9. A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969)
Anderson's use of "Christmas Time Is Here" on the Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack isn't the only indication of his Charles Schulz fetish. The "uniforms" he outfits his characters in are like a variation on Charlie Brown's zigzag shirt and Lucy's blue dress, and there's an atmosphere of wistful melancholy common to Peanuts cartoons and Anderson's seriocomedies. A Boy Named Charlie Brown echoes Anderson's persistent "sic transit gloria" theme, as Charlie Brown blazes through the rounds of a local spelling bee, then washes out at the nationals. When he returns home to a group of friends who accept him as much as they mock him, he might as well be walking in slow motion, while "Ooh La La" plays on the soundtrack.
10. Stolen Kisses (1968)
Anderson's protagonists frequently suspect that the world runs according to a rule sheet they've never been given, a trait they share with François Truffaut's Antoine Doinel. Played by Jean-Pierre Léaud in four and a half films, beginning with 1959's The 400 Blows and concluding with Love On The Run 20 years later, Doinel fumbles his way through a series of jobs and a disorderly love life in Stolen Kisses, usually two steps behind everyone else. But the distance gives him perspective while lending Truffaut's film a wistful, wise tone that Anderson—who's never been shy about citing Truffaut as a profound influence—frequently reprises.
11. Big Deal On Madonna Street (1958)
Though it lacks Bottle Rocket's whimsy, Mario Monicelli's classic parody similarly turns the heist picture on its head, following a band of inept criminals as they botch a big score. Like Owen Wilson's Dignan and the gang, the stars of Big Deal are big-hearted dreamers who aren't really cut out for criminality, which doesn't stop them from trying. Their can't-miss scheme involves breaking into a vacant apartment next to a pawn shop on Madonna Street; once inside, they can easily tear down the thin wall separating the two, and access the unprotected safe on the other side. It sounds simple, but the only expert in their sphere is a retired safecracker who isn't around for the job, and the others include a boxer with a glass jaw and a hot-tempered Sicilian preoccupied with protecting his sister's virtue. They're a loveable bunch of guys—both here and in Palookaville, a skillful indie remake from 1995—but they definitely aren't cut out for this sort of work.
12. Local Hero (1983)
Anderson's films often center on depressive characters in the midst of emotional crises: think Bill Murray in Rushmore and The Life Aquatic, or Luke and Owen Wilson in The Royal Tenenbaums. In Bill Forsyth's beloved cult comedy Local Hero, businessman Peter Riegert bounces back from a serious case of the blahs by traveling, at his employer' behest, to a lovely Scottish village touched with magic and wonder. But Riegert's blues pale in comparison with those of boss Burt Lancaster, a cantankerous old tycoon who becomes infected with the Scottish village's sense of joy while fleeing his bullying psychiatrist. Thankfully, the sad-sacks in Anderson and Forsyth's films are lucky enough to exist in a world brought to vivid, though quaint, life by supremely humane creators whose films radiate compassion for their troubled characters.
13. The King Of Comedy (1983)
Martin Scorsese has been a vocal Anderson supporter from the start, recognizing a kindred spirit. And while nothing in Anderson's work suggests the rawness of Mean Streets or Raging Bull, both directors have an interest in overt theatricality of the Max Ophüls/Michael Powell variety. The King Of Comedy balances Scorsese's theatrical flourishes and his neo-realist side in an Anderson-like way, and Robert De Niro's portrayal of the fame-hungry Rupert Pupkin recalls Jason Schwartzman's Max Fischer in Rushmore and Bill Murray's Steve Zissou in The Life Aquatic, in that they're all dangerously deluded and impossible to deter.
14. Metropolitan (1990)
The cult popularity of Whit Stillman's debut feature showed indie-film financiers that movies about effete, erudite young adults with obscure concerns could find an audience. Metropolitan also fits into the mosaic of New York movies that informed The Royal Tenenbaums, both in its sketch of a class-splintered dream-city, and in its story of a golden age too quickly tarnished by human vanity. Give the debutantes and escorts of Metropolitan a few years, and they might well be puttering around their apartments in their old clothes, seething over what went wrong.
15. A Thousand Clowns (1965)
Since J.D. Salinger hasn't allowed any of his work to be adapted to the screen, writers and directors have had to find ways to sneak some Salinger in through the back door, via situations, dialogue, and overall attitudes that smack of the prickly cult author. Anderson's early films have a decidedly Salinger-esque tone—the brother-sister relationship in Bottle Rocket is very Holden-Phoebe—as does Herb Gardner's play and screenplay A Thousand Clowns, which shadows Salinger's iconoclastic idealism. Jason Robards plays a reluctant TV writer who'd prefer to spend his days showing his nephew how to live splendidly as a New York slacker. But if he doesn't buckle down and get a steady job, Robards is going to lose his right to raise the child the way he likes. There's a bit of Steve Zissou—and Holden Caulfield—in Robards' disgust with mediocrity, as well as in his drive to pursue his whims, however impractical.
16. Murmur Of The Heart (1971)
Throughout his career, Anderson has been peppered with accusations of cultural insensitivity and suggestions that he glamorizes upper-class privilege, but those traits may be better ascribed to his characters. A lot of Anderson heroes are like Murmur Of The Heart's provincial teenager Benoît Ferreux, who copes with the stresses of growing up by taking full advantage of what wealth allows, and—in a shocking climactic act—leveraging his boyish insecurity into a literal return to the womb. Like Anderson, director Louis Malle makes his self-absorbed hero strangely agreeable, by presenting his arrogance with a light dollop of nostalgia.
Tomorrow: 10 films that couldn't have happened without Wes Anderson.
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