Alfred HitchcockThe notion of “pure cinema” was based on his upbringing in the silent film era, but you can see it resonate throughout his filmography. He felt that a film should be able to be enjoyed in silence because the key images – birds flocking to telephone wires – tell the story as much as the dialogue. You can imagine what he would have thought of the movies Wes Andersonin which every scene in every movie involves two people telling very clever jokes to each other while moving as little as possible.
“Wes Anderson: The Archives” at London’s Design Museum is the first major museum show dedicated to the director and provides a context for appreciation outside of his films. The exhibit features over 700 pieces of ephemera related to his films, including Anderson’s costumes, props, stop-motion puppets, miniature models, paintings, spiral-bound notebooks and storyboards. These are drawn from a personal archive he has since built up Rushmore (1998), when he began to write into his contracts that everything made for his films would belong to him, after the sale of certain items from Bottle rocket (1996). The exhibition is a collaboration with la Cinémathèque française in Paris, where it premiered last year, and has been expanded to include around 300 additional objects for London.
It makes sense that Anderson’s archive would be so extensive, because a great deal of work goes into the objects that build his universe. Painting The guy with the Apple is a MacGuffin on The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) by a fake artist named “Johannes Van Hoytl the Younger”. Actually it was painted by a friend named Michael Taylorbut art directed by Anderson down to the type of fur that appears on the costume and the mysterious piece of paper in the background. A London dancer was the model for the boy, but the position of his hand on the stem is omitted from the 16th-century Fontainebleau School portrait. Gabrielle d’Estrées holding her sister’s nipple. There are enough ordered idiosyncrasies to read as a fairly believable portrait of a young Renaissance noble, even with a brief flash on the screen.
I’ve heard the argument that Anderson’s best films are those that are most clearly for children and stopping movement Fantastic fox god (2009) allowed Anderson to animate his fetishes. Mr Fox is only a foot tall, a ball-and-nest doll covered in mohair, alpaca and goat hair, but like the rest of Anderson’s objects he is compelling. His velvet suit is tailored the same way a human would be, and his face is pliable for acting. The same applies to dogs Isle of Dogs (2018), although people’s heads were switched.
Location for Asteroid City (2023) is described in the catalog as “not a city, but a large-scale work of art moonlighting as a village on the edge of the Arizona desert (‘Pop: 87’). If conceived as a giant installation with moving parts known as people, then its engines could be bespoke vending machines offering anything from real estate to martinis. The catalog also notes how research for these involved looking for real meat, bread, socks and egg vending machines from the early post-war years. The result is a series of personality-filled props that entertain while bringing out deep Americana. Anderson may tightly control his actors, but his objects are given a great deal of range.
“Wes Anderson: The Archives” is on view at the Design Museum in London until July 26, 2026.
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