#rushmore

— jason schwartzman as max fischer in "rushmore" (1998) icons !

He gives us (entirely unrequited) teacher-underage student in Rushmore, brother-sister romance (adopted, but raised as siblings since early childhood) in the Royal Tenenbaums, a frank depiction of early sexuality in Moonrise Kingdom, and the uncertain sexuality of M. Gustav in the Grand Budapest Hotel, a character depicted with a clear foppish manner, who references his own homosexuality frequently and is called a faggot on multiple occasions, yet is only ever actually depicted having sex with women.

Nearly all his films, one way or another, are about romance and sexuality. But of a very specific type. Deviant and societally unacceptable, but only ever up to a point. Only in limited degrees. It’s almost a restrained viewpoint; that of a man desperate to explore the topic of abnormal sexual desire through his art, but also incapable of conceptualizing anything truly out of the bounds of traditional societal mores. He wants to be a freak. But is it either his own limited perspectives, or the maintenance of his position as an indie darling, that prevent him from ever truly being one

I think that’s solvable though. Many filmmakers have one work the defines the entirety of their career. An opus, that expresses the ideas they work into each of their pieces in the finest and clearest way they are capable of. Their true legacy. I believe that Wes Anderson’s opus exists, as of yet, only in potentia. It could be made, but doing so would require unshackling the man himself