Within the past decade of mainstream American cinema, very few directors have developed a style as distinctive and recognizable as Houston, Texas raised Wes Anderson. Anderson began his filmmaking career in the early 1990s, after graduating from the University of Texas where he studied philosophy. His first two films, Bottle Rocket (1996) and Rushmore (1998) feature a setting similar to that of his childhood: upper-middle class Texas. However with his third film, The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Anderson seems to break free from his origins, as if his unique style is able to stand on its own, and inhabit any setting. On a referential level, the film is simple. The backstory, which Anderson meticulously builds up in the first seven minutes of the film, is that Royal Tenenbaum, a prominent lawyer, buys a mansion on Archer Avenue in New York City in the late 1960s where he and his wife, Etheline, have three children before they separate a decade later. After Royal leaves, Etheline, a staunchly independent and intelligent woman, takes it upon herself to home-school her children, turning each of them into a child prodigy. Chas Tenenbaum goes into business in the sixth grade breeding dalmatian mice and by his early teens finds success in real estate and finance. Margot Tenenbaum becomes a successful playwright, winning a Braverman Grant of $50,000 in the ninth grade. Richie Tenenbaum becomes a champion tennis player in the third grade, turning pro at age 17 and winning the U.S. Nationals for three years in a row after that. The film picks up with the characters 22 years later, each one alienated, alone, and unhappy in some way, as they all wind up back in the house on Archer Avenue, and documents their attempts to connect with each other, cope with their failure after their premature brilliance, and find happiness. Delve any deeper than the basic plot line, however, and the film will seem limitless in its intricate complexities.
For one, the diegesis and every detail of it has been painstakingly crafted, and remains absurdly original yet hauntingly familiar. Made explicitly clear in the film, the entire diegesis resides in the pages of a library book. Tenenbaums is as close to a literary classic as an original film can get. It is no wonder that two of the film's major influences are two of 20th Century America's most distinguished authors: J.D. Salinger, whose works focus on 1950s upper-class New York, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose works focus on 1920s upper-class New York. In the very first shot of the film, we see a high-angle shot of a wooden surface, an ink pad and a stamp at the right of the frame. A copy of the novel version of The Royal Tenenbaums is placed upside down by two anonymous hands entering from the top of the frame as a librarian's hands enter the bottom of the frame, turn the book right side up, open it, and stamp it, checking it out to the reader. The next few shots focus on the cover of the novel as opening titles. The title is printed in a bold, capitalized typeface that is a constant throughout the film, both within the diegesis as the default typeface for all book titles and signs, and outside of it as it is used for subtitles and captions. From the opening credits to the end, each section of the film is preceded by an extreme close-up shot of the top of a page from the book, the default Tenenbaums typeface indicating which chapter it is. The words on the page, of which only two or three lines a page are visible, are taken directly from the film's script, indicating that the novel and the film are in fact one entity. The film is narrated by Alec Baldwin's dry, deadpan, yet intriguing voice in much the same style as Orson Welles' famous 1942 adaptation of the literary classic, The Magnificent Ambersons. Remarkably, Anderson refuses to let the voice-over tell the story, using it more as a reference or reminder of the novel diegesis, and cinematically showing nearly every detail of the Tenenbaums' backstory that is mentioned by the narrator. For example, after the prologue, when each character is being introduced, Anderson cuts away from their present circumstances to show a book they had written or magazine cover that somehow addresses the topic that the narrator is discussing. As Etheline is being introduced, her friend and business manager Henry Sherman proposes to her. The narrator mentions the suitors she had since Royal left her, and Anderson cuts away from the diegesis to show three medium long shots of these suitors in a row. In each shot, the suitor is facing the camera, the background of the shot defining the type of person he is, and the default typeface identifying his name. Anderson continues this device throughout the film, making sure not to let the diegetic concept get in the way of the film.
Beyond the basic concept of being set in a literary world, Anderson molds the diegesis with much reference to Salinger's New York, and adds color with his own absurd, cartoon-ish details. From references made by the narrator and dates that are seen on gravestones, it is clear that the story takes place in 2001, yet the Tenenbaums' 2001 New York is far different than our own, and far more similar to the New York portrayed in Salinger's novels Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey. There is not a piece of technological equipment that was invented past the 1960s evident in the film. Margot and Richie listen to records on a vinyl player. Pagoda, the family butler and friend of Royal's, does not contact Royal via cellphone, but Royal takes his calls in an old-fashioned telephone booth in the hotel he lives in. The televisions the characters watch are, in fact, in color, but they too look to be from the '60s. In fact, just about the only references to contemporary American culture are the brand name labels tacked on to the clothing of the Tenenbaum children. This seems quite appropriate and premeditated, for two reasons. For one, it simply seems to add to the cartoon inspired diegesis that Anderson is trying to build. The characters wear just about the same outfit throughout the film. Richie wears a Fila headband and a Fila tennis shirt under his beige suit coat, despite the fact that he has been retired from professional tennis for six years when the film takes place. Margot wears striped Lacoste dresses under her fur coat. Chas and his twin sons, Ari and Uzi, wear matching red Adidas work-out suits. The brand labels could easily have been taken off, but it seems appropriate that Anderson would leave them, as another one of his absurd quirks which he uses to flesh out the diegesis. The second reason is that it does connect the film to contemporary America. Though, of course, none of these clothing companies were founded in America, it is a very American idea to have the brand name tacked to the front of the article of clothing like an advertisement. When placed with the themes in the film of failure, alienation, and family, it brings up yet another theme of the American dream, which of course, brings up Fitzgerald's influence.
The Royal Tenenbaums could be looked at as an updated version of Fitzgerald's commentary on America. As Sight & Sound reviewer Jonathan Romney points out, if the film has any sort of overriding pitch or message, it is refuting Fitzgerald's statement, “There are no second acts in American lives”. To prove this statement, Anderson sets the time frame of the film in this non-existent second act of the characters' lives; their glory has faded, and they have all been prematurely run into their ruts, and the film focuses on their attempts to once again find their happiness, or in Anderson's deadpan, dry diegesis, at least contentment. To remind them of their glorious past, Anderson uses a motif of constantly cutting to a shot of one of Chas' dalmatian mice throughout the house; in the foreground of a low angle shot of the door as we see Pagoda's feet in the background, walking to answer it, for example, or in a high angle point-of-view shot as Royal looks down from his hospital bed, set up in Richie's room. To remind them of their dismal present, the accepted form of transportation in the Tenenbaums' version of New York is the Gypsy Cab Company, which uses cabs that are dented and beat up beyond repair. One of the key concepts that needs to be understood when looking at the film as a refutation of this Fitzgerald quote is that the Tenenbaums are a family whose glory exists only on paper. It exists in Margot's plays, and in the book Etheline had published when her children were still children, and still successful, Family of Geniuses. Yet the glory that does exist is widely recognized. Twice within the film Richie is recognized by random strangers as “The Baumer”, which was his pro-tennis nickname, and part of the public interest of Eli Cash, a Cormac McCarthy-type novelist, stems from the fact that he grew up with the Tenenbaum children, across the street and as Richie's best friend. In Anderson's commentary of the film on the Criterion Collection release of the DVD, he states that the characters are the types of people that would be profiled in the New Yorker in Salinger's day and look brilliant on paper, but in reality be very flawed. And if the characters in The Royal Tenenbaums are not flawed in an obvious sense, they each are certainly alienated and isolated from each other, and therefore removed from the glory that their family represents to the public.
The various ways in which Anderson captures this isolation and develops each of the characters is quite remarkable. After the prologue, the opening montage of scenes is quite effective in introducing the characters. Anderson brings us into the diegesis with an establishing shot of The Lindbergh Palace, the hotel that Royal has lived at for the past two decades. There is a Gypsy Cab parked out front, establishing the Gypsy Cab motif, and the color scheme of the front of the building; light pink sign, gold around the doors, and the pink-tinted gray of the building; set up the basic color scheme of the film. This is the basic color scheme of the Tenenbaum mansion, and it gives the entire film a surrealistic feel, reminding the viewer that this is an intentionally fictional world. From this shot, Anderson cuts to a medium long shot, filmed from a somewhat low angle, of a hotel official telling a tenant that he has been instructed to direct the tenant to vacate the premises by the end of the month, due to lack of payment. Cut to a reaction shot of Royal, played by Gene Hackman; a tightly framed shot of him lying down, shirtless, being massaged. This brings the viewer right into the plot of the film, because this is the original reason Royal tries to win back his family. Royal's first concern is how he will pay for his masseuse, a gag indicative of Anderson's offbeat humour. In typical Anderson fashion, a non-diegetic, originally scored classical piece starts up as the camera pans up to his masseuse, then zooms out, neatly framing Royal and the masseuse in a loosely framed shot as he continues to get his massage, comfortably disturbed by the news. The camera pans around his somewhat dark room, revealing his law books from before he was disbarred, as the narrator explains his backstory. The definitive shot in this scene however, is the one it ends on, a shot of his window from outside, where snow flakes are coming down, showing Royal, a lonesome and hopeless look on his face, staring out the window, cigarette in hand. Behind him in the background, his masseuse packs up. Royal is likely the most isolated and lonely of all the Tenenbaums, as he had been just about disowned by them for being a horrible husband and father. The narrator affirms this in his last sentence while the shot is focused on Royal, dryly speaking, “No one in his family had spoken to him in over three years”.
Anderson then cuts to Richie's introduction. Played by Luke Wilson, Richie is in the control room of an ocean liner in the middle of the ocean. This shot is much more brightly lit than Royal's hotel room. Richie sits in the background, sipping a Bloody Mary, his drink of choice, distanced from the foreground, where a member of the ships crew is typing a telegram for Richie to his best friend Eli Cash. In this telegram, which the crew member reads back to him, it is revealed that he has never been more lonely in his life, and that he is in love with his adopted sister, Margot. This is the one reason for his alienation, and in his typical style, Anderson comes right out and reveals it within the first ten minutes of the film. Anderson uses his device of showing the viewer what the narrator mentions, cutting to a shot of a copy of Sporting Press magazine, a distraught Richie on the tennis court on the cover with the word “meltdown” written across it as the narrator mentions his last tennis match. As he does when any book or magazine cover is shown, Anderson accompanies this with sound effects from the event being discussed, in this case the tennis match. Richie is introduced as isolated more through the dialogue and narrative, while Royal's isolation is shown more through mise-en-scene.
From here, Anderson steps away from the Tenenbaum family, introducing Eli Cash, played by Owen Wilson. This allows for a comparison between the Tenenbaums, who are in this non-existent second act of their lives, and Eli, who is clearly still in the first act of his, as he is a best-selling author and Assistant Professor of English Literature. Ironically, it later comes out that Eli “always wanted to be a Tenenbaum”, yet at this part of the film, he appears to be far better off than the family he had desperately wanted to be a part of. The setting he is giving a reading in as he is introduced, with its brown color scheme and bookshelves in the background, is reminiscent of the shot of a press conference the Tenenbaum children are having in their library during the Prologue, which spans the first act of their lives. It is also at this point, when Eli is being introduced, that the importance of the non-diegetic music that is playing has with the introduction of the characters becomes clear. For Royal and Richie, the melancholy yet almost ironic tone of the classical piece seems appropriate, as both are ironically melancholy and isolated, despite their glorious histories. For Eli, however, there is a variation on the theme of the piece, capturing instead a tone of victory, glory, and sophistication that Eli's life, reminiscent of the Tenenbaums' former lives, has.
When Anderson cuts to Margot's introduction, as she is locked away in her bathroom, chatting with her extra-marital lover, Eli Cash, on her pink, '60s style telephone, painting her nails and smoking a cigarette, the tone of the piece changes yet again, melancholy again, but this time with a touch of bittersweet sophistication that Margot, played by Gwyneth Paltrow embodies. For Margot's introduction, the camera is very still, suiting her calm, sophisticated character. Her secrecy, which could be either a cause or effect of her alienation, is highlighted in this scene as she disposes of her cigarette, spraying perfume in the air, before letting her husband, the writer and neurologist Raleigh St. Clair, played by Bill Murray, poke his head in the door to check on her. The narrator informs the viewer that none of the Tenenbaums know she is a smoker, which she has been since the age of twelve. The shot most definitive of Margot and her isolation however is the shot Anderson cuts to in order to show what the narrator is saying. It is a shot of her private studio, in which framed posters of her plays hang on the walls on each outside third of the frame. The middle third is taken up by a doorway, which neatly frames inside of it a chair and a desk with a typewriter on it. Margot is absent from the shot, the only evidence of her presence being the smoke rings drifting out from behind the wall on the right side of the frame. This shot highlights not only her isolation, but her past successes. Over this shot, the narrator speaks, “She had not completed a play in seven years.”
Chas Tenenbaum's introduction is vastly different than any of the other characters, especially in terms of cinematography. Abandoning his typical style, which suits the other characters of the film, Anderson has his director of photography Robert Yeoman use several handheld tracking shots as Chas is shown running around his house, waking up his twin sons, and inciting a fire drill. The non-diegetic classical piece that had been playing is replaced by a fast-paced drum solo. The actor portraying Chas Tenenbaum, Ben Stiller, is also vastly different than the other actors. While the other actors embody Anderson's offbeat, subtle sense of humor, Stiller is known in mainstream cinema for his intense, zany, and in-your-face style of comedy. This fits with Chas, who is not a typical Anderson character, in that he is far more uptight, intense, and reactionary. It is through this act of differentiating Chas from the other characters in terms of cinematic style and casting that Anderson is able to highlight his alienation.
Anderson ends the introductory montage with Etheline's introduction. At this point, the non-diegetic classical piece returns, in its most basic form. Etheline is the most stable and least conflicted member of the Tenenbaum family. She is a successful archeologist, and her only cause of alienation, we later find out, is the fact that she hasn't slept with a man in over eighteen years. She is rescued from this alienation in her introductory scene however, when Henry Sherman proposes to her. Through the montage, Anderson goes from the most alienated member of the Tenenbaum family, down the spectrum to the most stable member. He also ends the montage with a direct segway back into the plot, with the engagement of Etheline and Henry being a major catalyst of the story.
With such a vast number of complex characters, one would expect the film to lack a center to hold the overriding themes in place. Yet, Anderson is able to create this center in one of the film's greatest absurdities; the romance between Margot and Richie. Richie can be seen as a more sympathetic version of Royal, as Richie is the only member of the family to have always had a good relationship with and understanding of Royal, not to mention the fact that they are the only two characters that share the same variation of the introduction music. Similarly, Margot can be seen as a more tragic version of Etheline, as both are very strong female characters; extremely intelligent, elegant, and independent. Therefore, while the scenes between Royal and Etheline are only ghosts of the romance that created the Tenenbaums, the scenes between Richie and Margot are indicative of the bittersweet love and compassion embodied by this fractured family. The scenes with Richie and Margot are also the ones that Anderson's unique style is most fitted to, and these are noticeably the ones that he is most comfortable with. Ironically, the most emotionally charged scenes come from Anderson's subtle, detached style, and revolve around these two deadpan characters. Anderson's choice in non-diegetic music is a large part of this. In all of his films, Anderson loads in several classic rock songs that fit his style perfectly and emphasize his characters' subtle emotions. This film is no exception, and these classic rock songs are most meaningful when played over scenes with Margot and Richie.
One of the few moments in the film in which all diegetic sounds end and the soundtrack is completely consumed by non-diegetic music is the first time Richie and Margot share a scene together as adults. Every aspect of this scene is so distinctly Anderson that there is no other director who could have filmed it. It occurs in Chapter Two of the film, after Richie learns that his father is supposedly terminally ill. He arranges transportation by ship back to New York, where he is to be met, in the narrator's words, by “his usual escort, the one from his days on the circuit”. As he is shown casually taking a seat near his bags, the narrator adds, “As always, she was late.” From this point there is a cut to a long shot over the left shoulder of Richie at a bus pulling up to the curb. Cut to a close up of the door of the bus. Margot steps off, and the shot transitions to slow motion as the diegetic sounds fade off and “These Days” performed by Nico begins. Over the next few seconds, there are a few reverse shots of Margot and Richie spotting each other, a noticeable tenderness in their deadpan faces. When Nico's flawed voice begins to sing, the shot is on Margot, walking towards Richie as the camera tracks her from the front, and it seems explicitly clear why this song was chosen. Margot is hauntingly similar to the Warhol superstar Nico, not simply because of their matching racoon-style eyeliner, but because of the elegant but flawed beauty they both share. Succeeding the shot of Margot is a shot that is the absolute definition of Anderson. It is a slow motion shot of Richie, neatly framed as the camera slowly zooms in on him. In the background, but in clear focus, five sailors walk by in a neat line. As Margot approaches and a clearly happy Richie stands to greet her, the diegetic sounds fade back in as the shot speeds up from slow motion. Margot speaks a few words to a silent Richie, but it is not the dialogue that carries the scene. This entire scene conveys the romance between them, simply through the subtle expressions on their faces and Anderson's tender, unobtrusive style of filming.
This scene is book-ended with another, which is at the conclusion of the film. This scene, which is mostly comprised of a single static shot of Margot and Richie sitting next to each other, takes place after Etheline's wedding, on the rooftop of the Tenenbaum mansion, a place where Richie spent much time as a child, taking care of his falcon, Mordecai. At the beginning of the scene, Margot has a nicotine inhaler in her mouth. She has gone public with her smoking habit, and due to Etheline's concern, which is most likely due to societal pressures, she is attempting to quit. After she admits to Richie that the rooftop was her first hiding place for cigarettes, she lights two, one for each of them, and they smoke together, as another non-diegetic Nico song starts up. This song plays as the narrator begins speaking for the last time, concluding each character's journey. Royal is finally accepted back into the family, and is a guest at Etheline's wedding. He and his son Chas, whose relationship had never been good, finally reunite, and Chas is the only witness to Royal's death a few months later, due to a heart attack. Eli's one-act life comes to a decline, as he admits himself into a rehabilitation clinic for his drug addiction, thus alienating himself, while the other characters break free from their alienation. Richie starts giving tennis lessons, and Margot has a new play produced, that runs for just under two weeks and receives mixed reviews. But these two characters find their true happiness in each other, and in their romance. In the last scene of the film, which takes place at Royal's funeral, Margot is seen with her arm around Richie, and a cigarette in her hand. Despite the fact that both are socially unacceptable in contemporary society, she decides not to quit smoking, and to go public with her love affair of Richie. This seems to be the epitome of Anderson's message. Just as Fitzgerald and Salinger before him, Anderson invalidates the idea of an “American dream” with The Royal Tenenbaums, implying that happiness can not always be found within the context of society, and sometimes true happiness must come from within the individual, even if it goes against the grain of society.