Last week when I was home sick I watched one of my all time favorite movies, Director Wes Anderson's "Rushmore." Wes Anderson has made other great movies like "The Royal Tenenbaums" "Bottle Rocket" and "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou." Obviously, this was not my first time watching Rushmore, so to say that I enjoyed watching the film even more this time would be a lie. However, on this certain day I was able to view the film on a completely different level, due to something I read on the inside of the DVD case. While I was perusing the inside of the case I came across a little bit of literature on the making of "Rushmore." The significance of the literature was that it draws a direct connection from "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" to "Rushmore."
This is what I found and I hope that whoever reads this blog will feel the urge to rent Rushmore not only because it is a hilarious movie, but also because of what it means in regards to Huckleberry Finn.
"The title of Wes Anderson's Rushmore refers to the ivy-covered prep school attended by the films central character, Max Fisher [Jason Schwartzman]. Max, with his bushy eyebrows and imposing glasses , loves his school beyond reason and is Rushmore's number one go-getter-editor of the school paper, president of the French club, organizer of the calligraphic society, proud member of the wrestling team. He is also, as the headmaster notes, "one of the worst students we've got." In his eagerness to succeed, Max is failing. It is his one character flaw, and the organizing principle of a profoundly American comedy in the direct tradition of Huckleberry Finn.
Mark Twain used his adolescent hero to provide an outsider’s viewpoint on a rapidly stratifying American society, a republican dream pulling apart into divisions of age, income and race. Rushmore is also about class divisions—Max, the son of the local barber (Seymour Cassel), is attending the exclusive school on a scholarship—but Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson, more wishful thinkers than Twain, use comedy to imagine the healing of those divisions, the reweaving of relationships across the lines of class and generation.
3 comments:
Rushmore is a pretty brilliant movie. Once again Zack, you steered me in the right direction. Thinking about the movie in comparison to Huck Finn, I am wondering if you can compare Max Fischer to Huck? Or compare Bill Murray's character to Jim. Max Fischer loves to start up clubs and write plays, he pays no attention to his schoolwork and is extremely content with his life at RUshmore Academy. Though when I think of him in comparison to Huck, no significant similarities come to mind. Now Zack, this may be bizarre but how about Huck Finn and Dirk Calloway. While Tom Sawyer is Max Fischer. Both Tom and Max have a flare for drama, they like to go in depth and do things the hard way. They also easily manipulate their wingmen (Huck/Dirk Calloway) into going along with their sometimes ridiculous plots.
A good argument for staying home: who knew that Huck was in all of these films? :)
I wish, though, you would have quoted less from the DVD, and made your own connections between the book and film.
Still pretty fascinating: one of my fave soundtracks ever.
Same here, I think there are alot of powerful connections to be made between the characters. The Huck Finn reference would not be included if there weren't any. I really think there is a strong correlation between Tom Sawyer and Max Fischer.
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