Acclaimed filmmaker Wes Anderson’s latest, The French Dispatch, has delivered 12 new character posters ahead of its October 22 release. The multi-Oscar nominated Anderson has long been known for his extensive use of color and symmetry, often working with many of the same actors in finely crafted, minutely detailed films. While his critics have argued that he repeatedly makes the same films, Anderson’s career has proven that he’s a rare talent.
Five years after making a somewhat minimal impact with his 1996 debut Bottle Rocket, Anderson and his good friend/co-writer, Owen Wilson delivered The Royal Tenenbaums. Considered by many to be Anderson’s greatest film, Tenenbaums was his first film to feature a stacked cast of some of Hollywood’s biggest names. It confirmed his status as one of Hollywood’s hottest new filmmakers and landed him a best original screenplay Oscar nomination for Anderson and Wilson. Fast forward twenty years and Anderson is still making his unique brand of aesthetically pleasing films, and he’s currently just over a month away from releasing his eighth live-action feature and tenth film overall. The French Dispatch boasts one of Anderson’s most impressive casts yet, made up of stars such as Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan, Tilda Swinton, Benicio Del Toro and Frances McDormand.
To date, The French Dispatch has teased fans with glimpses of its fictional French city of Ennui-sur-Blasé and its extensive list of characters. The film is broken up into three separate stories that focus on two writers (McDormand and Jeffrey Wright) and an art critic (Swinton), each of which sees their work send them on their own Andersonian adventures. With fans counting down the long-awaited (and substantially delayed) days until the film’s release, The French Dispatch’s official Instagram account has now released 12 new character posters to help audiences get acquainted with its star-studded cast:
True to Anderson’s often imitated but never duplicated style, the posters provide more than just an introduction to the characters and the actors who play them. Each one is crafted with specific details related to the characters in mind – even if it’s not exactly clear what those details mean yet. Timothée Chalamet, for example, plays the student revolutionary Zeffirelli, and his poster is a play on the very similar political posters that were made during France’s real-life student-led protests in May of 1968. Meanwhile, Owen Wilson is cyclist/reporter Herbsaint Sazerac, whose poster features a map of Ennui-sur-Blasé with what appears to be the cycling routes highlighted. Additionally, Lea Seydoux’s severe looking prison guard stands between bright vertical lines that might represent the prison she works in and the muse she’s become to convicted murderer and artist Moses Rosenthaler (Del Toro).
Whether the posters provide deep insight or not into the characters, they certainly go a long way toward injecting even more artistic flair into Anderson’s work. The 52-year-old filmmaker is nothing if not multifaceted and these posters for The French Dispatch can be enjoyed as promotional material for what could be an award contender – or as works of art in their own right.
Key Release Dates
The French Dispatch
Release Date:2021-10-22
