{"id":2032,"date":"2013-03-07T10:41:25","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T15:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/?p=2032"},"modified":"2013-06-08T16:45:42","modified_gmt":"2013-06-08T20:45:42","slug":"2032","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/riley\/2013\/03\/2032\/","title":{"rendered":"CHILDHOOD RESEARCH"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Moonrise<\/a>

Moonrise kingdom poster (Photo credit: ga3lle)<\/p><\/div>\n

…The things in Anderson\u2019s films that recall Cornell\u2019s boxes\u2014the strict, steady, foursquare construction of individual shots, by which the cinematic frame becomes a Cornellian gesture, a box drawn around the world of the film, as in\u00a0Moonrise Kingdom<\/i>\u2019s dressing room scene, with the little bird-girls framed by strips of lightbulbs; the teeming, gridded, curio cabinet sets at the heart of\u00a0The Life Aquatic<\/i>,\u00a0The Darjeeling Limited<\/i>, and\u00a0Fantastic Mr. Fox<\/i>\u2014are often cited as evidence of his work\u2019s \u201cartificiality,\u201d at times with the implication, simpleminded and profoundly mistaken, that a high degree of artifice is somehow inimical to seriousness, to honest emotion, to so-called authenticity. All movies, of course, are equally artificial; it\u2019s just that some are more honest about it than others. In this important sense, the hand-built, model-kit artifice on display behind the pane of an Anderson box is a guarantor of authenticity; indeed I would argue that artifice, openly expressed, is the only true \u201cauthenticity\u201d an artist can lay claim to.<\/p>\n

Anderson\u2019s films, like the boxes of Cornell or the novels of Nabokov, understand and demonstrate that the magic of art, which renders beauty out of brokenness, disappointment, failure, decay, even ugliness and violence\u2014is authentic only to the degree that it attempts to conceal neither the bleak facts nor the tricks employed in pulling off the presto change-o. It is honest only to the degree that it builds its precise and inescapable box around its maker\u2019s\u00a0x:y<\/i>\u00a0scale version of the world…<\/p>\n

“Films of Wes Anderson,” by Michael Chabon, in NYRB<\/a>. Cue music: Let Her Dance, Bobby Fuller Four<\/a><\/p>\n

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