Director Wes Anderson is one of the most cherished of auteurs working in independent movie-making today, whose celluloid-originated features interweave intriguing narrative threads with star-studded casts and off-beat visual styling to relate quirky and highly-entertaining human stories. Shot on Kodak 35mm color and B&W filmstocks, by regular cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman ASC, Anderson’s next and highly-anticipated comedy, The French Dispatch, promises more of the same.
The film has been described as, “A love letter to journalists…in a fictional 20th-century French city.” Reported to be set after World War II, it concerns an American newspaper editor who runs a magazine in France and who regularly sends stories about various aspects of French life back to the United States. Typically, different personal stories are knitted into the fabric of the film.
The extensive ensemble cast brought together for The French Dispatch, comprises some of Anderson’s regular favorites, such as Bill Murray, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton, plus supporting players from the director’s acclaimed The Grand Budapest Hotel, including Saoirse Ronan, Willem Dafoe, Mathieu Amalric and Adrien Brody. Actors Timothée Chalamet, Benicio del Toro and Elisabeth Moss make their debuts for the director, and other performers set to appear include Christoph Waltz, Lois Smith, Henry Winkler, Rupert Friend, Griffin Dune, together with the French actors Denis Ménochet, Guillaume Gallienne, Félix Moati and Vincent Macaigne.
Out of Anderson’s many creative collaborators, Yeoman is perhaps the most pivotal of all in helping to put the director’s cinematic vision on to the big screen. Apart from Anderson’s stop-motion features Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs, Yeoman has served as the cinematographer on every one of Anderson’s other productions.
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