Bottle Rocket + Auteur Theory

Bottle Rocket is a 1996 film by the now prolific director Wes Anderson. It was written by Anderson himself along with friend Owen Wilson who also stars as the character Dignan in the film. The plot is as follows: Anthony Adams(Luke Wilson) gets released from a voluntary entry mental hospital after what we assume was a breakdown. Immediately upon release he joins longtime friend Dignan and a man named Bob Mapplethorpe(Robert Musgrave) on what appears to be Dignan's master life plan..of crime. Things start off fine enough until Dignan and Anthony end up stranded in a hotel in the middle of nowhere after Bob decides to go back home. Subsequently Anthony falls in love with a houskeeper named Inez(Lumi Cavazos) basically ruining Dignan's plans at a life of crime. Everything culminates into a dream heist at the end of the movie where seemingly everything goes wrong leading to entertaining results.

The main reason this film is interesting when you apply auteur theory to it is that you get to see how some of Wes Anderson's signatures come to life in their earliest form. I noticed the following use of "signatures" in Bottle Rocket that Wes Anderson would go on to use in all of his films:

- Use of Futura Font. In every one of Wes Anderson's films (most notably Royal Tenenbaums) there has been abundant use of this paticular font. While in Bottle Rocket it is used for the titles and closing credits only, it is still an early sign.

- (I can't credit this one to myself but my friend pointed it out to me and it was too good to not mention.) In everyone of Wes Anderson's film there has been a shot of someone underwater. The number of people in the shot increase with every subsequent film.

- There is always a frentic scene towards the end of his films inwhich someone is running or involved in some crazy action. In this movie it would be the heist, in Tenenbaums it would be the wedding chase scene, and in Life Aquatic it would be the Pirate(retaliation/rescue) scene.

- (another one I cannot credit to myself) Wes also uses the same drum solo for a lot of the faster scenes in his movies.

- So far all of Anderson's films have had a rather unconvential love story or atleast someone attracted to someone you wouldn't imagine them with by conventional standards. Be it the language barrier in Bottle Rocket or the age difference in Life Aquatic and of course the "I love my adopted sister" problem in The Royal Tenenbaums.

- The most notable similarity in all of Wes's films is the ending shot always starts in normal speed and gradually shifts into slow motion before the final credits role.

The film itself was very entertaining and had likeable characters (I found Kumar to be especially funny). I heard that Bottle Rocket was different from Wes's other films but in my opinion his style is still noticeably present even in its earliest stages. Maybe its the fact that the box doesn't say "criterion collection" (rumored for a 2008 realease) at the top or the fact that the movie just doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves. But its all very good filmmaking and a worthy edition to this directors catalouge.