A gonzo and speculative look at that Wes Anderson Film, that at first may seem tedious, self indulgent and was inexplicably quite well reviewed. What’s going on here? No one I know, who has seen it, has anything good to say about it = Conspiracy!! What can it all mean…?
This film was made during the recent pandemic and lockdown and is analogous to those times. It represents, through its narrative and symbolism, the isolation and ennui that occurred on a micro scale that can now infect us all over again with this representation on screen.
Here’s how I’m going about this: If you imagine that the pandemic virus is shown symbolically in this film by the brief appearance of an Alien then this might all make sense…. It is structured with three layers of ‘Reality’. It self consciously depicts the nuts and bolts of its own fabrication in multiple interconnecting storylines.
Structured like this:
1 : A besuited, shot in contrasty Black & White (b+w) announcer, a bit like the twilight zones’ Rod Serling. Presented by the actor Byron Cranston who bridges the sections together as a meta narrater. Looking straight at the single viewer.
2: A 1950’s teleplay, also shot in b+w, about a theatre writer who is staging a play in Asteroid City. This character plays to the spectators through the artifice of this imaginary constructed scenario and seemingly to a larger viewership.
3: Asteroid City: a 1950’s colourful Cinematic world that is the ‘stage’ for the main event and context of the film. The actors in this world do not look at the audience.
The structure of it’s reality can be said to be likened to its sources; that it mocks and also aspires to be: The 1950’s and the iconic stereotypes that were produced and constructed by Television & Cinema that traversed the globe from Hollywood through the post-war & cold war propaganda system; that we are are still subjected to today.
Q... Are the film makers usurping these cliches or reenforcing them…? Maybe Both….
.. From the artificiality of the whip pan camera moves, for no obvious dramatic reason in the first scenes of ‘asteroid city’, You may ask yourselves: Are these here to highlight the artifice of this medium..? To the picture postcard, pastel colours and hyper real 50’s style sets. Whilst the actors only present it as fake when crossing over into the other B+W ‘realities’ of the film. An example of this is when the ‘announcer’ appears in ‘Asteroid city’ in colour for the first time and announces ‘Oh.. am I not in this scene’ and promptly disappears. Depicting that this reality is fake whilst in the other b+w scenes, where he is addressing the audience, he is addressing us with something closer to truth…. As he informs us who is who and what is happening as a Grand Narrator.
Maybe the whole plot has been woven to reveal to the audience how we can be manipulated?
This device is used again in the teleplay ‘world’ with Edward Norton as the play writer. The actor ‘Jason Schwartzman’ smashes a fake window for (fake) fresh air when he crosses over into this thinly veiled construction of The Real World. He then goes on to add his fake beard, that he was wearing in the colourful asteroid city scenes and to discuss his part in the script & how to play the character: “Too much pipe and eye brow raising..?”. Self consciously nodding to the viewer and that ‘we’ are ‘in’ with them and the use of this device in our relationship with them. A-ha..we won’t be fooled by the trickery. If we go along with this and are not annoyed by this breaking of cinematic conventions we should be paid back for being complicit in all this playfulness? Maybe with the revelation of truth that is concealed In plain sight, that we may encounter everyday through these mediums.. Right..?
So: Colour = represents a lie of the realist world as portrayed on screen.
b+w = more genuine as it reveals its non-reality more honestly.
Following this logic of the less realist / colourful the more genuine then surely B+W animation is the highest form of truth; as it does not conceal its alien nature to us..
(Go with it!)
Conspiracy: in the films most entertaining scene a PENTAGON shaped space ship hovers above the colourful city. A nervous looking Alien, that is animated, comes down a ladder and takes the asteroid that the city is named after. After this event the government enforce a lockdown and we see all the town & actors isolated.
Either its an explanation of the lockdown. Or It's saying that the whole Alien thing is just a fabrication by Hollywood & the government…
OK, lets go for this...
Speculation, rumour, conspiracy..
One of my favourite speculations for the recent lockdown & pandemic was revealed during a zoom call I had with a London university as we chatted before a meeting . This is what was said::
The governments of the world had been told to stop burning all the fossil based fuels on the planet as the Aliens who wanted to visit could not land their vessels because of all the pollution. Hence the lock down...
So, this is a lockdown film about an alien arrival that Wes has decided to tell us the truth about in a symbolic way...?
The spectre of Death: In the background… We, the audience, see in the 'Asteroid city’ colourful world a mushroom cloud in the distance as the government conducts atom bomb Tests in the desert. So, here we have government tests and the looming spectre of the end of the world. Retro paranoia, hinting at what’s to come… Selling Fear…? What awful times to be living in with that on the horizon. I’m glad we’ve gotten over all that non-sense.
Within this context the only subjects that are not pretending to be involved in this illusion appear to be the actors themselves as we see in the actors studio b+w exposition scene. They are told to act asleep (representing the audience..?) And then they repeat the line ‘It's time to wake up ‘ as the camera pulls back and they look through the lens at ‘us’ breaking the imaginary fourth wall.
So we’ve got: Government tests with mushroom clouds in the distance, an alien that may be a fake played by an actor, after the animation sequence we see behind the scenes the actor Jeff Goldblum in the alien costume without mask who also just happens to have starred in the Hollywood blockbuster 'Independence Day'. So this is a fake!!
Using this logic, the animated version of the same looking alien must represent a higher level of truth..? 'We' are not privy to the animator making this scene though...
A conclusion: The government had to lock down the planet, so that Aliens could land and we are being treated to the poetic truths right here, right in front of us, Just open your eyes!! Its time to wake up, its time to wake up, Repeat the mantra, repeat the mantra!!! Smoking is cool and we’re definitely not living through a second cold-war; It’s all just in the media nowadays. Scarlett Johansson takes her clothes off, again, purely for narrative reasons again!… (Phew: tick another Box)
Maybe if this was executed using humour and acknowledging that we like entertainment in our dreary lives, it might have worked better? it does come across as a self indulgent piece by someone who happens to have a lot of Hollywood friends and no one ever saying No to them. If you like structured films just pop to your local video store and get some Peter Greenaway stuff or earlier Wes Anderson films that were good.
Anyway…The film makers got to spend that barren time with their friends, hanging out and doing nothing interesting and we the punters can just now observe at our own time-expense and wonder.. WTF….
Or..
Its a subversive testament to destroying the very hand that feeds by questioning the role of the entertainment industry to mis-inform, manipulate and coerce the population through its mimetic qualities…. ?
What’s on at the cinema this week ?
A 1950’s based, cold-war film called Oppenheimer..
Sounds good..
got a light..?
Ends….
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If you have more time on your hands .. There is more stuff below that I decided to originally leave out (edited: 1st August '23):
The theatre playwright:
in the 1950’s theatre parody ‘reality’ where Edward Norton lives in a B+W world of shoddy sets and cliches. This is constructed as a TV play as shot through the proscenium of the theatre and academy framed TV screen; hence why the aspect ratio changes. Stereotype alert. there’s someone at the door. He and Jason Schwartzman discuss the role he will be playing In the ‘cinematic’ colourful world of Asteroid city and the play that will be produced there.
Wow, two men kissing after sharing ice cream; gosh, aren’t people who work in the theatrical arts a bit Gay. This is very progressive for the 1950’s, except it isn’t… It's 2022 (3) and everything needs to have a dash of the rainbow in it these days. Lets tick another box for this glaring cliche…
Let’s take another look: A child, who is smoking with the wandering minstrel group in ‘Asteroid city’. Yes, smoking has been portrayed as cool in Cinema from its earliest incarnation. The tobacco Industry is still a major contributor to Hollywood, hence why we get more and more of these period pieces where they smoke in them, for authenticity, although tobacco advertising on screen is supposedly banned. The cowboy minstrels are blamed by the mother for giving it to him, highlights this trope, but at the same time it still shows a kid, being funny(?) and smoking. Ha ha!. Yes… all the audience are as clever as the L.A. ‘creatives’ who have manipulated them for all these years; by making smoking cool in their films and now referencing this in retrospect. we’re all in on this joke…(coughs)
In the middle of a school lesson, the same child, starts singing and dancing..? Ohh, like in those old movies, how funny…(?)
This film has really, highlighted and caught the essence of the pandemic & lock-down.. in its depiction of nothing happening, inane repetition, and the very essence of being bored.
