The Building as Character
How Wes Anderson filmed architecture as if it had voices.
Wes Anderson films buildings in a way you do not see otherwise. In The Grand Budapest Hotel he does not film for the hotel. He films the hotel as part of himself. The stairs, the corridors, the symmetric stucco, every detail has the same way of speaking. Everything is equally close to camera. Everything is equally important.
This is a deliberate choice, and it is not film tech. It is design-specific. Anderson understands that architecture is not decoration. Architecture is language. A ceiling says something. A staircase says something. A colour says something. In his films, buildings talk.
Many filmmakers use space as background information. The place is where the moment takes place. But the place does not speak itself. Anderson inverts this. The place speaks. The place is a figure. Characters move through the speaking.
In Moonrise Kingdom Anderson chose an island. Not because it is where the story takes place, but because the island itself is the island the story needs. The composition of the island, the hill forms, the way the vegetation stands, that is all you need to feel about the island. And then he places characters in this landscape as small figures who must interpret the island.
This differs from other filmmakers. Terrence Malick also uses landscape, but in Malick landscape is overwhelming. While you feel yourself insignificant. Anderson uses landscape differently. It is geometric. It is predictable. You know where the boundaries are.
This touches something about symmetry. Anderson minimizes choice by using symmetry. A symmetric image yields no uncertainty. You know where you look. The camera is not neutral. The camera says: this is what matters. This is here. This is symmetric. This will repeat.
In a normal film you would think characters are more important than environment. But Anderson breaks this hierarchy. His buildings are as well characterized as his people. The Grand Budapest Hotel is a character because it has the same preferences as those film characters. Love of precision. Love of order.
This says something about what a character is. A character does not need to be a human. A character is something the film feels. It has preferences. It communicates. Anderson taught us that architecture can do that. That buildings can feel. That space can be character.
Sources: Wes Anderson film analysis; architecture criticism in film; The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom