Moonrise Kingdom

Moonrise Kingdom is definitely one of my favorite movies. I pretty much love all the Wes Anderson films and can't wait to go see The Grand Budapest Hotel this week. Its always hard to decide which part in his films are my favorite because there is so much to talk about. One of my favorite things about Anderson's filmmaking is the way that he moves throughout interior spaces with tracking. I first noticed this in The Life Aquatic, but found it to be a pretty common technique. He does this in Moonrise Kingdom by connecting the rooms in the Bishop house as if they were all connected to each other like a maze, moving up and down throughout the house seamlessly. This gives their home the feeling of a dollhouse, much like the way that the Belafonte is cut open in The Life Aquatic. 

I find the comparison made between Norman Rockwell and scenes from Moonrise Kingdom interesting. Norman Rockwell illustrated many scenarios from American family life throughout the mid-20th century. He is known for his cover illustrations on The Saturday Evening Post and for Boy Scouts of American. Rockwell has made a legacy of mid-century Americana that is cheeky and nostalgic. Anderson framed many scenes as virtual parodies of Rockwell's paintings and illustrations. 

This one is my favorite:

We are viewing this scene as an "other" but in the point of view of the parents. In the foreground we see the back of the parent's heads and shoulders, Mrs. Bishop on the left and Mr. Bishop on the right. In the middle ground you see the dinner table and Suzy's three younger brothers. The two brothers on the outside have their heads cocked up looking at Suzy and the one in the center is eating a piece of corn on the cob (doesn't get more American than that, unless you're talking apple pie). Standing behind the seated children is Suzy. She is the only person in the scene that has an animation to her at all. She is pointing an accusatory finger at her parents and shouting with a concerned look on her face. This moment reminds me of Norman Rockwell's paintings Election Day and Freedom From Want:

 

I think this scene says a lot about each of the characters in the film. The parents seem to be very passively listening and maybe only halfway dealing with their daughter's concerns. The three boys are somewhat perplexed and indifferent to their sister who seems to be an entirely different species from their prepubescent selves. Suzy is animated and emotional and angry and the dialogue in the scene doesn't give the viewer a reason why, much like how Suzy is unsure why she is feeling this way. The dialogue is a voice over of Suzy and Sam reading letters that they were writing back and forth to each other and Suzy is writing about how Sam should think of his parents' faces everyday (as she is yelling at her own).  By referring to Rockwell's paintings, Anderson is creating a nostalgia about the passion of adolescence and the reality of family life.