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A certain age: Wes Anderson, Anjelica Huston and modern femininity

2012; Routledge; Volume: 10; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17400309.2011.632518

1740-7923

Cynthia Felando,

Media, Gender, and Advertising

Abstract In the context of Wes Anderson's signature attention to age-related themes, this paper examines Anjelica Huston's characters and performances in three Anderson films, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited. Although often overlooked by critics and scholars, Huston's characters are, by Hollywood standards, uncharacteristically independent, attractive and fascinating, with a significant range of personalities and professions. Arguably, they are among the strongest and most sharply defined female characters of middle age portrayed in recent and contemporary American cinema. The Huston characters also provide productive points of contrast to the films' male protagonists, especially the middle-aged ones. Keywords: Anjelica Hustonmiddle agefemininity and ageolder actress Notes 1. Writing for The Atlantic Monthly, Christopher Orr noted that even earlier, with Bottle Rocket in 1996, Anderson had introduced his preoccupation with age and the problems specific to different stages of life: 'the theme that would dominate all his movies to date: the plight of the man-child, too old to live life like a kid but not mature enough to stop trying' (2005, 1). 2. In addition, despite the fact that Eleanor in The Life Aquatic is childless, the L.A. Weekly film critic, Ella Taylor, characterized Huston's role as, 'a variation of her maternal role in Tenenbaums' (2004). 3. As Derek Hill has noted, Anjelica Huston's performance and the film itself were not well received by critics, so it was 15 years before she accepted another big role, as Maerose in Prizzi's Honor (1985), which was also directed by her father (see Hill, 2008 Hill, Derek. 2008. Charlie Kaufman and Hollywood's Merry Brand of Pranksters, Fabulists and Dreamers: An Excursion into the American New Wave, Harpenden: Kamera Books. [Google Scholar], 122). 4. Certainly, the lines between her non-family and family experiences are not fixed as, by the film's end, Etheline's engagement to Henry makes him an important part of the family and the household; in addition, the tools of her archeology trade are prominent aspects of the mise-en-scène in the family settings. The point is that Etheline is singular in the world of the film for finding fulfillment in the present and beyond the confines of the family. 5. This quotation is from the untitled Kent Jones essay (adapted from an earlier Film Comment piece), which is included in 'extras' for the Criterion Collection DVD release. 6. Critics and Anderson himself often note that his own mother provided at least some of the inspiration for Etheline Tenenbaum. As Anderson explained to The Village Voice: 'My mother is more like Etheline, in that she used to be an archaeologist, and also that she's always so focused on the children. That was my mom's whole thing – encouraging us in our drawing, reading, writing' (Winter, 2001 Winter, Jessica. 2001. His Royal Highness: Wes Anderson's Genius Lessons. The Village Voice, December 11, http://www.villagevoice.com/2001-12-11/news/his-royal-highness/ (accessed July 27, 2011) [Google Scholar]). Perhaps the more complex and sympathetic character of Etheline, relative to the other Huston characters, is a result of that important biographical detail. See also: Mottram, 2006 Mottram, James. 2006. The Sundance Kids: How the Mavericks Took Back Hollywood, New York: Faber and Faber. [Google Scholar], 346; Browning, 2011 Browning, Mark. 2011. Wes Anderson: Why His Movies Matter, Santa Barbara: Praeger. [Google Scholar], 169; and Mayshark, 2007 Mayshark, Jesse Fox. 2007. Post-pop Cinema: The Search for Meaning in New American Film, Westport, CT: Praeger. [Google Scholar], 116. 7. In the context of the effect Patricia's departure has on the brothers, it is difficult to assent to Mark Browning's claim that she appears 'too late to make a major impact on the film' (2011, 85).