Fisher thrown in)-to profile a legendary chef named Nescaffier ( Steve Park), who works his magic in the police department kitchen. (This section is clearly inspired by Mavis Gallant's 1968 coverage of the protests for The New Yorker, "The Events in May: A Paris Notebook".) The final story shows the attempt by writer Roebuck Wright ( Jeffrey Wright)-a mashup of James Baldwin and A.J. The second story is a whimsical pantomime of the 1968 student protests in Paris, presented in Godardian pastiche, with Timothée Chalamet as Zeffirelli, a moody revolutionary (is there any other kind?), and Frances McDormand as Lucinda Krementz, the French Dispatch writer whose objectivity is compromised when she inserts herself into the story. Adrien Brody plays Julian Cadazio, Moses' representation in the hifalutin' art world, wheeling and dealing to get Moses' work out there. The first magazine story centers on Moses Rosenthaler ( Benicio Del Toro), a genius artist serving a life sentence for homicide, and engaged in a love affair with Simone ( Léa Seydoux), his muse, promoter, and prison guard. But first, there is the Jacques-Tati-style opening sequence, clearly a riff on The New Yorker staple, "The Talk of the Town," with Herbsaint Sazerac ( Owen Wilson, jaunty in a black beret and turtleneck) bicycling through Ennui-sur-Blasé, showing us the sights (and speaking directly to the camera, causing some unfortunate collisions). "The French Dispatch" doesn't delve into these characters' lives but instead focuses on their work, and the movie's structure is that of an issue of the magazine, where you literally step into the pages, and "read" three separate stories. Liberty, Independence, get it? None of this means anything, but it's fun if you pick up on it.) Howitzer is surrounded by a loyal staff overseeing a collective of eccentric writers, all busy at work completing pieces for the upcoming issue. Playwright William Inge, most famous for his 1953 play Picnic, was born in Independence, Kansas. (In one of the many "A-ha" moments of trivia sprinkled throughout: the magazine was originally called Picnic. The fictionalized New Yorker is called The French Dispatch, published out of a little French town called Ennui-sur-Blasé, although it started in Liberty, Kansas, where editor Arthur Howitzer, Jr. Liebling, Joseph Mitchell, Rosamond Bernier, James Baldwin-all of whom were given enormous leeway in terms of subject matter and process, but edited within an inch of their lives to align their prose with the aggressive New Yorker house style. In "The French Dispatch," the object of Anderson's obsession ("object" is a key word) is The New Yorker, specifically The New Yorker in the time of finicky founder/editor Harold Ross, and his daunting roster of writers- James Thurber, A.J. It's a fast-paced delirious movie about a very slow unchanging world. The movie may be hard to explain, but it's very fun to watch. Watching Anderson follow his obsession to the outer limits (it's hard to imagine how much further he could go) is fascinating. "The French Dispatch" lacks some of the more endearing qualities of his earlier features-the prep school shenanigans of " Rushmore," the intimate family dynamic of " The Royal Tenenbaums" and " The Darjeeling Limited," or the kid-centered " Moonrise Kingdom." By contrast, "The French Dispatch" holds the audience at a remove, and is a stronger film for it. Made up of a dizzying array of whirring intersecting teeny tiny parts, "The French Dispatch" ticks forward relentlessly, never stopping to breathe, barely pausing for reflection. A clock is an apt metaphor for Anderson's style, present in all of his movies, but to an extreme degree here. It's like taking apart a clock to see how it works, and in so doing you no longer know what time it is. In a 2019 interview with Charente Libre, Wes Anderson said that his new movie, "The French Dispatch" was "not easy to explain." He's right, it's not, and any explanation would deconstruct it in a way to make it sound even more incomprehensible.
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