The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel [Print Replica] Kindle Edition

REALLY AWESOME BOOK!Through a series of interviews, short essays and excerpts, Seitz brings together a collage of the sources, inspiration, and methods used by Wes Anderson to create the film The Grand Budapest Hotel. As in real life, the film mixes up tragic and comic elements.The mood is one of a lost world, but how grand to actually have something you would regret losing, even if it is an imagined civilization. How is this beautiful world and its loss brought to the screen? Seitz explains technical details, such as adapting narrative devices from Stefan Zweig's fiction to the big screen. In fact he revels in details such as sourcing the facecloth used in the costumes, or aspect ratios. And he provides lots of information about locations and sets. While Anderson in his interviews speaks freely about complex logistics, he is unwilling to name the real-life inspiration for Gustave himself, just that there is one.I also found the interview with actor Ralph Fiennes, who brings the enigmatic concierge Gustave to life, charming but rather opaque; Fiennes is like a magician who doesn't want to reveal his tricks. Seitz compensates for these gaps by placing the GBH in the context of film history, referencing influences on Anderson from Ernst Lubitsch to Stanley Kubrick and on to Werner Herzog. One real joy is the interview with composer Alexandre Desplat, who is able to articulate the way the music is composed to support to shifting moods in the film. There are excerpts from Zweig's writings, but they are best read in their entirety. As one would expect from a publisher as visually savvy as Abrams, the color plates are stunning, providing a chance to notice fine touches that go by too fast on the screen to properly appreciate. There are photos of the sets and how they are used in filming GBH, all arranged on the page to jolt the eye with the contrast between illusion and how it is created, like the ending of the wizard of oz.Here you have some extra info that you may want to know:About the AuthorMatt Zoller Seitz, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism, is the TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, as well as the editor-in-chief of RogerEbert.com.A Brooklyn-based writer and filmmaker, Seitz has written, narrated, edited, or produced more than a hundred hours' worth of video essays about cinema history and style for The Museum of the Moving Image and The L Magazine, among other outlets. His five-part 2009 video essay, "Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style," was later spun off into a New York Times bestselling hardcover book: The Wes Anderson Collection (Abrams, 2013).Seitz is the founder and original editor of The House Next Door, now a part of Slant Magazine, and the publisher of Press Play, a blog of film and TV criticism and video essays. He is the director of the 2005 romantic comedy Home.Anne Washburn's plays include Mr. Burns, The Internationalist, A Devil at Noon, and a transadaptation of Euripides’s Orestes. She lives in New York City and, occasionally, Buenos Aires.Max Dalton is a graphic artist living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, by way of Barcelona, New York, and Paris. He has published a few books and illustrated some others, including The Wes Anderson Collection (Abrams, 2013). Max started painiting in 1977, and since 2008, he has been creating posters about music, movies, and pop culture, quickly becoming one of the top names in the industry.This companion to the New York Times bestselling book The Wes Anderson Collection takes readers behind the scenes of the Oscar®-winning film The Grand Budapest Hotel with a series of interviews between writer/director Wes Anderson and movie/television critic Matt Zoller Seitz.Learn all about the film's conception, hear personal anecdotes from the set, and explore the wide variety of sources that inspired the screenplay and imagery—from author Stefan Zweig to filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch to photochrom landscapes of turn-of-the-century Middle Europe. Also inside are interviews with costume designer Milena Canonero, composer Alexandre Desplat, lead actor Ralph Fiennes, production designer Adam Stockhausen, and cinematographer Robert Yeoman; essays by film critics Ali Arikan and Steven Boone, film theorist and historian David Bordwell, music critic Olivia Collette, and style and costume consultant Christopher Laverty; and an introduction by playwright Anne Washburn. Previously unpublished production photos, artwork, and ephemera illustrate each essay and interview.The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel stays true to Seitz's previous book on Anderson's first seven feature films,The Wes Anderson Collection, with an artful, meticulous design and playful, original illustrations that capture the spirit of Anderson's inimitable aesthetic. Together, they offer a complete overview of Anderson's filmography to date.Praise for the film, The Grand Budapest Hotel:Four Academy Awards®, including Costume Design, Music - Original Score, and Production Design; Nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Directing, and Writing - Original Screenplay; Best Film - Musical or Comedy, Golden Globe Awards; Best Original Screenplay, BAFTA, WGA, NYFCC, and LAFCA AwardsPraise for the book, The Wes Anderson Collection:“The Wes Anderson Collection comes as close as a book can to reading like a Wes Anderson film. The design is meticulously crafted, with gorgeous full-page photos and touches . . .”—Eric Thurm, The A.V. Club

Any Wes Anderson fan will love this book, packed full of details and facts about the movie.

My 34 year old son LOVED this book, and was giddy with excitement. He is a Wes Anderson fanatic, and it looks like that mania is delving deeper.

Wes Anderson "channels" Stefan Zweig...and Matt Zoller Seitz chronicles the resulting movie.Matt Zoller Seitz is the author of "The Wes Anderson Collection", a coffee-table book about the previous Wes Anderson films. He returns with a second book, "The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel", which is devoted to the filming, the writing, the scoring; hell...every part of the making of the movie. It's very detailed and a fine book for any Wes Anderson fan.I am not a rabid "Wes Anderson fan". I've liked several of his movies and not others. I adored "The Royal Tenenbaums" and still wonder if the reason it struck such a chord with me and many others is that it happened to be released in December, 2001. It's melancholy sadness seemed "right" for the time as we coped with the after effects of 9/11. I cry every time I see the movie; maybe it still makes it okay to cry for the other event? I don't know, and that's a subject for another review.Anyway, it was 2014 when "Budapest" was released. Sort of based on the stories of the exiled Stefan Zweig, Wes Anderson brought us an imaginary look at 1930's Mittel Europa and the great hotels where guests "took the waters" for weeks at a time. A large ensemble cast surrounds the superb acting by Ralph Feinnes as "M Gustave", the lead concierge at the "Budapest". The story is silly and poignant and thought-provoking, all at the same time. And along with the acting, the music, the sets, and the costumes were also memorable. Anderson's story takes place every where from the grand hotel, to a wealthy old woman's castle house, to a forbidding prison, to a monastery high in the mountains, then, finally, back to the not-so-grand hotel. The cinematography makes everything look right.How much of the movie is "fact" and how much is "atmosphere"? There are no Nazis in the film; other troops belonging to the "Zig Zag" movement are there, instead. Newspaper headlines speak of the threat of war, but we're not sure exactly where the imaginary country of "Zubrowska" is located, though "the border" seems to be well-manned, making travel and border crossings difficult. This was largely true in the Central European mix of nations in the 1930's.Matt Zoller Seitz's book is a complete look at the movie and the filmmakers, along with the man whose life and work inspired the movie. There is a lengthy section with selections of Stefan Zweig's writings. (For those who want to read an excellent book about Zweig, look for "The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World" by George Prochnik, published in 2014.) Zoller Seitz interviewed the director, the actors, the technical crews...but most of all, he interviewed Wes Anderson. Anderson, that quirky and meticulous director - is he a genius? - is quite candid about all the aspects of the making of the "The Grand Budapest Hotel". This is a large and wonderful book and a good companion to the movie. (By the way, is anyone else upset that Ralph Feinnes didn't get nominated for an Oscar?)

Beautiful photos, stories, and interviews. A fantastic addition to your repertoire if you love Wes Anderson's artistic approach and use of color.

Foi presente para minha esposa. Ela é fã do filme e amou. Pra quem ama fotografia e cinema é um sucesso!!

Ottimo

This is a superb and in-depth study of the Grand Budapest Hotel and is a beautiful book. If you like the film then you’ll appreciate this book. It’s not full of behind the scenes pictures or that sort of thing. It is though a fascinating and absorbing read

El contenido del libro es buenísimo, está lleno de referencias y de explicaciones. Por otro lado, la calidad de construcción es impecable, tanto en materiales como en la impresión de las hojas.