Hello! Welcome!
This post will focus on the one and only Wes Anderson and the highly anticipated release of his stop motion animation Isle of Dogs. Feast your eyes on the cracking trailer here!
I’ll be looking at the cast, specific crew members and legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. It has been stated by Anderson himself that Kurosawa was a big influence on Isle of Dogs so I’ll be talking about some of his iconic releases and his influence on cinema.
Set 20 years in the future in the fictitious Japanese city of “Megasaki”, Mayor Kobayashi has called for a hasty quarantine of our “Dog Flu” spreading furry canine friends.
Rex, King, Duke and Boss are led by Chief who are now inhabitants of the exile colony known as “The Isle of Dogs”.
We’re introduced to young Atari who’s flown his prop plane to the colony in search of his dog “Spots”. The pack of “scary, indestructible, alpha” dogs take it upon themselves to help the young man in his mission and without any doubt chaos will ensue.
We have the regular Anderson old guard joining in on the party (listed in the caption) and we have some newcomers in Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson and Liev Schreiber. Ken Watanabe and Yoko Ono prop up the Japanese voice cast along with Kunichi Nomura.
Nomura features very briefly as he embraces Scarlett Johansson at a Tokyo karaoke bar in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation and in a single shot in The Grand Budapest Hotel. Not only is Kunichi credited in IOD voice cast he’s also on board with the writing team which consists of Sofia’s brother Roman, their cousin Jason Schwartzman and of course Wes Anderson. It’s said that Anderson had a big hand in helping Sofia get Bill Murray involved in Lost in Translation.
Alexandre Desplat will be working on his fourth film with Anderson, which has become quite a productive period for the composer . In amongst his 174 credits (The Tree of Life, Rust and Bone and A Prophet to name a few) the Frenchman earned himself his first Oscar, second BAFTA and second Grammy for The Grand Budapest Hotel score. No doubt this is the reason that both were happy enough to continue their working relationship in Isle of Dogs. To paraphrase Desplat each collaboration felt like adding layers of DNA to “Wes’s World” from Fantastic Mr Fox to Moonrise Kingdom to Grand Budapest. I’m intrigued to hear the new layer of Japanese influence that will no doubt accompany Isle of Dogs score.
“…Wes has a world of this own, which I call “Wes’s World”, and it belongs only to him. There are no movies like Wes Anderson’s movies.”
Alexandre Desplat: The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Akira Kurosawa and composer Fumio Hayasaka had a fruitful relationship between the years of 1948 – 1954 which opened the eyes of the legendary director on how important music is to a picture. Hayasaka is said to have completely changed Kurosawa’s approach to musical accompaniment in his features which differed from the norm during the late 40’s and early 50’s. Desplat seems to be following the route of Hayasaka and becoming the “go to guy” for Anderson’s sound scape dreams.
“In some of my films, such as Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, I use different theme music for each main character or for different groups of characters.”
Akira Kurosawa: Something Like an Autobiography
“There are many characters in the film (The Grand Budapest Hotel), and I worked very deliberately with Wes to have distinctive themes and motifs expressed for each of them, with very distinctive sounds.”
Alexandre Desplat: The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Spotify widget below is a playlist curated by Michael Park which includes the 196 songs featured in Wes Anderson’s films from Bottle Rocket (1996) to The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Enjoy!
Since starting this small feature I have been watching some of Kurosawa’s critically lauded films.
I started with the 1954 release Seven Samurai which was an absolute joy to behold. A poor mountain village are in fear of bandits ransacking their harvest and begin their mission to recruit Samurai’s to defend them. The 3 and a half hour run time will definitely put people off but I can’t recommend this film highly enough. It flows seamlessly with stand out performances from Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura. The film has influenced features such as The Magnificent Seven, A Bug’s Life and the upcoming Justice League.
Crime mystery Rashomon centres around the murder of a Samurai and the rape of his wife on a woodland trail . It’s told from different perspectives during the murder trial with a woodcutter, bandit, the sexually assaulted wife and the murdered Samurai (through a medium) all putting forward their version of events that contradict one another. The animalistic performance from Toshiro Mifune -who plays the bandit- is a highlight along with the unsettling introduction to the medium and the incredible camerawork throughout. The film was released in 1950 and put Kurosawa on Hollywood’s radar. It won an honorary Oscar in 1952 before the Best Foreign Language Film category was introduced in 1956.
Mifune and Shimura’s performances really impressed me in both films and it doesn’t surprise me that Kurosawa used Mifune in 16 of his films and Shimura in a staggering 21.
Having enjoyed what I’ve watched so far I’ll gradually work my way through Kurosawa’s illustrious film career. The following five films are high on my watch list:
- Yojimbo
- Sanjuro
- The Hidden Fortress (Influenced a little known film called Star Wars)
- Ikiru
- Ran
The influence Kurosawa will have on Isle of Dogs is yet to be seen. However, looking at the trailer it looks like it follows along the lines of the Seven Samurai adventure. A collective group from different backgrounds coming together, after some setbacks, to take on the enemy.
I’m very much looking forward to March 30th next year as Isle of Dogs looks to top Anderson’s previous animation Fantastic Mr Fox. It looks like it has a much darker tone to its predecessor and could well be a contender for Original Screenplay and many other accolades during awards season.
Thank you for taking the time to read!
Alex
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