The Odd Jolt in the Fantastical World of The Royal Tenenbaums

I believe the climax of The Royal Tenenbaums is when Richie Tenenbaum is in the bathroom and intentionally shaves off all of his hair and proceeds to severely cut his forearms. However, this film isn’t focused around Richie Tenenbaum, nor is it the scene where the most action occurs or the larger conflict is resolved. What this scene does provide is irregular formal elements that call attention to the change in the story. Richie Tenenbaum’s deviant action is the scene when a character performs something out of the ordinary from the conventions the audience previously relates with in the film, and the director can create new expectations and meanings by shifting the elements of form and content.

The most distinguishable difference of this scene is the lighting. The dark, cool blues and greens saturate the entire bathroom setting. This is very different form the rest of the film that is lit in bright oranges, reds, and yellows. There is little lighting over the characters face, and the camera remains at one angle and focused on the characters face for the entire two minutes. This leads me to the second difference in the mise-en-scene for this scene, which is the setting of the shot. There is nothing hanging on the blue walls, there isn’t a wipe or pan to another scene, and the shot is focused on just the character’s face. The camera remains right in front of the character without shifting settings, introducing other characters, or adding any quirky movements. This is very unusual, especially for a film directed by Wes Anderson, because the director often includes ensemble casts into every shot, has long pans or moving shots, and characters are very directed in their actions to become almost fictionalized. However, Luke Wilson in this scene has very fluid motions while cutting his hair and wrists. The scene is cut into dozens of one or two second shots to keep up with the pace of the Elliot Smith song, “Needle In the Hay.” These short cuts also speed up the process of the haircutting. This adds dramatic tension to see Richie Tenenbaum strip away parts of his body one by one, even parts of his costuming including his sunglasses and headband, which the audience has grown used to and even defined Richie by over the course of the film. All of these formal elements of mise-en-scene and camera work lead to a jolt in plot progression that wake up the audience from the fantastical world previously shown, and tells them that there is something seriously eerie hidden underneath this world.

The form and content of this movie are dependent on one another, constantly building the world of the narrative. The quirky idea of this fantastic family coming back together by a father who is faking his death is a pretty absurd idea, but the structure of how the film is neatly set, direct moving shots, and narratively organized adds to this fantastical idea. The audience takes this movie light-heartedly and finds ease in relating to these extreme characters. However, during this scene when everything is jolted to a different style of form and content, then the audience is jolted in their expectations of this movie. They begin looking deeper into this fantastical world to find the truthfulness and reality these characters are displaying- however odd they might perform it.