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Congratulations, Grand Budapest!             (& more commentary on the movie)

23/2/2015

1 Comment

 
Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson's stunning story set in a fictional Central European country, has taken home four Oscars: Production Design, Makeup & Hairstyling, Original Score and Costume Design. I'd thought it was a strong candidate for Best Screenplay and was a little surprised at the award for Best Score.

I'll come back to the score in a later post, after I've had time for a little research...

For now, I'd like to add a few remarks on costuming. In particular, I'm struck by the uniforms, which do have a certain period flair. U.S. News & World Report remarks on the "hints of history," in this piece. But I disagree somewhat that "Edward Norton plays the leader of a fascist army reminiscent of the Nazis in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel." That caption falls under the following picture.
Picture
Picture
Granted, the  thuggish "Zigzag Division" is meant to look like SS--in a humorous combination with the pink.

But the gray uniforms are an imitation of Austrian soldiers of the First World War. I'm not sure just what designer Milena Canonero had in mind, but I can't resist comparing with Jozef Lada's illustrations for The Good Soldier Švejk.

PictureAnother image from GBH for comparison. Credit: Fox Searchlight
This 1921 novel was author Jaroslav Hašek's dark comedy about WWI. Švejk (pronounced shvake, rhymes with 'shake'), a good-natured, beer-swigging bumpkin is conscripted to fight for Austria-Hungary. Hašek satirizes that fact that the Czechs were part of this empire, but most felt little loyalty to it. He also pokes fun at authoritarianism and Austrian officers' disdain for the Czechs--"The entire Czech nation is a band of malingerers," says one. Švejk takes a passive-aggressive response, following orders literally to the point of driving superiors crazy. Czechs, long under Austrian domination, had adapted such practices as a means of survival, and Švejk quickly became the national personification of their nature.



1 Comment
https://www.researchwritingkings.com/category/reviews/top-services/ link
23/9/2019 06:11:47 am

This movie really needs to be appreciated more. I know that there are a lot of people who do not see the greatness of it, but, brother, it is great. Strictly speaking, it is one of the few movies which challenges the norm. In my opinion, we need more movies that are similar to this. I really hope that people start exploring more of what they want to convey using the power of films and cinemas, that is my dream.

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    Musical & Literary Wanderings of a Galloping Gypsy

    Mark Eliot Nuckols is a travel writer from Silver Beach Virginia who is also a musician and teacher.

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