Rushmore is the 2nd film directed by Wes Anderson and as sophomore efforts go it’s a pretty great example. Telling the story of simultaneously over- and under-achieving student Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) and his attempts to woo Olivia Williams’ schoolteacher, here’s some reasons why I love it:
5. The Slow Motion: Amonst the many stylistic flourishes within Wes Anderson’s repertoire – the vertically symmetrical framing, pastel color palette etc. – his use of slow potion is often neglected. He uses it in unexpected places, and I’m pretty sure Rushmore has more than any others, and they’re all situated around Schwartzman’s Max. Whether it’s his bloody-nosed stroll to receive a bow after his latest play or his casual-as-anything saunter from an elevator clutching the Rushmore Beekeepers hive from which he’s just unleashed a swarm of bees upon his nemesis, these shots are amongst the best in the film. Max, by his nature, just cannot look cool, but shooting him in slow motion as he flicks an unwanted cigarette butt away gets him pretty damn close.
4. The Dinner Scene: The main character of this film, Max (more on him later), is undoubtedly a bit of a dick for most of the film, and nowhere is this better shown than during the dinner scene. After his latest successful play (more on them later too), Max invites his friend and wealthy businessman Herman (Bill Murray) and teacher Rosemary (Williams) to dinner, but he wasn’t expecting Rosemary to invite her college friend and surgeon Peter (Luke Wilson) along too. Max has a particularly unsubtle crush on Rosemary, and he sees Peter as a fairly strong rival for her affections, so after getting drunk on a whiskey and soda he spends the duration of the scene attempting to make Peter feel as uncomfortable as possible by pointing out the reservation was only made for three, and by apologizing to the waiter for the inconvenience of their additional unexpected guest. Max also refuses to address Peter by his name, instead calling him Curly and Guy, but the highlight here is when, after explaining his “nurse’s uniform” (as Max calls it) is in fact O.R. scrubs, Max asks “O R they?” Admittedly, that’s not that funny. What is though is Murray’s spit-take reaction, and his immediately embarrassed expression when Rosemary gives him a disapproving look. God I love Bill Murray.
3. Max’s Plays: Ah, the plays. We see three school productions written – and sometimes performed – by Max throughout the film, and to describe them as ambitious would be something of an understatement. When I was at school, the most extravagant production we had was a 1970s re-telling of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night – don’t ask – but here we have multi-layered backgrounds with working trains and gunfire in his recreation of Serpico, and in his Vietnam-set Apocalypse-Now-a-like Heaven and Hell there are helicopters, planes, mortar-fire, and a fully functioning flamethrower. Add to this safety goggles and ear plugs for the audience and you’re looking at something that makes everything I saw in school a severe disappointment.
2. The Cannonball Scene: Did I mention I love Bill Murray? Because I love Bill Murray, even when playing a character as pathetic as Herman Blume. He’s a millionaire industrialist with a pair of teenage twins who don’t respect him and a wife he suspects is cuckolding him, but he does very little to amend this situation. The moment at which he finally seems to give up on it all is during the twins’ birthday pool party. Herman is sat alone away from everything, silently watching his wife as she chats and flirts unashamedly with her suspected affair. Herman just sits there, throwing an endless stream of golf balls into the pool. Eventually he rises, whiskey in hand, and ascends the steps to the diving board. At the edge of the board he surveys the staring guests, downs his whiskey and cannonballs, holding the ball shape as he floats aimlessly underwater. I don’t really know why I love this scene, but I do.
1. Max Fischer:
This is the third “5 Favorite Things” list I’ve written for French Toast Sunday, and it’s come to my attention that my number one for the previous two has been an actor. Well, this time around I’m breaking from tradition by picking a character instead, and the main character at that. Max, astonishingly played by Jason Schwartzman in his very first acting role, is as I mentioned earlier a bit of a twat. His only friend is several years younger than he is and his grades are being severely negatively impacted by Max’s insistence upon being a critical member of every club Rushmore has, from the Astronomy Society to the Lacrosse team, through the Calligraphy Club, the Model United Nations, the Kung Fu Club, Debate Team, Yankee Racers and many more. In a sense he’s similar to Van Wilder – he just wants to stay in education because he likes it there – but whereas Ryan Reynolds played an ultra-popular party king, Max finds himself reinstating Latin as a compulsory subject, much to the annoyance of his classmates.
The character of Max would be very little without Schwartzman playing him. He provides a level of confidence and cocksure that Max should never have – when Rosemary poses their age gap as being an issue to their potential relationship, Max simply replies “It crossed my mind that you might consider that a possibility,” thereby instantly dismissing any thoughts he could possibly have about it being a problem. At heart he is very much still a child – his petulant response to his nemesis laying claim on Rosemary is “I was in love with her first,” as if that means anything to anyone but him. It’s no wonder Schwartzman became one of Anderson’s most regular players, re-teaming in everything except The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and presumably that was mainly due to a lack of appropriate roles. I’d really like him to have another starring role in an Anderson film though because, as much as I loved his blink-and-miss turn in The Grand Budapest Hotel, Schwartzman really shines with a meaty role in an Anderson script.
Are you a fan of Rushmore? What do you love about it? Let us know in the comments.
