Director Wes Anderson
RUSHMORE B+
USA (93 mi) 1998
‘Scope d: Wes Anderson
When one man, for
whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no
right to keep it to himself.
—Jacques Yves-Cousteau
A film that fondly and innocently looks back at who we used
to be, including the seemingly live-wire electric jolts streaming through our
heads with all these new and wonderful ideas, wondering what to make of
ourselves, as the mounting possibilities felt endless, where this film picks up
on how easily we get ahead of ourselves, creating endless wish fulfillment
scenarios in our heads imagining all the possibilities, where our actual
day-to-day reality felt drab and boring compared to how we envisioned things,
if only things were as densely impactful as the way we imagine them. Wes Anderson seems to revel in the ideas that
spark our enthusiasm, getting carried away with what might have been, where
that mad rush of energy, like youth itself, feels like it will never end. There’s no feeling in the world like it. But it doesn’t last forever, extinguished
much too soon in the prime of its life, as we all must move on to the next
stages in our lives, including responsibilities and payments due, where
something will forever drag us back down to earth, quickly forgetting how easy
it all once was. This is like a Peter Pan coming-of-age story, where
youth is in a state of arrested development, still fancying all the faraway
dreams, free to pursue each and every one, where grown-ups and adulthood
represent the apparent end of those dreams.
While not everyone has it as easy as Anderson’s memorable characters, we
still inherit traits from this strange and unusual world of the imagination,
like checking out books from the library, taking us to mysterious places around
the world, where for a short period of time we can imagine ourselves
there. Opening each new chapter, listed
by months in the new school year, with the opening of a theater curtain, the
whole thing unravels like a play within a play, perhaps all masterminded by a
high school theater impresario whose plays are an essential component of the
film, offering a window into an unseen reality — our own. Like a tour guide, the kid leading us on this
magical adventure is Max Fischer, a fifteen-year old private school 10th grader
at the Rushmore Academy played by Jason Schwartzman, the son of Talia Shire and
nephew to Francis Ford Coppola, as if he was born into cinema royalty. Though he doesn’t have the silver spoon
birthright like so many other rich kids attending such an exclusive school, Max
operates as if he owns the place, director of his own theater troupe, speaking
to the adults as if he’s on their same level, viewing himself as mature beyond
his years, but still impulsive and irrepressible as a child, where this film
takes full advantage of his wild obsessions that are on full display, becoming
the heartbeat and theatrical pulse of the film, sharing all of his hare brained
schemes that undoubtedly end in utter disaster for Max. Still, not to be deterred, Max rises from the
ashes of defeat only to proudly display that narcissistic peacock plumage that
continually gets him into trouble in the first place, as he’ll go to any
extreme, no matter the consequence.
Basically Max is a bespectacled, intellectual geek,
insufferable at times, but a likeable kid with a variety of interests, so many,
in fact, that he has no time to study, where he’s made a career out of
inventing extracurricular activities on campus, Max Fischer
Extracurricular Activities (Rushmore) YouTube (1:25), naming himself
president of each and every one, where it’s surprising that he doesn’t have
business cards printed up for every one, as Max is mostly a man who toots his
own horn, a showman with an appreciation for showmanship, who loves the razzle
dazzle but fails to get caught up in the details, so his dreams and fancy ideas
have a short shelf life, quickly moving on to the next venture. In this way, he resembles the life of many
artists, where this autobiographic sensibility is what endears audiences to
Anderson’s films, where this was his first major success. Perhaps its major attribute is catching
people off guard, as there’s a quirky inventiveness that is amusingly
entertaining throughout, filled with cultural references and offbeat humor, not
to mention a 60’s British invasion rock soundtrack that is ballsy and whimsical
at the same time, offering something altogether new, like J.D. Salinger in the
movies, where his subversive wit and brilliant ear for dialogue make him a
major player to contend with, yet his films feel light as a feather while
probing darker themes, making him something of an oddball himself, impossible
to categorize, yet his literary roots are hard to deny. Shot by cinematographer Robert Yeomen, who
shot all Anderson’s features up to 2014, using slow-mo and sophisticated
tracking shots, each with its own secret treasures, perhaps it comes as no
surprise that the school depicted in the film (St. John’s Prep School) is the
same one Anderson himself attended in Houston, co-written by Owen Wilson, a
college roommate at the University of Texas in Austin with similar theatrical
aspirations, where the lead character Max obtained a full scholarship to the
prestigious institution by writing a one-act play about Watergate in second
grade that was highly regarded by the school’s headmaster, Dr. Guggenheim (Brian
Cox), who comes to regret that decision.
An early scene shows them in a discussion where Guggenheim is forced to
put Max on “sudden death” academic probation due to his faltering grades, where
another failed class will result in expulsion.
As Rushmore is Max’s entire life, an invented universe where he lives
and breathes what takes place on the hallowed grounds (just not in the reality
of the classroom), providing his raison
d’être and what amounts to his personal identity, so he’s loathe to leave
it, but spends no effort on grades and instead embarks on a romance of
infatuation, becoming obsessed with a first grade teacher, Rosemary Cross,
Olivia Williams, who’s wonderful in the role, but has made some questionable
career choices ever since. Something she
scribbled in a library book is what sets his heart on fire, making it his
mission to follow her to the ends of the earth.
While Max may lie, cheat, and steal with regularity,
comedically operating with an absurd level of confidence, he also maintains a
kindhearted nature and values friendship, often treading the line between
honesty and dishonesty. In order to fit in
at Rushmore, Max has to create an invented persona designed to impress,
suggesting his father is a highly in-demand brain surgeon, coming from a
background of wealth and prestige, when the truth is his father (Seymour
Cassel) is a barber who works down the street, living a modest means, something
Max has a hard time accepting, using this fictitious identity to make friends
with Herman Blume (Bill Murray), a 50-year old wealthy industrialist who
becomes his patron saint and father figure, both mirror images of one another
at different stages in their lives. Max
devises a scheme to build a giant outdoor aquarium, in the wild hopes that Ms.
Cross will be romantically appreciative of his efforts, but brings in an unauthorized
construction crew to demolish the grounds and place it directly on a baseball
diamond, which quickly gets him booted out of school and immediately
transferred to public school. In one of
the more preposterous scenes, Max gives a little introductory speech about
himself in his new class, still wearing the Rushmore blazer, using 3 X 5 note
cards with scribbled notes. This
impresses a young girl, Margaret Yang (Sara Tanaka), but he avoids her like the
plague, treating her like she doesn’t exist, still embellishing his love
interest with Ms. Cross. Using a Cat
Stevens forgotten classic to describe his fantasized euphoria, Rushmore: Here Comes My Baby YouTube
(1:42), her image as his own private tutor deliriously sends him to previously
unreachable heights. But Herman,
something of a schmuck himself, betrays him and undermines their friendship by
going after his girlfriend, becoming his rival and dreaded enemy, where all
bets are off in matters of love and warfare, beautifully expressed in a montage
set to The Who’s “A Quick One While He’s Away,” Rushmore: Herman vs. Max YouTube (3:13), each resorting to dirty tricks,
which includes outing this extra-marital affair to the school and Herman’s
wife, who’s already two-timing him with a much younger man. Max, however, is unscrupulous enough to use
his broken bicycle as a prop device, spreading some fake blood on his scalp and
climbing up Ms. Cross’s window, like Romeo scaling the balcony for Juliet,
falling into her bed, as if badly injured, and while she gets bandages, he
calculatingly introduces his own cassette recorder playing a soft romantic
French ballad sung by Yves Montand for just the right background music (like
something Woody Allen would have done in his earlier, funnier films), which she
immediately decodes, sending him away in disgrace. Anderson follows with a wordless montage that
couldn’t be more illuminating, Rushmore Soundtrack - I Am Waiting YouTube (2:40), as he’s out of school working
with his father in his barbershop, shamed and humiliated, where he’s just a
regular kid leading an ordinary life, living adjacent to the cemetery, not far
from his mother’s grave. Of course it
doesn’t remain that way for long, as this guy’s got an innate ability to come
up with ingenious projects, like a one-man Barnum & Bailey show, or
Bialystock and Bloom in THE PRODUCERS (1967), he’s a promoter at heart. Reviving yet another extravagant stage
production by the Max Fischer Players, tapping into his own theatrical
entrepreneurship, Max has a way of reconnecting all his ill-advised schemes,
paying penance, this time with a different outcome, or so he hopes, offering a
more generous spirit, perhaps even wisdom, becoming part of the whole instead
of that lonely and isolated figure in the beginning who thought only of himself,
actually finding a celebratory tone, merging with the lofty aspirations of the
director, hoping to touch the hearts and imaginations with this irreverent yet
delightfully inventive comic romp back through the days of adolescence,
becoming an instant classic.
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