Wes
Anderson’s films are best known for their eccentric characters and
rigorously whimsical tone. But just as distinctively captured are their
settings. Think of the colors and textures of the Indian landscapes in
“The Darjeeling Limited,” for example, or the lovingly rendered
Mediterranean locations in “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.”
The
director’s latest offering, “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” which opens
March 7, tells the story of a concierge (Ralph Fiennes) between the
world wars who becomes a murder suspect. The movie takes place in the
invented European Republic of Zubrowka. But because the primary location plays such a large role, finding the right spot to shoot entailed intricate scouting.
Below,
in an edited conversation, is a taste of what that process entailed,
and some of the places that have inspired Mr. Anderson.
Q. What is the process you go through when choosing a location?
A. For this type of movie we start on Google and Wikipedia and so on — and that was how I wandered my way over to the Library of Congress Photochrom Prints collection,
which is almost like Google Earth for 1902. There are a vast number of
tinted photographs that take you all over the Austro-Hungarian Empire
and Prussia. Then we traveled around Eastern Europe to see many of these
particular views. Most of them look radically different — but some are
very close to the old pictures.
We
decided to work in Germany partly because of the great big tax rebate,
and then also because we found this old Jugenstil department store in a
little city on the Polish border, Görlitz. It had everything we needed,
including abandoned thermal baths, a gigantic ballroom and a very good,
terrifying prison about 20 minutes away, in Zittau. The town became the
center for our production. Our cutting room was a former tavern in the
basement of the town’s City Hall.
What do you look for in a hotel?
I
am very interested in getting a good rate. Also: the shortest distance
from the street to the room. You don’t want to lose hours and hours in
the course of time crossing through lobbies and going up and down long
corridors. In Görlitz, our entire cast and many in our company stayed in
a place called the Hotel Börse,
right in the center of the old city. It was perfect. We converted the
ground floor into the hair and makeup area; in fact, the owner and his
wife and several of his employees appear in the movie in various roles,
in particular behind the front desk.
Are there locations for other films of yours that you particularly fell in love with?
In
Rhode Island, for “Moonrise Kingdom,” we worked in a beautiful scout
camp built in maybe the ’20s called Camp Yawgoog. We also found a place
we try to get back to called the Matunuck Oyster Bar.
In the Himalayan foothills, on location for “The Darjeeling Limited,”
we stumbled by helicopter across an Indian town called Mussoorie, which I
particularly loved.
Also,
the Italian island of Ponza, where we worked for a day or two during
“The Life Aquatic.” The very best thing about Ponza is the next-door
island, Palmarola. You must swim to your table for pasta on the beach.
Correction: February 28, 2014
An earlier version of this article misstated the name of a movie
directed by Wes Anderson. It is “The Darjeeling Limited,” not “The
Darjeeling Express.”
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