Rushmore Analysis

Another film I’ve been looking at for research is Rushmore (1998), also by Wes Anderson, as it contains similar subject matter to Daniels Kite. The major similarity is that the story revolves around a child, who is slightly out of touch with reality, and how he copes with the ‘real world’.

Rushmore opens by introducing this main character, Max, as being smart, funny and the centre of attention but it is quickly revealed that he is just daydreaming about his aspirations and what he thinks of himself. The daydream appears to be ‘real’ as it doesn’t follow the style of conventional or cliché dream sequences, as well as the fact that it appears at the beginning of the film so no rules or exposition has been set up prior to it, making the audience view it as fact. However, the sound is a big give away to the fantasy nature of this scene as it appears almost cartoonish and over exaggerated, drawing attention to the unrealistic nature of the content. The sound also helps the narrative progress by pulling Max out of his daydream and back into reality with a slow sound mix of clapping underneath the rapid cuts between the two locations. 

Shown here at 2:10

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The use of symmetrical wides in Rushmore is similar to my earlier analysis of Moonrise Kingdom (2012) and is very common of Wes Anderson’s films, especially with the combination of wide angle lens’ that give a slight curved distortion.

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This is a technique we want to replicate in Daniels Kite to make the film more stylised, ultimately engaging the audience more into the fantasy of the narrative.

Rushmore also uses slow motion in a similar way to our film, shown here at 1:20.

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Tom Rolf, editor of Taxi Driver (1976) and Heat (1995), has said, "...I do not like slow motion at all at any point, unless it’s needed to graphically explain something that your eye probably would not catch at normal speed.”^{[1; Pg 126]} However, within the context of Daniels Kite and Rushmore, I would disagree with him as it is used for a completely different effect, which is to highlight and reflect on the main characters emotion at that point in the narrative. In Rushmore, it reflects on Max’s feeling of triumph and success by mimicking his point of view of seeing everything in slow motion due to his emotion. We want to do a similar thing in Daniels Kite by highlighting Daniel’s internal emotions whilst encouraging the audience to pause to reflect these emotions, hopefully making them empathise more with the character. In the gym scene, the slow motion contrasts heavily with the pace that jars the audience into realising the joy Daniel experiences from this escapism.

Some of the humor in Rushmore relies on the performances of the children doing or saying things that are more characteristic of adults.

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In this scene, the subject matter mixes with the cinematography and performance to create this effect, starting with the camera angle that Dirk is shot at. The Low angle track in makes him seem intimidating and dominant in the scene, which is comical due to the difference in age between the two characters. The spit at the end is also uncharacteristic of a child that adds to the same theme with the music highlighting the gag by pausing briefly.

Daniels Kite has similar moments to this so I tried to mimic the pacing of these types of gag for the best and most humorous effect.

Bibliography

      1.   Gabriella Oldham (1992); First Cut: Conversations with Film Editors; USA: University of     California Press