One of the things that I noticed in The Grand Budapest Hotel was that every man had some sort of facial hair, and if they didn’t, they drew it on (Zero). Considering that makeup and character appearance is a consideration in mis-en-scene, I chose to do some research on the thought behind the characters appearances, and found an interview with Frances Hannon, the makeup, hair, and prosthetics designer on the LA Times (https://www.latimes.com/fashion/alltherage/la-ar-the-fantastical-facial-hair-of-the-grand-budapest-hotel-20140407-story.html)
In short, the Hannon explains that most of the facial hair was used as a method to emulate Europe in the 1930’s. She pulled inspiration from the Germanic mustaches and wanted the facial hair to be right on the edge of caricature. I did find it interesting that Wes Anderson wanted to work with the actor’s natural facial hair, and even let it play into how their beard were designed in the film. I also found it interesting that Hannon used Freud’s beard as an inspiration for Jeff Goldblum’s beard, and explained that it wasn’t meant to represent some Freudian influence, because I feel like sometimes people can read into that sort of thing too much. In addition, the amount of thought that went into the Monk’s facial hair is astonishing. I hadn’t considered that it was intentionally left stubbly so they didn’t seem over-concerned by their appearance and therefore more holy, but Hannon and Anderson did.
One thing the article lacked was an explanation of Zero’s facial hair. Throughout the movie, he goes from no facial hair to drawing on a mustache to growing a weak mustache to, at the very end, having a full-fledged beard. Because it varied so much, I was hoping that Hannon would explain the inspiration and thought process behind Zero’s facial hair. I thought it could be a way to show Zero trying to emulate Monsieur Gustave, who he seemed to look up to, maturing when his own hair finally starts to grow, and maybe letting go of the “faint glimmers of civilization” after Gustave’s death.
Overall, I was amazed at the amount of behind-the-scene’s work and thought that went into each character’s appearance, down to each individual piece of facial hair, to make sure that it felt like we were in the Europe in the 1930’s.
Hi Allee,
I also am a bit disappointed that the article didn’t go into more of an explanation of Zero’s facial hair. I thought that this was something that really played a huge part of Zeros development throughout the movie. When I first saw Zero draw on his facial hair in the beginning of the film, after just starting out as a Lobby Boy and working hard to gain Mr Gustave’s respect, I thought this was a big deal as it showed that Zero didn’t feel fully grown or ready in himself at that time in his life. All the other men shown in this film had that mustache that Zero lacked, which I also thought was very interesting and made me wonder if it was done on purpose to show what Zero wanted to eventually become. Like you, I noticed that at the end Zero finally grew his own facial hair. Again, I thought this was a great way to show growth in Zero and how much he had changed over the film. He had a newfound confidence and experience within him after working with Mr Gustave. I think it could also be an emulation of Monsieur Gustave after he had looked up to him the whole film.