie is Zsa Zsa being forced to try to remember what happened. For example, like one of the key disputes between he and his daughter is that it's believed that Zsa Zsa killed her mother.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They say. Yes, they say, whoever they. What are their names so I can sue them for libel.

[Sean Fennessy]

Great memory, great moment in the movie, Great VCO moment. And this idea that Zsaza almost can't remember the details of what happened to his wives and lovers over time, or he's kind of shading the truth in that way that powerful people sometimes do, where he'll be like, it'll be like a hard denial and then a vague comment connected to that denial. That is just a very observant piece of writing. And then there's. I'm reluctant to be like, this movie is about Donald Trump because it's not about Donald Trump. It's not specifically about the American president right now, but there is a kind of mode of leadership that is happening in the world. I asked Wes about this.

[Amanda Dobbins]

More or less confirmed. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

That is like, these people kind of get away with whatever they want and they, like, lie all the way to the end and they hurt people and it kind of usually works out for them. Sometimes it doesn't, but for the most part it does. And this is the way that the world works. Deal with it. Even though it's an antic, madcap, fun, also sentimental drama, it does have a bit of that in it. What did you make of that part of it?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, the Trump stuff did not jump out to me, but that's probably willful at this point. I'm, you know, blocking it wherever possible. It is obviously politically engaged as well as. Also, there is a lot of religion in this as well, which I thought was interesting. And I, like, want to talk about, because those are two things that he doesn't typically confront. Like, it's true in text, like using the words.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yep. Politics and faith and even capitalism are not really, like, big focuses of his work.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And there are. There are some images in the Bible, the Bible scenes that are clearly very much engaged with just, like, money and. And how it works. And so I think. I think I did grab parallels to the world now, but for me, because this is like a retro, you know, as all Wes Anderson films are, they're set, like, in another world, 50s to 70s. That is a better version of the one that existed, but also still, like, has all of the problems and very.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Because it's set in the 50s. I thought it was more a little bit like, this is. This is both how it is and how it's always been, if there's any sense to that. So I didn't immediately tie it to present headlines specifically, which was a great relief and reprieve. But, yeah, I did feel that sense of commenting on the way the world works and the way that certain people luck into things or take things and then everyone else was left behind as a result.

[Sean Fennessy]

The movie is also a showcase for a person that I'm sure most people who watching it must have thought to themselves, surely Michael Cera has been in 10 Wes Anderson movies and he's never been in a Wes Anderson movie, even though in some ways he is sort of the prototype for the Wes Anderson performance style. I'll say this really lived up to my expectations of Michael Cera in a Wes Anderson movie. I think he's incredibly funny in this film. He's presented in the film as a tutor and. Is it an entomologist? Etymologist. What is the study? Someone who studies bugs.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Entomologist sounded Right. But, like, that's. Yeah. Entomologist. Studies insects. Bingo.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. Born in Oslo. His name is Bjorn. He's doing that accent all the way through. Dressed and styled hilariously, often in crushed velvets and corduroys. And he's got a swoop of curly blonde, dyed hair. And he, perhaps unsurprisingly, falls in love with Zsa Zsa's daughter. And he's given a lot to do.

[Amanda Dobbins]

In this movie, who's named Liesel, by the way. And, like, there is a whole Sound of Music. There are several references, which I appreciate.

[Sean Fennessy]

Did you see her Swiss passport, by the way, on the plane?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Her name's Liesl. You know, that's the daughter.

[Sean Fennessy]

Anyway, I really liked Michael Cera. I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship for he and Wes. Apparently they met each other 20 years ago and just never got around to getting together, even though he's been working with every other actor that is like him in that time. And. Yeah. Let's talk about Mia Thrippleton. So this is Kate Winslet's daughter, which.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Once, you know, it is unmistakable.

[Sean Fennessy]

I didn't know it until last night after I saw the movie, so I've seen it twice and I didn't know. And in my head, I thought to myself, threpleton. That's a familiar name. I remember there was. There is a Jim Threpleton. I didn't. I was kind of putting it together. But when I was watching the movie. No, but exactly what you just said is how I felt, which is. I read it and I was like, oh, yeah. Fuck, yeah, it is that, like, so clearly is the performance style, the tone of her voice, the sort of, like, the gravity that she has as a performer. It's unmistakable.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And I don't mean to take anything away from her. She's, like, amazing in it and holding her own against this, like, just absolutely, like, charismatic Benicio Del Toro. Just not scene eating, like scenery eating, but, like, energy eating.

[Sean Fennessy]

He holds the screen.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's a real star. And.

[Amanda Dobbins]

She is funny. She's got the timing. She has the real presence, which. And she has the Kate Winslet presence and also kind of the jawline. So when you know, you can really see it. But it is. It's uncanny in the best way, when you understand. Because she clearly has the same thing that makes Kate Winslet a great actress.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, I really. I mean, her chemistry with both Sarah and Del Toro is really impressive to extremely seasoned actors. She had appeared in a couple things prior to this, but I had Never clocked her before. She's also wearing the nun's habit the whole time. Or the no officiates habit the whole time.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Then she has sort of like Prince Valiant hair.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, we see her hair in a couple of small moments. And the movie itself, once we kind of establish this journey that they need to go on to develop the literal Phoenician scheme where there's going to be the construction of the. So here's the thing about these movies.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

There is a plot and the plot sort of matters.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It happened so fast. And Ian voice. Who was doing the voiceover. It was a name, it was a voice that you had recognized. But now I've forgotten.

[Sean Fennessy]

I genuinely can't even remember.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Or maybe it was newsreels. Anyway, it happened so fast that I had the moment like seven minutes and I was like, oh, fuck, I just missed the setup of the Phoenician scheme. I'm like, oh God, how am I? So I appreciated that. Then the chapter breakdowns and I guess the things that people find annoying were very helpful to me in a basic. Okay, so now we're going to see this character. And now it's like earmarks along the way of where this story is going. Because I didn't understand what was. The Phoenicians gate was like a dam and also a train.

[Sean Fennessy]

It looks like it's a giant public building. Yes. Well, I don't know. But not public. Probably private.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

In conjunction with the royal king of.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Phoenicia of Lower something. Phoenicia.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, they specified it is an attempt to build a giant structure that makes an enormous amount of money for these international industrialists. It's a movie about international industrialists, which doesn't sound very appealing on paper and yet is incredibly amusing. And so the journey that he has to go on is to kind of continue to raise these funds to accomplish this scheme, which seems like a fairly faulty plan. And then along the way we find that Zsaza is relatively untrustworthy businessman. Someone who is constantly fiddling with it, as they say throughout the movie, changing the parameters of each dealer friend and.

[Amanda Dobbins]

His band of faceless bureaucrats also were.

[Sean Fennessy]

Fiddling with it, dramatically undermining him because of the bashable rivets and the way that they have shifted their value in the marketplace.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Of course, normal.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's really funny that he keeps building out these really ornate stratagems around the movies, but that the movies themselves, like don't. They don't even need that. You know what I mean? By the time you get to the end of the movie. Like, did it work or did it not work? Yeah, it's not really the point of. What matters is the relationships and the way that you feel about the characters.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Plus, it matters a little bit in this one.

[Sean Fennessy]

It does. But the outcome, you sort of feel like they would have gotten to that place no matter whether it had worked or not. That the relationship is what ultimately was most, most under threat and that preserving it and protecting it was what mattered. So it does lead to this kind of episodic series of encounters with various people along the way. We start with Prince Farouk, played by Riz Ahmed. That invariably leads to a meeting with the Sacramento boys, portrayed by Bryan Cranston and Tom Hanks. This then leads to a basketball sequence. I never expected to see a basketball sequence in a Wes Anderson movie, but it's there. They are literally playing horse.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Uh huh.

[Sean Fennessy]

Two on two.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Benicio and Riz Ahmed versus Bryan Cranston and Tom Hanks. Now, I'm not entirely sure any of these four men have ever played basketball before. Based on their performances. Tom Hanks got the closest, I thought.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. That is built into quite literally the writing of Riz Ahmed's character.

[Sean Fennessy]

But he is like, I don't know this game.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. But I don't think it's supposed to be like the Olympics, you know, it's.

[Sean Fennessy]

Not, but they are, you know, they've got their Stanford sweatshirts, you know.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. The styling is really fun.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's very good. I love the sequence that leads up.

[Amanda Dobbins]

To this in Pepperdine.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is he.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, good. You know, when I was a kid, I wanted to go to Pepperdine. I don't even really know why, other than I knew it was on the coast of California.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It really just has some of the most impressive real estate that you can have.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's a beautiful campus. Yeah. I can't say much about the school. It's a. It is also.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It is a religious, I think Jesuit. Jesuit.

[Sean Fennessy]

Jesuit, yes. It is a Jesuit university. And I love the sequence that leads to them. Obviously there's like this. This assassination attempt. One of many assassination. Assassination attempts on Jaja during the course of the film. They race through the desert, they get into this train tunnel, they take the. I don't know what those little cars are where you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, yeah, I don't know either, but yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Anyway, they're on the train, they end. They find. They find their way to the end of the stop. Coming in the opposite direction is the train that brings Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston the Only way to solve their financial dispute is a game of horse. They play horse, and it's incredibly amusing. While they're playing horse, Liesl and Bjorn Sparks are starting to fly whilst drinking beer. And I'm trying to think of, like, you know, the Bill Simmons line of conversation on this would be like, who are the Sacramento Boys? Like, which NBA players are there right now? You know, like, they're giving me a little bit of Tyrese Halliburton and Aaron Neesmith, you know, and I say that with not a lot of affection, given where we are within the Knicks Pacer series.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Like, by the time this comes out.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, it's okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I. We won last night.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I saw. I watched most of it. I don't. I saw Halliburton do that thing in game one, and I don't think he has the swag. So.

[Sean Fennessy]

Thank you for saying that out loud. I appreciate it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I wish you guys well.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's probable the Knicks have been eliminated by the time and the Pacers are in the finals. If that's not the case, let this stand as a monument to greatness forevermore. This conversation. So we see the encounter between these two guys that quickly then leads to. They don't quite get the financial compensation that they need to get.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Some of it, they get 15%. So that's another helpful signpost.

[Sean Fennessy]

Right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And we're just. It's some easy math also. You just got to get to 100, and they're just counting the percentages of how much they get to cover the gap. I still don't really understand what the gap is, but I guess it's how much.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'll tell you what, I don't either.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. All right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Even though I've seen it twice, I.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Think it's something about how the price of the rivets went up, and so then everything's going to cost more, but Porta doesn't want to put in more money, so he needs the other people, too.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. That's related to those kind of resolution of the movie, which I find to be a little bit silly. But anyway, eventually they. They go to visit Marseille Bob, played by Matthew Al Marek. And then we meet Richard Ayoadi's kind of revolutionary character who comes into the movie, and we go on and on. Eventually we get to Jeffrey Wright's character, who's another industrialist who's building a great ship and a great port. And eventually we get to cousin Hilda, Scarlett Johansson's character. She is a second cousin of Zsaza and maybe a prospective wife in an Effort to draw out more funds. But also, maybe not. And maybe there is.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I didn't really know.

[Sean Fennessy]

Romantic connections. Sort of. Not Scarlett Johansson. You know, you're always kind of a coin flip on Scarjo. What'd you think about her in this?

[Amanda Dobbins]

She just wasn't in it very much.

[Sean Fennessy]

She was in it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I didn't really know what was going on with Hilda.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And her utopia, which just seemed like a kibbutz or something, right?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, yes, I think that's right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But we didn't spend a lot of time there, and it didn't seem to materially affect how anyone turned out that.

[Sean Fennessy]

Ultimately leads to the big showdown. Right. Well, I'm forgetting this. The quicksand. I mean, there's quicksand in this movie. You know, there's a jungle. There's another plane crash. There's a jungle adventure. Like, so many things happen. Which is why I think this overload of story is such a fascinating choice. And eventually there's a big showdown with the long, threatened brother Noubar, who is Benicio Del Toro's half brother, portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch. He may also be materially involved in the life and death of Liesl and Liesl's mother. And there's a big showdown at the end of the movie. Benedict Cumberbatch maybe only should be in Wes Anderson movies is one of my takes. He's so great, great in the final five minutes of this movie. Very, very good. I'm always a little bit.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm not about the Roses. You know, they released that poster or something, and I was like, oh, okay, this is. You guys thought you had something different.

[Sean Fennessy]

Does the War of the Roses have a big place in your heart?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Not a big place, but it's a very useful reference point in films and in life. And I enjoyed doing the rewatchables with Bill and Mallory on that divorce, kids, time. Anyway, that's Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, two actors I like in circumstances I'm not sure about. And this is a circumstance I'm sure about. So I agree with you.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's wonderful. And then there's a dramatic conclusion to this movie, as there are for all of them. And, yeah, the first time I watched it, like I said, I had a little bit of a. I didn't have a hard time following the story, but I felt like I was only following the story. I wasn't thinking about the movie as much and kind of what it means and what it represents and the kind of, like, vaguely subterranean ways he tries to throw ideas into it. I also felt like. I don't know how much you've been reading about the movie since you saw it last night, but I feel like one. He's been just doing more press and been talking about it more. And because there's so many more themes, he's been sort of forced to answer questions about some of these things. And he's usually a little bit circumspect about the intention of the movie. And while he's not locating it specifically, he cast his daughter in this movie. She has a small role in the movie. You know, the idea of the father daughter relationship being so important, but then also wending that in with the way the power operates in the 21st century.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is such a. It's just an interesting stew, I would say for him.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes. The, the. All of the Bible stuff stuck out to me. And they do say, they say like biblical multiple times. Like they actually use that word as kind of like a chorus to draw your attention to, to those scenes and to, to some of what it's trying to explore.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I think because of where, you know, the story is, is located, like the Phoenician theme, like being in the Middle east, being in that part of the world where a lot of those stories are born is also a factor there too, and sort of like locating, you know, the fact that Zsa Zsa is kind of obsessed with history and ancient civilizations and like all of the erotic texts that he is reading related to those times and constantly thinking about like patrons and great businessmen, the people who sought power and gained power across the arc of history.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He lives in like a Venetian palazzo in the UK which had been converted.

[Sean Fennessy]

And it was built in 1545. You know, most of the music in the film, the all the Stravinsky music and all the paintings are all 17th century paintings. You know, it's just a film that's like firmly rooted in real histories that is unmistakable. And I was like, I can barely like get two dumb POD episodes out a week. And this is now four movies in five years. And the movies are packed. Yeah, they're dense. And I know he's got his team and he's, you know, Adam Stockhausen, the production designers on all of these movies. This one is actually quite interesting because Bruno Delbonnell is the cinematographer and it's his first time working on a West movie. I think it's the first west movie that Robert Yeoman didn't shoot. So Robert Yeoman is going to be 75 years old. He's been Working on these movies forever. I think maybe he was just on another movie or something, but it didn't. I didn't sense like a dramatic visual shift.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No. There were a few shots that I thought were interesting that were just kind of not the one person center in the frame and some use of the horizons in different ways that were new and interesting.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, yeah, you're right. I think that like a little bit less focus on the into camera.

[Amanda Dobbins]

There's plenty of it. But you know, at this point in west, when you see a different composition, you're like, oh, I've never seen you do that before. Or oh, you've, you know, tilted it like this or.

[Sean Fennessy]

I had the same experience. I asked him about that too. I was kind of like. I feel like you were still trying to like experiment a little bit. Like the aspect ratio is changing a couple of times and it looks a little bit different than what you had done before. And I think also the fact that he's able to build all of this plot around story but not lose sight of the relationships is just. It's just very rare. You know, there's just not a lot of filmmakers I think that are capable of consistently achieving that. I don't know that this is. This isn't the best Wes Anderson movie. I think most people will regard this as kind of like Mid Wes or Minor Wes. But I would encourage everyone, if they're a fan of his films, just go back a second time the way that I did, the way I imagine you will, and keep discovering. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Life is all about choices. For example, what happens when you show up at the movies and you're not totally sure what you want to see. Maybe Final Destination, Bloodlines, maybe Lilo and Stitch. You've got to make a choice at State Farm. Their goal is to help you make decisions that you feel good about. That's why with the State Farm personal price plan, you can choose the right amount of coverage to help create a competitive price. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

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[Amanda Dobbins]

Liked about this is that it is so dense, not just in terms of theme and story, but, you know, just stuff references the west of it all. But there is a simplicity to it that I don't really think you got in Asteroid City, because that has like eight different main characters and this is the story of two people. So I think in some ways you can wrap your arms around it a bit more the first time and then you can go back and go into it. I don't know if that the fact that it's like about two people's issues as opposed to 15, makes it like minor or whatever I did. This is a comedy and in as much as it is about everything that we just said in a way that Asteroid City is like one of the most deeply. I guess it's not a tragedy, but it's. It's and it is can be funny, but it is about matters of the heart in like a very mournful film. Exactly.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And French Dispatch is sort of like an intellectual exercise. So I put it more in the French Dispatch category in terms of the Anderson canon. But I do it's a neat trilogy that he has going on that I think is interesting and it's fun to watch. This is an enjoyable movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, I agree with you. So he's apparently already at work on a new film that he's writing with Richard Aywadi and I think Roman Coppola. And he's got this unique thing where he's not the Russo brothers in so far as like that communicates like $300 million budgets. But he just sort of knows how to make these movies. He has a kind of assembly line quality. It's most of the same artisans and craftspeople who work across all the same movies. He has this production style where they write the movie, he talks to the storyboard artist, and then they start building the animatics so they know what the movie's going to look like and the way that it's going to, like, you know, play out once they shoot it. And so as long as he maintains that kernel of inspiration on every project, like, he could just do this for 30 more years. You know, like, the person that he reminds me of is Woody Allen. You know, where Woody Allen, every year and a half was like, here's another thing. It's kind of like the last thing, but if it's a good version of it, it's going to be deep and interesting.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right?

[Sean Fennessy]

And obviously, Woody Allen definitely a major influence on Wes in a variety of ways, but maybe not as much visually. And then the other thing, too, is like, the sort of, like, Bergman and Fellini types that Wes has, like, celebrated the European masters over the years, where they both made, like, 25, 35, 40 movies. And you're watching them and you know that it's like the same series of kind of setups and obsessions. And they have this troupe of actors that return over and over again, but each one has just tilted a little bit to the left or a little bit to the right in terms of what it's most interested in or what has happened in the artist's life that they're then filtering into the film. These kinds of careers are super rare.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Did you read this movie at all? As a movie about filmmaking? Did it occur?

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, tell me at any point. No.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, it's about a guy who has an impossible task and he's gotta wrangle money and resources from a lot of different people who. And maybe he is not the most trustworthy, but neither are they. And then there is, like, a faceless set of bureaucrats who send a spy, AKA producer, to watch over him. And then all he really needs is his little troop, his family, and then the nine boys, you know, just like which. And then there's that line, the Crips and the Electricians. Yeah, yeah. There's the line about why does he keep adopting? And it's like, I play the numbers. You know, one of them has to be on it. Which is just, if you think about it in terms of filmmaking, is very funny. I don't know. I mean, it was very interesting. I think it's a good reading. It doesn't really seem like filmmaking is that complicated to Wes Anderson. And it does also seem like he has figured out a series of partners in financing and everything where he can just kind of do what he wants. But the unveiling of the model of the Phoenician scheme just being this incredibly intricately designed thing on top of thing on top of thing. Look at my masterpiece. I was like, oh, okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

The actual representation of the Phoenician scheme at the end. Yes. There is a kind of self knowledge.

[Amanda Dobbins]

In the way that it doesn't not look like the poster for Grand Poodle Post Hotel or any other things.

[Sean Fennessy]

Completely true. And I think he's just self referential and self aware, which is like a very powerful skill to have as a filmmaker.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And I don't think it's by any means like the only text. But I just, I was kind of like, oh, I wonder if you thought about this. Because I'm thinking about it.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'll bet he did, but not in a purposeful way. It was sort of like I am just pouring myself into something which I believe in. You know, you mentioned like the financiers. He's in this unique position where he's got Steven Rales, this producer and billionaire who's been backing all of his films for the last few years. And he's got this deal with Focus. So Focus releases most of the movies. And this dovetails neatly with our conversation because Steven Rails recently became the 20% owner of the Indiana Pacers. So this is a man who produces all the Wes Anderson movies, which we cherish. He's also the owner of the Criterion Collection and Janice films. Okay, so this is.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So are you writing to him about your complaints about the Wes Anderson Collection?

[Sean Fennessy]

4K collection? I don't have any. Well, I'll share my concerns. Yeah, they're not complaints because I haven't even seen it yet. But to Mr. Rails, I say, I wish you nothing but no success in the playoffs.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

But I hope that you continue to support cinema in the profound way that you have forevermore. Cause like this is one of those people who's really kind of holding stuff up, up with his wealth, which is also kind of a theme of the movie, that artists need benefactors. And so Criterion is releasing a 10 film collection from. From Wes Anderson, right. In 4K for the first time, these films. And I think it goes all the way up to the French Dispatch, right?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

So you know. You know I'm gonna fucking buy it, right? Like I'm gonna buy it, right?

[Amanda Dobbins]

How many.

[Sean Fennessy]

I wanna have it on my shelves.

[Amanda Dobbins]

How many of these films do you individually have on Blu Ray.

[Sean Fennessy]

I. All of them.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, no, on 4K.

[Sean Fennessy]

None of them. Because none of them are available.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, so you have all of them on Blu Ray?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, I think maybe. Maybe one or two of them in the Criterion.

[Amanda Dobbins]

What happens to the Blu Rays when you get the 4Ks?

[Sean Fennessy]

It's a wonderful question. They go in a cabinet. And then I think about whether or not I should, like, either give them to someone or sell them.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Because I don't really need them anymore.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. What is the Blu Ray resale market like? Is it like, oh, it's robust. What's that?

[Sean Fennessy]

Tens of thousands of dollars per discount?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, no, there's not like, an app. Like, is there a Poshmark?

[Sean Fennessy]

There are. There are local video stores you can sell stuff to.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, but it's. There's no, like, the real. Real. But for. For Blu Rays.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, but perhaps. Yeah, that can be the business for me to get me out of this fucking podcasting game. What is it? Is it Grail. Can I get.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, that's.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, there are insights. I started selling things on Poshmark this week, so I'll keep you updated.

[Sean Fennessy]

My wife sells Alice's old clothing on Poshmark. So, yeah, I could do that for, you know, old DVD copies of Danny Boyle movies that are just sitting in my house rotting away. What will happen to those 10? I don't know. My thing with this set, which, as I said, I will just, like, I will spend $400 on it. Like a schmuck. Is. First of all, Asteroid City is not even in it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. Which, when I walked out of Phoenician Scheme, which is a movie I really enjoyed and wholeheartedly endorsed, I once again was like, wow, we did Asteroid City dirty. Like, you know, because it is every. It's. It is in. On the same level as Asteroid City in terms of, like, the tools that he's using and the way he's telling the story. But we. We were both so moved by it and then, like, never talked about it. I mean, we did. We did one episode, and then we didn't put it on our top 10 lists, and we just kind of, like, let it go by.

[Sean Fennessy]

I did. So I was thinking about this.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's not your top five.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was not in my top five. Correct. So.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Which is all we're allowed in the bounds of this podcast, which is my reference. But here's whatever's going on at Split.

[Sean Fennessy]

Our opinions are. Thank you for acknowledging Split Infinitives, which no longer. We no longer publish to that platform 2023. Yeah, I think we thought of as a good year, maybe not a truly great year.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

But it was the Barbenheimer Year and Killers of the Flower Moon. Right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, that was a really very good. That was a good year.

[Sean Fennessy]

So now I look at, I look at my top, I'll read you my top ten where I left it in December of 2023. Number ten was Anatomy of a Fall. Number nine was John Wick chapter four. Number eight was Asteroid City. Seven was the Killer, six was Zone of Interest. Five was the Taste of Things. Four was May December. Three was Oppenheimer, two was Spider Man across the Spider Verse, and one was Killers of the Flower Moon. That's a fucking awesome top 10.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That is.

[Sean Fennessy]

So it was just, it was a great year. I think it kind of got lost in the Barbenheimer shuffle a little bit.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And you know, there's also tons of other stuff that we were, you know, past lives and had a blow up a pipeline.

[Wes Anderson]

Like that was a good year.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Showing up my lip, showing up as.

[Sean Fennessy]

A iron claw, you know.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But I.

[Sean Fennessy]

Tons of good stuff.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Asteroids said it was like my number six.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Like that's dumb.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, I think it's, it's so funny that he won this Academy Award for these shorts that he made. Even when we talk, when he brought it up, when we were talking and he was like, I don't even know what those were. It wasn't a film. It wasn't, I don't know, you know, he like, is, you know, reluctant to define it and it just was like your most classic, classic makeup Oscar ever is like Wes has got, depending on your, your mileage may vary, but at least three all time classics. Maybe for me, like seven.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

So to award, you know, to give him a big prize for the shorts, which I thought the shorts were cool and I liked them, but they don't hold the candle to something like Asteroid City. It's a major achievement and even Phoenician scheme, which I just think is just a really good movie. So, yeah, I'll buy that stupid box set.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, of course I'll buy it. And then when they like put asteroid city in 4k, I'm gonna buy that. You know, like, I love Wes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They don't, when they make, when they make a set. Yeah, they don't like, leave room for extra things.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's a good idea. I mean, that's my thing is that Wes is in the middle of his career.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I honestly, as you know, I think plastic's ugly. And I.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is not. This doesn't come in plastic.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, steel case.

[Sean Fennessy]

It comes in a bound. It's almost like a book. Like a book collection.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, that's cool. But how are you gonna fit it on your shelf?

[Sean Fennessy]

We'll make it work.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

You haven't seen it. I mean, let's take a look at it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is a physical object that you can appreciate, I think.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. I'm sure that I can. I love Wes Anderson and I don't think he would be associated with ugly things. My point is just. They really haven't. Oh, okay. Sure. Yeah, that looks nice.

[Sean Fennessy]

What do you think of that?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, and then they look like little books.

[Sean Fennessy]

They look like books.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Okay. That's nice.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, great.

[Amanda Dobbins]

There's still like a uniformity to it that stresses me out.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know, but I think that looks nice.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, it's criteria. Like, nobody does.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They haven't really, really juiced you guys marketing wise yet. And like the time. Do you know that they're.

[Sean Fennessy]

What do you mean, juiced us marketing wise?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Like, that they aren't already selling sets with, like, extra room for you to add it in and you know that there isn't a poshmark for.

[Sean Fennessy]

Sounds like you should. App for a position at the Criterion Collection. You have a lot of strong ideas. Now this may be.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You don't know what's coming for you.

[Sean Fennessy]

The thing that my sickness is looking at my shelf, like, looking at the Steven Soderbergh section of my shelf, right? I own every edition of a Soderbergh movie that exists, Right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But there are some that don't.

[Sean Fennessy]

So there's the stuff that doesn't exist, which is painful and may never exist. The HBO Max stuff that he's made in the last few years. But then four years ago, he was like, yeah, we're working on a set and it's gonna be like, it's gonna be Kafka and Schizopolis and the Limey and all my early stuff that isn't available, like, in 4K Blu Ray. And I was like, fucking A, Steven. That's the best thing I've ever heard. It's not here. I don't have it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He's busy at the shelf. Two films a year and coming on your podcast. He's great. And reading every novel published by a female author in the last 50 years. Okay. He has the. I'm watching tennis. I'm not. I'm behind on the Frenchman.

[Sean Fennessy]

What season of Below Deck is it?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't know, but he Does.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, I know. It's just a pain for me. And it was a pain for me not not being able to have these movies in 4K. But now if I want to get them in 4K, I got to buy this box. But then this box is a finite lifespan. And then 20 years from now, they're gonna be like, just kidding. It's the real Wes Anderson archive with all the movies. And then I'm gonna be dying and I'm gonna have to think about what I'm giving to Alice. Will it be money or will it be the thing that I bought? That's. And plastic? These are the things that keep me up at night. This is the life of the mind.

[Amanda Dobbins]

What is the shelf value of these things?

[Sean Fennessy]

What do you mean, the shelf value?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, like the long term. Do they appreciate or is it like a car?

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, they're mass produced objects. They probably don't appreciate, right?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't know. But if you're building a collection, I.

[Sean Fennessy]

Don'T think my archive could ultimately have value.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, okay, that's something because it's yours or just because you've amassed?

[Sean Fennessy]

Like, I'm not in a position to answer that question. I'll let the public decide who will.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Get the rights to your archive, not you.

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't know. We're still working on that. I mean, this is the kind of thing that Zsa Jsa Corda is thinking about, you know, who deserves to have access to the incredible wealth that I've accumulated over the years. And by wealth, I mean plastic. Anyway, anything else you want to say about this film or Wes or collecting? Oh, oh, there's a. There is. There is to this point.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, I was gonna ask.

[Sean Fennessy]

There is a tidbit in the west conversation that is the most like me grinning so fucking hard about. And you'll know exactly what it is.

[Amanda Dobbins]

About this collection, sort of.

[Sean Fennessy]

You'll know exactly what it is when you hear it. So I would encourage people to wait for that. I did not remark upon it when he said it, but inside I was like, God damn it. Yes, yes, I know. Jack knows what I'm referring to. Okay. Anything else?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No. Let's let Wes Anderson speak.

[Sean Fennessy]

Let's go to my conversation with Wes Anderson. It is a delight to be joined by the great Wes Anderson here on the show. Wes. I thought we could start with this. I found the choice to center a father daughter relationship to be fascinating in this movie and a little bit unusual. I was wondering why that was right for the Phoenician scheme.

[Wes Anderson]

Yeah, well, thanks, Sean. Happy to be here. And yes, you know, the story, the Phoenician scheme, it started as a story focused on this ruthless businessman played by Benicio Del Toro. And really our image, me and Roman Coppola, my co writer of what this movie was going to be about was this. This unkillable, ruthless man on this business mission. And it sort of took us in another direction as we got into it. And, you know, we. We. It. It went from being a story focused on this guy appointing his daughter his successor and teaching her how to be. How to kind of fight on his behalf, and instead became about their reunion, them coming together. And it became, you know, that became really what the whole movie's about. But that sort of surprised us. That happened sort of whatever. Whatever organically means. It felt like it happened organically as we were writing the thing.

[Sean Fennessy]

Has having a family yourself changed the way you think about writing character?

[Wes Anderson]

Well, it probably is the reason why it did that, why it went this way. You know, I think I have a daughter, she's nine and that. And. And Benicio has a daughter a few years older. Roman Coppola has a daughter in between those two ages. So I think, you know, without those. Without these daughters, I don't think the movie would be the story we decided we ended up telling.

[Sean Fennessy]

I also have a daughter, so I was touched, I think, in some way by that.

[Wes Anderson]

How old is your daughter?

[Sean Fennessy]

She's going to be four shortly.

[Wes Anderson]

For a while.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. On the sort of flip side of that concept, I'm interested in the notion of violence in your movies. This might be the most violence that we've ever had, and it's playful and it's inventive and fun, but there are bombs and dynamite and guns, and. Can you talk about what role that played in working on this story?

[Wes Anderson]

Yes, I think from the. For me, the movie really be. The movie begins for me with an image of this character. And the image of the character is he's got blood all. You know, he's being battered, he's surrounded by violence, and he causes violence. And that was just a part of the mayhem of this guy. But I will say, when we started to get into the specifics of the violence, there's some extreme violence. I mean, you know, there's like, you know, eviscerated people and things. But somehow, for whatever reason, right at the beginning of it, I had this feeling like the violence wanted to be. You know, as odd as this may sound, somehow I thought there needed to be some sort of delight to the violence. It shouldn't be any less horrible, but that somehow it should be shocking and maybe be sort of making you laugh a bit and that there should be some device or idea behind every awful thing that happens in this movie. And just in the way we tell it, you know, in the way we get across that next little bit of the story. So it set a tone for it, I guess.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. And it happens very early on in the film and you realize we're in a slightly different kind of Wes Anderson film, I think.

[Wes Anderson]

Yes, that's probably true. It doesn't take long.

[Sean Fennessy]

Even more so, the violence is serving. A story about corporately financed power games on a global stage. I mean, this is a very wide ranging, globetrotting kind of a story. And even though it's a period piece, did you find that the world's contemporary politics or the kind of mania of the corporate power influencing how you and Roman were writing the story?

[Wes Anderson]

You know, when you're making up a story, you know, when you're not adapting something, when you're just inventing a story from scratch, you have your ideas of your research and your inspirations that you're conscious of, and then you have your imagination and that you're not really in control of so much. That's sort of where there's work happening in parts of your brain that are hidden from you a bit. And the way the work of the. That your brain is doing is revealed to you is when you say. Is when you say, I have an idea. And so all that to say the world is always kind of going into it, you know, I mean, you know, it finds its way into it. And as much as we were writing about tycoons of the middle of the 20th century, we were also inspired by people we know right now. And I think people, you know, who we all know from the front page of the newspaper and it all kind of mixes together.

[Sean Fennessy]

I had a question about the art of the title sequence. I love the one in this film. I think it's mesmerizing. But what function do you see it serving?

[Wes Anderson]

I think in the case of this, from the beginning, I thought maybe we want to see this guy. You know, there's something about this character who's. He's being harmed. You know, he's. He's. People are trying to hurt him and they do hurt him. And he's. And we had. We had this sequence where he's. He's, you know, he's being given medicine, he's being stitched up, he's got bandages all over him. He's soaking in a tub, but he's still reading. He's smoking a cigar. He's opens a bottle of wine. And this is a guy who's just. He's not good for the world, but he is spectacularly resilient. And this. And there was a musical aspect of this. There's, you know, he's gathering information. I mean, he is always reading this character and he's gathering information like it's ammunition for him. And he wants to know about music and he wants to know about art, and he's gathering it. And, you know, we have this Stravinsky music that is a part of the story. And I think to me, that's modernist music that he feels is valuable to him and something he wants to know about, for whatever reason. It's something I've seen, you know, in men of this. Men like this. But that music itself has a haunting, strange, defiant, particular quality. This piece that we play from this ballet, this Stravinsky ballet, to me, says things about the character that words can't. And we made a sort of dance out. I mean, it is from a ballet, and we made the sequence as sort of a dance. And it's a dance about just him. And he's surrounded by people tending to him, and there's all this activity, but he's this sort of vortex, I think. So that's sort of various things that were in my mind, I guess that's great.

[Sean Fennessy]

It communicates so much about him without any dialogue whatsoever.

[Wes Anderson]

Oh, good, good.

[Sean Fennessy]

It seems as though you're in a period of rapid creative outburst. This is. I noted four films in five years, and prior to that it was three films across 12 years. So what accounts for the burst for you?

[Wes Anderson]

Well, I don't know. You know, one thing is I have a lot of consistency in my group of collaborators. And I have a producer. I mean, I have my team of producers with Jeremy Dawson and John Peet, who've worked with me for years. But I have Stephen Rales, who is our sort of supervising producer of our projects. And having that relationship has been tremendously helpful for me in so many ways. And his advice is so helpful. But it means when I start a movie, we can go right to it. You know, it's. We work very closely together, and we have a whole group of people behind the camera who we kind of can start with when we, like, we can start prepping a movie. Like, for instance, when I'm writing a script now, If I have 10 pages of the script, I start doing the story. I Have, you know, Jay Clark in England who starts drawing the storyboards, and I have Edward Birch in Pennsylvania who starts editing the storyboards together. And I start showing that material to Adam Stockhausen, our production designer. And he, and he starts to see, okay, here's what we need to be thinking about in terms of what's going to go in front of the camera. So everything happens at once. And it's a little bit more like we have our own tiny small scale studio system. We can work efficiently this way and we get more done.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do you find that you have boundless ideas? Because a lot of times with great filmmakers, it has to be the right thing. And so this outburst that I think is so exciting that you're going through right now, it seems like you just are manifesting a whole new world very quickly. Does it feel that way?

[Wes Anderson]

Well, I think for me, I've never had a thing like I've got eight scripts in a drawer or somewhere or something. I don't have that. I mean, the first few movies I made, I did have the first four movies I made. By the time we started the first one, I had, you know, the general idea of four movies, and we made those four movies. But, but now, I mean, I do one at a time, you know, I mean, I did have these Roald Dahl ones that we did for Netflix that are a peculiar kind of thing. They're not, I don't know if they're. I wouldn't call them movies. They're. Anyway, they're. Whatever they are. They're some sort of concoction. And those I had, you know, it's, it's Roald Dahl's words that, that he essentially wrote the scripts. But mostly, you know, I, I mean, like right now, for instance, I have an idea of a thing I'm working with, with Richard Iowade and, and Roman Coppola. And we are starting this thing brewing and we have things, we take it and, you know, will it take us three months? Will it take us six months? Will it take us a year? I have no idea. But, you know, but it's brewing and I figure when, by the time we finish the script, we'll probably be situated to make the movie. You know, I don't think we're going to have to finish the script and say, now where do we go? Well, we're going to. Well, when we finish the script, I think I'll already have a plan for how to go about making the movie. And that helps to, helps to make it all happen quicker.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's great. I Hope it continues apace. You know, speaking of those early films, I went back and looked at a couple and, you know, you sense this real kind of youthful frustration and even kind of rage in some of those stories. And I look at the more recent films, and I sense, like, a wistfulness and maybe some regret. And I don't know how much consciousness you have of kind of blending in some of those feelings and how they reflect where you're at in your life or if it's just sort of. I've come up with an idea, and I'm writing a character, and that character comes from a very pure place.

[Wes Anderson]

I mean, I feel like when you're writing something new, you're not adapting something. You're improvising. You're either improvising with a pen, a pencil, or if you're working with collaborators like I often do or always do, sometimes you're playing the scenes for each other, and it is like. It's an improvisation. And the improvisation, you don't know where it's coming from. You know, it comes out of you. But once it starts to go onto the page, then you can say, you know, I see what we're. I see the thing that's starting to take shape, and I can. And then you can, you know, follow it more. And often I feel like it's. We didn't set out to make a movie about a father and a daughter. We set out to make a movie about a businessman, but we. But it just took over.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Wes Anderson]

I'm not sure I totally answered the question.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, no, no. I'm always curious how much intentionality goes into some of those feelings and how much it just kind of naturally occurs. At this stage of your career, how much do you feel that you're experimenting? Like, I wasn't sure if I noticed something in, like, the aspect ratio of this movie that looked a little bit different. And I was trying to figure out if that was the. Like, do you find that you're still kind of trying to try smaller, new things as you're going through each production?

[Wes Anderson]

What I want to do is make it fun to make the movie. And it's not fun to. You know, the fun thing to do is to find surprises, to look for surprises, you know, to create situations where there are surprises. My way of making a movie is very planned, and we have. It's. You know, we build the sets to the shots, and it's. So I kind of create a situation where we know what we're going to do on the day, but in that Context. The excitement to me is when something, you know, we try to make a situation where the thing is going to work. And I feel like I can reliably deliver a thing that's going to work. But then I look for whatever's unexpected and the detours that are going to be the surprise. And always I'm looking for what's another way to tell this part of the story that might be that we haven't done before?

[Sean Fennessy]

Was there a particular version of that in this movie that you can think of?

[Wes Anderson]

We mentioned the violence of it, and the way we articulate the violence to me was something different. There's a fight sequence at the end of the movie with Benicio Del Toro and Benedict Cumberbatch. And to me, that I had an approach to the way that we staged that scene that maybe was different from what I even saw in the script. It became something like magic tricks or something like that. I don't know. I mean, we wanted to communicate the emotion of this conflict. But I was sort of saying, is there a certain voice to how we go about it that's going to be a surprise.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm curious if you think much about the lifespan of your films because you, you know, they're often issued in these beautiful physical editions and you've got coffee table book companions, and they're reviewed and they continue to exist. But I feel like your movies are under a constant re evaluation. Like, for me personally, I'm constantly re evaluating Darjeeling Limited, thinking about how I responded to it, maybe some of the things I liked or didn't understand. And then as I get older, do you pay attention to the fact that your movies have this. A continuing lifespan unlike other films?

[Wes Anderson]

Well, you know, I like to hear that. And I think for whatever reason, I did always think of my movies as an ongoing, you know, kind of. I don't know what you would say, like an ongoing sort of project. I mean, they're individual stories. But even after I made three movies, I thought these should be able to sit on a shelf together and be connected somehow. And I feel like that's not necessarily. I mean, I think it would be just as reasonable for somebody to say, no. My movies are in different styles, different things. They have nothing to do. The only connection is me. I don't think the only connection is me. There are too many connections between them. But, you know, like, we have a new thing. This Criterion Collection is doing a box set of the first 10 films I made. And in the process of preparing this, working with them, I know them for years and years, and we've done all these things together, but in putting them together, I do feel like I can. What I see is. I mean, this is a very narcissistic way to look at it, but I can see the films and say, oh, I'm so different over the course of these. I can see my life, you know, playing out in these films. And I will say, when we talk about when was it we met, so and so it was between Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise Kingdom. Remember, we were here.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We.

[Wes Anderson]

The movies are how I can tell the passage of time in my life. You know, I have the birth of my daughter. I have, you know, you know, when I met my wife, and I have the movies.

[Sean Fennessy]

Wes. We end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen. You are a tremendous advocate for film history. Is there anything that you've seen lately that you've dug?

[Wes Anderson]

You know, it's funny. I'm here in a hotel in New York, but I often travel with a Blu Ray player. And so I. So, you know, I bring. I plug it in and, you know, I. Sometimes you have to do you kind of hack the TV a bit to be able to. To get it to work. But what I had, what I brought with me, you know, little stack of movies, some. Some Westerns, Anthony Mann Westerns. And. But the one that I put in the machine, it was a movie I've seen many times, but love, that's Saint Jack. Do you know Saint Jack?

[Sean Fennessy]

I do. I love seeing Bogdanovich.

[Wes Anderson]

Bogdanovich. And, you know, I was doing. Noah Baumbach was with me last night. We had our premiere here in New York. And Noah and I used to see Peter. You know, we saw a lot of Peter for a long time. And that's one of my favorite of Peter. Peter's movies. Maybe sort of less more known now than it used to be, but. But it's. It's. It's such a good one.

[Sean Fennessy]

Peter loved it too. Right. I feel like he thought it was a bit overlooked.

[Wes Anderson]

He did, yeah. He knew. He knew it. He knew it was a good one. And, you know, it's the thing where he made something very good and he was like, what happened? The audience failed him. The audience failed him with that one. But, you know, that movie. That movie has aspects of it. It feels like it could have been Humphrey Bogart playing that part as much as. As well as Ben Gazara. And Ben Gazara's great. It's one of his best performances.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's a wonderful recommendation. Wes Anderson, thank you for the time and for all the great films. I really appreciate it.

[Wes Anderson]

Thank you, Sean. Thanks so much. So nice to talk with you.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, thank you to Wes Anderson. That was fun. Thanks to our producer Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. We'll be back next week to break down full title from the world of Colon. No, from the world of John Wick. Colon. Ballerina. You excited about this?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I was honestly just googling to make sure you got that right.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think I got it right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

From the world of John. Yes. Good job.

[Sean Fennessy]

Why didn't they just make it John Wick presents ballerina. You'll have to ask John Wick's ballerina or ballerina semicolon John Wick stuff. What else could we have called this movie instead of from the world John?

[Amanda Dobbins]

You got to get John Wick before ballerina because sexism.

[Sean Fennessy]

So John Wick. John Wick presents with ballerina.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, there you go.

[Sean Fennessy]

John Wick dances with ballerina.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We're entering into territory that I do not think his family.

[Sean Fennessy]

Let's make it active. You know, John Wick isn't a ballerina, but he could be one day. Like, what else? We could do a lot here with this title. And I just feel like from the world of John Wick. Colin Ballerina is not great. I think also we might finally be making a viewisk Universe connection is one thing I'll tease.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's beautiful.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I need to put CR at the table with us just so we can talk. You can let us talk a little bit about those feelings about those worlds.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm just gonna try to get Chris to tell all the stories about his first personal life related to those films, of which there are many classics.

[Sean Fennessy]

There are a few good ones. Okay, well, stay tuned for that, and thanks for listening. We'll see you soon.