The artistic comedy “The French Dispatch”, inviting and distant at the same time.
These days have shown once again what blossoms journalism can blossom. No wonder Hollywood never had much sympathy for this profession, with the exception of heroic war reporters. And what people thought of us columnists, the classic “Alles über Eva” is a good example: the theater columnist played by George Sanders explains it casually: “We critics belong to the theater like ants to a picnic.”
We must of course exclude Wes Anderson from those who despise critics. His new film “The French Dispatch” is a double homage, both to the cultivated newspaper production and to the country that invented the word “Feuilleton”. The editor-in-chief, played by Bill Murray, of an American-made replica of the New Yorker magazine, died at the beginning of the plot. That makes him the subject of the obituary page of his last issue – because according to his will, the sheet, which was written exclusively by Edelfenner, is to be buried with him.
The episode film lovingly flips through all the sections and conjures up an intimate connection between this heaven-born editorial team and their topics: Tilda Swinton plays an art critic who also sees herself as a muse. What does not prevent her favorite painter Moses Rosenthaler, played by Benicio del Toro, from leading a double life: convicted of double homicide, he has opened his studio in prison, and his nude model, played by Léa Seydoux, is a guard there.
In an ideal newspaper world
No, if sex and work intersect in this ideal newspaper world, it is because the laws of love also apply here in the workplace. When reporter Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand) also sleeps with the somewhat eccentric student activist (Timothée Chalamet) she writes about, then she is only carefully leading him on the path of virtue.
Other authors are artists themselves. Roebuck Wright, played by Jeffrey Wright, is modeled on James Baldwin. Wright’s story about the curious kidnapping of a talk show host is so brilliantly embellished that Bill Murray has to put him to the test. You have to love quality journalism to set such a monument to the ideal newspaper maker. Anderson and Murray based themselves on the famous role model: on the “New Yorker” founder Harold Ross.
Wes Anderson strolls through prominent stories in his typical style – set in two-dimensional decorations and ambiguous punchlines. If you wanted to write a book about Anderson, it would be a pop-up book with magnificent tableaus and lots of footnotes. But as much as its cinema celebrates what it loves – here, among others, Jean-Luc Godard’s color films from the 60s – it doesn’t dare to be real emotional. Even more than his earlier films, “The French Dispatch” is a Wes Anderson museum, as inviting as it is distant.
Completed for the canceled Cannes edition last year, the film begins with the logo of the art house label “Fox Starlight”, which has meanwhile been sold to Disney. He is already a piece of media history himself, worthy of nostalgic memories.
And yet we are again stunned by this indulgent service of love to the culture of the 20th century – and what remains of it. If Anderson were just nostalgic, he wouldn’t have to worry about her survival. But even if he describes a fantasy gazette here and settles in an invented town called Ennui-sur-Blasé, we can still save what it stands for. The network of relationships that Anderson describes, this cosmopolitan bohemian group that was grouped around the print media of the middle of the century, still exists.
The world is full of cultured people, only they are buried in their home offices. If a few make it to the cinema now, a lot will have been achieved.
The French Dispatch. USA/D/F/UK 2021. Regie: Wes Anderson. 108 Min.
