Intro to Film 2025 • Professor Gregory Zinman • Emory University

Category: Week 3: (9/8+9/10) • Mise-en-scène

  • Behind the Scenes – Grand Budapest Hotel

    (39) Backstage for ” Grand Hotel Budapest” – YouTube

    While at first watch, the Grand Budapest Hotel looks like an almost fairy tale production, I came across this behind-the-scenes video that shows how resourceful Anderson’s team was during filming. The video reveals explicitly how the train sequences were staged, not with a complete train set, digital effects, or even a train cart, but instead with a simple hand-pushed trolley. With camera framing, later editing, and the seamless integration of different cuts, the filmmakers created the impression of a real moving train, despite the very minimal physical setup.

    What really blew my mind when I came across this was that it shows how budget limitations and stylistic choices can go hand in hand. I believe that Anderson spent $25 million on this film, and when you have these multi-million dollar films that love CGI, or a Christopher Nolan film where he crashes a real Boeing 747, Anderson somehow uses this innovative practical effect that not only saved money, but preserved his aesthetic, showing that sometimes “cheap” methods are actually the most artful.

    Sadly, the video does not analyse why Anderson prefers these practical solutions, and without content, it could seem like a random trick to save money. However, when paired with other readings that explore Anderson’s aesthetics and examine how he achieves such a distinct look by embracing miniatures, models, and old-school effects, this clip reinforces the team’s creative problem-solving and ingenuity.

    Adam Stockhausen on Creating the Vibrant World of The Grand Budapest Hotel

    It is not an isolated trick, and in an interview with KCRW, production designer Adam Stockhausen explains how the team consistently relied on practical thinking to build the fictional country. The hotel interior was an abandoned department store in Görlitz, Germany, for both the 1930s and 1960s versions. Stockhausen also mentioned that a lot of the backgrounds were painted skies or miniatures rather than digital effects, and the baker for Mendel’s pastry boxes was actually a local from Görlitz. When paired with the behind-the-scenes video of the train being nothing more than a hand-pushed trolley, Stockhausen’s interview not only further pushes the budget-conscious choices, but manages to give context that makes it almost inseparable from Anderson’s aesthetic, almost in a way that this fairy-tale world would not be as beautiful, unless approached from this way.

    It also made me appreciate the film even more when I started to understand its inner workings.

  • The Art of Mise-en-Scène: How Color Shapes The Grand Budapest Hotel

    I found the video “How The Grand Budapest Hotel Uses Colour To Tell a Story” very interesting because it focuses on the colors highlighted in the film. It is embedded within the mise-en-scène’s elements through aspects such as setting, costume, and lighting.

    The film has a structure of a frame narrative where multiple timelines are present. The film’s use of color and saturation shifts with each time period. The video highlights that in the 1930s, the golden age of the hotel, the film uses colors to establish a distinct mood. Specifically, vivid pinks, purples, and reds are used in the film to create a glamorous and romantic atmosphere. The significance of the era’s color reminded me of the prestige of the Grand Budapest Hotel in its prime throughout the film.

    https://pin.it/2ZH6PnwEQ

    However, the post-war scenes (the 1960s) use calm beige, orange, and pastel blue tones to change the mood, emphasizing the Hotel’s decline and nostalgia for its former glory. The faded colors in the post-war scenes made me feel that the strong identity and prestige of the Grand Budapest Hotel had vanished.

    https://share.google/images/qv05EROCU1AnLBgr7

    The film uses more natural colors when the timeline is in the present, the 1980s. These color and saturation differences from each time period let the audience recognize how the film changes its narrative. The color itself is not an independent element of mise-en-scène; rather, it works together with setting, costume, and lighting. These aspects create an iconic style and atmosphere for each time period in the film.

    The video also mentioned how the aspect ratio changed for each narrative frame. The film used a 1.37:1 ratio in the 1930s scenes, a 2.35:1 ratio in the 1960s, and a 1.85:1 ratio in the 1980s. It was fascinating that the film employed different aspect ratios for each time period, each reflecting the most common ratio of its time. These ratios highlight how mise-en-scène is not only decorative but also a narrative strategy that links the style with historical meaning.

    https://youtu.be/7sSWTK1rnqI?si=cgaFJmb6gGkGcx3D

    Overall, the use of colors and aspect ratios in the film creates a stunning visual experience, one that I highly recommend watching.

  • It’s the little things that count with Wes Anderson

    The Grand Budapest Hotel is an incredible example of what we read about mise-en-scène. The shapes and actions performed by the actors and set pieces contribute significantly to the film’s themes of culture, violence, and absurdism. I noticed great contrasts between costume and setting that made the experience of watching The Grand Budapest Hotel that much more engaging. The designers, in tandem with Wes Anderson’s directorial vision, created an incredible, avant-garde world that draws audiences in more and more with each frame.

    Watching this movie, I, much like every other viewer, was immediately drawn to the color schemes present in each shot. The titular Grand Budapest Hotel is filled with oranges of different shades, interspersed by hotel staff and Monsieur Gustave’s consistently purple clothing. The narrator outside of M. Gustave’s story wears a pale pink suit, himself. All of this shows vibrancy–and perhaps happiness or lightheartedness. As we progress through the film, we are introduced to a much more contrastive and brooding color palette. With the introduction of Dmitri in his home, the viewer is inundated with brown, black, and dark red, all of which denoting danger. Dmitri himself wears black, blending in with his surroundings while Gustave and Zero stick out wherever they go. The world of the film dips further into an ever-increasing fascist government as we see the beginning of the Lutz Blitz. By this point, the film is in black and white. It is reminiscent of the story of The Giver, both in the novel and the film adaptation. Both of these works depict the loss of ROY G. BIV colors as a loss of freedom, joy and individuality, being replaced by grayscale hues as conformity and evil dominate the world.

    I also noted the minuteness of action on-screen. I remember the particular act of creating the escape tunnel through the prison’s floor being so small by volume: none of the escapees wanted to be heard. Additionally, when Zero and M. Gustave reach Checkpoint 19 and they are met by a giant wall. Outside of the frame, we hear a guard whistling to them. The camera pans to his relatively microscopic body as he motions them through the once non-visible door.

    In directing this film, Anderson paid great attention to detail–particularly the tiny ones. It is through this work that films like The Grand Budapest Hotel captivate audiences. In watching this, the viewer, too, pays attention to even the smallest details.

  • Wes Anderson’s Vision Behind The Grand Budapest Hotel

    While looking into how Wes Anderson made The Grand Budapest Hotel, I came across a 2014 YouTube interview with him (ScreenSlam). The interview provides important insights into Anderson’s cinematic approach and the artistic decisions used in the film. This new perspective will help us form new opinions on the film and gain more insight into the planning process that goes on behind every film.

    Anderson starts the interview explaining that the movie is “partly inspired by Hollywood movies, maybe from the 30s that were set in places like Warsaw and Prague, and Budapest” (Anderson). This connection helps the audience feel a strong sense of nostalgia throughout the film through the use of vibrant colors and detailed set designs.

    Hollywood films from the 1930s that were set in Central and Eastern European cities often reflected some political tension and a playful kind of storytelling. Directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Frank Borzage created works that influenced Anderson (TIME). In the film Rear Window, Hitchcock had an elaborate setting that greatly influenced the story. Similarly, Anderson describes the hotel as a “character” that is essential to the film.

    Anderson’s use of camera angles, color palettes, and framing makes the atmosphere of The Grand Budapest Hotel unique and magical. Additionally, Anderson notes the importance of collaboration with his actors, as they brought the film’s unique characters to life.

    Although the interview provides an overview of Anderson’s artistic style and filmmaking process, it does not deeply explore the film’s themes (such as nostalgia) or broader cultural implications. Nonetheless, it helps us understand the hard work behind the film’s unique aesthetic.

  • The Grand Budapest Hotel: The Effect of Nostalgia

    (3558) How The Grand Budapest Hotel Uses Colour To Tell a Story – YouTube

    Reading about mise-en-scene drastically changed my second viewing of The Grand Budapest Hotel. In the past, I brushed off Wes Anderson’s unique style as simply aesthetics, not completely understanding the importance of mise-en-scene. Now after a deeper look into what many consider Anderson’s magnum opus, I have learned about the essentiality of the coloring within these uniquely created movies. Specifically, the theming of nostalgia in The Grand Budapest Hotel, goes hand-in-hand with the coloring of the overall narrative. This idea of nostalgia and storytelling is explained explicitly in the video above. The video details the fact that the opening scene is gray and monotonous for a certain purpose…to mirror the actual universe of the viewer. It is only when reality get turned to stories and then to memories does more and more color get imbued. In the 1980s (the period that the intro scene takes place in) there is little color variety whatsoever, just focusing on the bland white, gray, and brown aspects of the scene.

    The second layer of the story takes place in the 1960s, even though this era of the story is still largely depressing, color is imbued to the story through the morose orange in the hotel and yellow trees outside. This increase of color, as the video explains, can be attributed towards the theming of storytelling and nostalgia within The Grand Budapest Hotel. The original author that writes the book about the hotel is still recalling a story that he experienced over 20 years ago. It is simply human nature to romanticize and associate past memories in the positive, even if they weren’t.

    This idea is even further supported with the 1930s version of the hotel, the third and final layer that is narrated to the viewer by Zero.

    In just a 30-year timespan, the entire coloring of both the hotel and its surroundings have completely changed from a colorful and vibrant landscape to a dull, orange, and dying environment. Overall, I find a great argument from the video above regarding the theme of nostalgia and facades within The Grand Budapest Hotel. Instances of facades such as Gustave living through a false existence as a cultured savant, Zero hiding his traumatic past through acting as a silent lobby boy, or the film hiding its fascist subplot to focus on trivial matters like the painting “Boy with Apple” are all examples in accordance with the facade theming. The hotel and surrounding environment didn’t magically change in 30 years, it is a purposeful addition to the mise-en-scene to demonstrate the idea that we romanticize the past.

  • The Grand Budapest Hotel: Creating a Fictional World Through Sound

    During my further research into The Grand Budapest Hotel, I was most interested in a video analysis of the creation of the movie’s score. The video, posted by “Inside the Score” on YouTube, highlights the apparent challenge in creating music from an imaginary country. The soundtrack was constructed by Alexandre Desplat, a talented French composer who also collaborated on other Wes Anderson films, including Fantastic Mr. Fox, Isle of Dogs, French Dispatch, and Moonrise Kingdom. Desplat and Anderson situate the fictional country of Zubrowka on the easternmost border of the European continent. Desplat identifies the broader geographical area as “Mittleuropa”, or Middle Europe, stretching from Switzerland to Turkey.

    In order to strengthen the authenticity of the fictional Zubrowka, Desplat utilizes traditional instruments from neighboring regions. For example, in the main theme music, he uses a cimbalom, a stringed instrument popular in Hungary and the alpine regions, thus giving the music a nostalgic and distinctly Central European tone. During winter scenes, he incorporates tubular bells, sleigh bells, and glockenspiel, creating a whimsical sound reminiscent of the Russian composer Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. In contrast, for dramatic scenes, the movie uses brass instruments that often mirror marching percussion, signaling the arrival of the fascist groups.

  • Wes Anderson’s Wretched Whimsical World

    We can all admit that this Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is a visually eye-catching film, almost to the point where you begin to question the intentions of the color scheme compared to the topic of the movie.

    This video, made by StudioBinder on YouTube, does a great job of explaining why the movie’s choice of color is so peculiar while considering the circumstances of the movie, or more specifically, the characters’ stories.

    The Grand Budapest Hotel - by Gina Wurtz
    The Grand Budapest Hotel – film review

    Wes uses primary colors, high saturation, and brightness to portray a childlike perspective and maintain the whimsical feeling, though reality reflects the opposite. Specifically, he repeatedly reintroduces the color red into the film to reflect the childhood trauma they still carry into adolescence.

    Film Clip: 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'
    Style Lessons with the Characters of Wes Anderson – The Italian Rêve
    Color Theory and Social Structure in the Films of Wes Anderson - Inquiries Journal
    Grand Budapest Hotel | Mick Ricereto Interior + Product Design

    So why does he continue to use this color theory? StudioBinder says that it is an expression of dark humor and a play on the theme’s bipolar tones versus the visuals. I guess you simply cannot believe the emotion to be everything you see. It forces the audience to be engaged in the world and face the dark topics.

    The Grand Budapest Hotel Color Palette Analysis | Wes Anderson - Pixflow Blog

    When the switch is made in the second train scene, it is apparent that the bipolar color vs. dialogue theory still reigns. Wes’s use of color becomes very telling when the colors become black and white at the time of tragedy. Zero says, “There are still faint glimmers of civilization in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. He was one of them. What more is there to say?” In my opinion, it shows how quickly reality is turned back on, and hope in humanity was stolen when they killed Mr. Gustave, almost as if the color died with him.

    If you are interested, I highly suggest watching and seeing if you also caught on to the same patterns!

  • Everything You Don’t See: Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel”

    To put it simply, I’ve never seen a Wes Anderson movie that wasn’t an absolute visual masterpiece; The Grand Budapest Hotel is certainly no exception. It is so aesthetically pleasing and unique, thanks to his creative use of color, filming techniques, and overall detail to the mise-en-scène of the movie.

    As an aspiring director, I always find it very exciting to see the behind the scenes of how certain scenes were shot and how certain ideas came to life in front of the camera. The video that I have attached above shows a glimpse into that process. It shows a variety of moments during the filming where Wes was discussing his visions for specific shots, set design and how they pulled off certain scenes, and makeup and costume procedures. I was surprised to see just how much effort and manpower goes into scenes that at first may seem more simplistic. During even a basic walking scene there were 5-6 people behind the camera carrying lights, microphones, and other important things for it to come out as good as it does. Or during a sit down conversation in the movie where the camera had to be spun around in certain way. It made me appreciate the movie and all the beautiful parts of it even more, because there was so much thought and passion put into it that most of the time we don’t get to see. It’s much more effective to see it than read about it, but I do strongly suggest to watch it if you’re interested in that area of film.

  • An Interview with Wes Anderson by RogerEbert

    In this interview on RogerEbert.com, the reporter Hank Sartin sits down with Wes Anderson to chat about his direction in “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” While reading the transcript of this interview, I found Wes Anderson’s insight into his inspiration as well as the collaboration of everyone on set extremely interesting. As many already know, Wes Anderson was heavily inspired by the author Stefan Zweig for the idea of a story-within-a-story. Although Anderson acknowledges that many other storytellers have done the same idea, he was especially inspired by Zweig’s use of this in “very psychological, more intimate stories.” They then chat about the actors, especially Ralph Fiennes’s performance as Mr. Gustave. 

    I found this particular interview more insightful than other interviews I watched and read, as the conversation between Sartin and Anderson felt more like a friendly chat, rather than an official interview. Sartin seemed very knowledgeable about many of the references that Anderson brought up. For example, I was not familiar with Zweig’s work, but Sartin was able to direct the conversation in a natural way that both gave insight into Zweig’s previous work as well as how Anderson related it to his own work. From this interview, I learned that Zweig was a famous author in the 20’s and 30’s, but mostly faded in popularity. Although “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is a comedy-drama with many lighthearted moments, Zweig’s stories had a more serious tone.

    Another topic they discussed in depth about was the choice of Ralph Fiennes as Gustave. I was not familiar with Fiennes’s previous works, but Sartin directed the conversation in a way that Anderson was able to add his insight into why Fiennes was chosen, though his previous roles were mostly non-comedic. Anderson commented that he saw Fiennes in a play in France and he was very funny, and his demeanor in real life was also very polite, matching the character Gustave very well. 

    Overall, I found this interview with Anderson very revealing into some of the behind the scenes of “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” I appreciated that the interviewer didn’t ask many cliched questions, as well as added his own input into some of the movie’s aspects. This made the interview much more interesting to read with its casual tone, like two friends sitting down for coffee and discussing a movie rather than an interrogation for Anderson. It is obvious that the interviewer did his research before talking to Anderson, as he added in his past knowledge about details Anderson had shared in other interviews to avoid repetition and enable him to dive deeper into those details. 

    https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/wes-anderson-grand-budapest-hotel-ralph-fiennes-tilda-swinton-jeff-goldblum

  • Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel and our loyalty to “all we know”

    Before I say anything remotely analytical about this movie, I wanted to note that this is one of the most visually appealing films of all time. On par with some of my favorite movies to just look at like Under the Skin(2013), 2001: A Space Odyssey(1968), and Drive (2011), Wes Anderson’s use of painting-like imagery with the background compressed against the foreground makes this a simply stunning movie.

    Throughout the movie, I feel like Wes Anderson was screaming at me that this film is about loyalty. But although there is the obvious loyal relationship between Zero and Gustave, the theme extends far past an individual’s loyalty for another. I think this film is really trying to communicate how as individuals, we tend to be ferociously loyal to the things that have always been; the constants in our lives. We see this every day in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, 89% of teens from Democratic households also vote for Democratic candidates (81% for Republican households). I believe that this is not actually about the values of the child, but about an individual’s loyalty to their parent’s values, since that is all they have known since birth. Wes Anderson throws this theme in our face throughout Grand Budapest Hotel. Introduced early in the film, Zero is alone. When asked whether he has a family, he replies with ‘none’. Immediately, Gustave is a father figure. Whether he likes it or not, Gustave is in a position of instructional and literal power over Zero, causing Zero to latch on almost instantaneously. I don’t believe that this is because Zero respects Gustave (Gustave is a deeply flawed and sometimes ridiculous person), rather that Gustave and the values he stands for becomes literally the only thing in Zero’s life, and therefore the only thing he has to learn from.

    However, this theme of loyalty extends past Zero’s relationship to Gustave. Gustave himself is a character literally defined by his loyalty. All we ever know about his character is his mastery of the concierge arts. For all the audience knows, this is all Gustave has been, and all he ever will be. His loyalty is not only to the women he takes care of and the young men he takes under his wing, but the literal act of being a concierge. In prison of all places, Gustave brings a cart around from cell to cell handing out soup. He won’t ever stop being a concierge because he literally can’t. Like Zero’s relationship to him, Gustave can’t give up being a concierge because it is actually the only thing he knows. Again, towards the end, when the hotel is crawling with policemen looking for him and a psycho killer trying to take his life, Gustave enters the Grand Budapest Hotel disguised as a bakery delivery man. It is possible to look at this from the perspective of his loyalty to Zero and Zero’s relationship to Agatha, but I think Wes Anderson intended this to be a representation of Gustave’s inability to part with the hotel. The hotel is his life, and he would rather die than be apart from the only thing he has ever known.

    This is not a film about love or belonging, but instead about humans’ loyalty and almost obsession with retaining constants in our lives. Zero, even in his old age and the Grand Budapest’s failure, is fiercely loyal to it and Gustave. My one question about this film is: Does Wes Anderson hate Zero and Gustave for being so loyal, eventually killing one of them and dooming the other to eternal loneliness? Or does he actually respect and value their obsessions?