Wes Anderson’s visual style is perhaps among the most widely acknowledged and talked about of any contemporary directors, with countless videos, photos and memes claiming to have somehow replicated the supposedly trademark look and feel of his movies.
But does the filmmaker himself acknowledge this style? When ask at the Venice Film Festival, where he’s premiering his Netflix short The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, based on Roald Dahl’s story, he suggested it wasn’t something he ever really considered.
“I’m sure this doesn’t sound plausible, but I don’t really feel like I choose a style,” he said at the press conference on Friday. “I guess a style is so many different choose and most of those choice are just me doing what I want. In a way, it’s like asking, would you like to do a movie not the way you want? And ideally I’d want to do it the way I want.”
Anderson added: “But every time I do a movie I feel like I’m doing something completely different. I’m going to a new territory and telling a different kind of story with a new set of characters and different mix of actors, but I know there are so many things that link what I’m drawn to in general and I guess it is a thing you can see… it’s me.”
During the media meet, Anderson discussed the controversial decision to edit several Roald Dahl books to remove language now deemed to be offensive, saying that he didn’t even think artists themselves should be allowed to edit their own works.
“If you ask me if Renoir should be allowed to touch up one of his pictures, I would say no. It’s done,” he said. “I don’t even want the artist to modify their work. I understand the motivation for it, but I’m in the school where when the piece of work is done we participate in it. We know it. So I think when it’s done, it’s done. And certainly no one who is not an author should be modifying somebody’s book. He’s dead.”