Beauty at a Distance: Cinematic Techniques of “The Grand Budapest Hotel”

Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig, is an intensely stylized film, celebrated for its memorable set design, rich color palette, and meticulous direction. It simultaneously takes place in 2014, 1985, 1968, and 1932: In 2014, a young girl is reading a book, written in 1985, wherein the unnamed author recounts a conversation he had in 1968 with an elderly man named Zero Moustafa, who tells the tale of how he came to own the eponymous hotel in 1932. As he describes his ascent from lobby boy to hotel owner, Zero also demonstrates his clear fascination with his friend and mentor, Gustave H., a concierge obsessed with maintaining his persona as a classically styled gentleman. The events of the film’s central narrative, taking place in the central Europe of 1932, unfold against the backdrop of a great war brewing on the continent. As embodied by Gustave’s fascination with behavioral conventions of a bygone era and by Zero’s inability to discuss his deceased wife, Agatha, without breaking his narration, the film’s central themes are memory and loss. In The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson employs the techniques of ­lighting, depth of field, and narrative editing to reflect how Zero’s memory of the events depicted and his emotional associations with them affect his abilities as a storyteller.

Throughout Budapest, Anderson uses lighting cues to reflect Zero’s emotional associations with different points in the story. The most notable example of this technique comes about forty-five minutes into the film, when Zero finally discusses Agatha’s role in the plot. At this moment, the story reverts from 1932 back to 1968 to show older Zero choking up over the thought of the memory of his deceased love. “At this point in the story,” the author narrates, “the old man fell silent and pushed away his saddle of lamb. His eyes went black as two stones. I could see he was in distress.” Zero explains to the author, “You see, I never speak of Agatha because, even at the thought of her name, I am unable to control my emotions.” While the author is explaining, through narration, his dinner companion’s emotional state, the scene’s lighting changes noticeably. Immediately after the cut to 1968, the entire set is brightly illuminated by overhead lighting. The mise-en-scene here is characterized by high-key lighting, and so there are very few shadows visible in the frame (Bordwell et al. 129). Once the author mentions Zero’s onset of distress, though, the overhead lighting source dies down. The two characters, who are framed in a medium-distance two shot and facing each other in profile, are now illuminated by lighting sources facing their respective backs outside of the frame. As a result, the mise-en-scene switches to low-key lighting, with many dark shadows and a strong chiaroscuro effect (Ibid.). The lighting change creates a shift in atmosphere from light-hearted to somber, which reflects Zero’s emotional change from cheerful in his memory of Gustave to morose in his pain over losing Agatha. Anderson effectively uses the mise-en-scene of this scene to remind the audience that they are experiencing the events of the film through Zero’s eyes. The general atmosphere of the movie changes to reflect how Zero feels about his memories of the events being depicted.

Another tool that Anderson effectively uses in The Grand Budapest Hotel to illustrate Zero’s emotional connection to specific moments in the story is depth of field. Much of Budapest is shot in deep focus — which means that, using a lens with a short, sensitive film stock, and higher light levels — Anderson creates shots where objects far from the camera’s perspective are pictured in equally crisp detail to objects in the close foreground (Bordwell et al. 173–174). In deep-focus shots, because all planes of the shot are equally visible, the director must rely on other elements mise-en-scene to direct the audience’s attention to what is important in the frame. Throughout the film, Anderson’s use of deep focus serves to make each frame into a well-composed tableau, some of which have layered planes. Understanding the need to guide the viewer’s focus during deep-focus shots, Anderson he typically places a scene’s subject either in the immediate foreground, or else he arranges the blocking so that the subject is the only visibly moving object. For example, the montage of Zero’s training as a lobby boy, almost fifteen minutes into the film, includes two shots of Zero moving laterally through deep-focus shots. He is just as clearly in focus as characters two or three planes further from the camera. However, the viewer’s eye is immediately drawn to him because of his quick movement (Ibid. 145). The effect of these shots is to create a striking image of life in the titular hotel, while also keeping Zero at the center of the audience’s attention. His lateral motion also preserves layered composition of the tableaus. One important scene where Anderson breaks his pattern for using depth of field is about thirty-five minutes into the film, when the police come to arrest Gustave. When the character crosses the lobby to greet the police, and a moment later when he turns around and runs away, he crosses through several planes of depth that are demarcated by the placement of extras and pieces of furniture. This collapsing of planes distinguishes this shot from other uses of deep focus throughout Budapest, shattering appearance of a single tableau. Because it differs so greatly from the rest of the film’s deep focus shots, it brings special attention to this moment in the mind of the viewer. Such use of mise-en-scene techniques mirrors Zero’s own memory of this event. Gustave’s arrest marks a turning point in the story, kicking off the film’s second act and adding a new tragic seriousness to his relationship with Zero. It thus stands to reason that this moment particularly stands out in Zero’s memory of his time with Gustave. Anderson effectively communicates this scene’s significance to the audience by using depth of field to make it stand out in the context of the rest of the movie.

In The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson also constantly reminds the audience that they are being given Zero’s subjective perspective on the events of the film through his use of continuity editing. There are two especially noteworthy montage sequences in the film. The first is Zero’s training montage, which begins right after Gustave agrees to tutor him, fourteen minutes into the film. The montage lasts a few minutes, but it covers the narrative timespan of one month. This montage bridges the gap between Zero and Gustave’s initial meeting and the next major plot point. Anderson’s choice to include this montage, rather than simply to skip ahead a month and to mark the passage of time with a subtitle, serves to illustrate Zero’s admiration for his mentor. At the beginning of the montage, old Zero fondly narrates, “And so my life began,” which announces his emotional associations with this period of his life. Typically, during a montage sequence, the audience assumes that events irrelevant to the causality of the film’s plot will be edited out (Bordwell et al. 252). Therefore, the inclusion of these banal and seemingly inconsequential moments in a narrative montage instinctively catches the audience’s attention. Zero’s rosy narration also clearly indicates to the audience that the moments captured in this montage are being included because they are important to him personally. The entire sequence thus has the effect of relating to the audience the emotional attachment that Zero feels toward his time under Gustave’s guardianship. The second outstanding montage, beginning an hour and five minutes into the film, is the mobilization of the Society of Crossed Keys. The steady rhythm and triumphant music give an air of awe and wonder to the process depicted, as well as lend the impression that the Society’s operations are well-rehearsed and part of a larger system. This representation of the Society of Crossed Keys, as if through the eyes of someone just learning of their existence for the first time, fits much more closely with Zero’s perspective than with Gustave’s, even though the latter was the one who made the phone call to initiate the process. The montage editing in this scene shapes the audience’s perception of the film’s events to align it with Zero’s subjective point of view. Through this technique, Anderson again frames the narrative of Budapest to reflect Zero’s memories and emotional associations, rather than to relay the plot under the guise of objectivity.

In his 2014 film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, director Wes Anderson employs several techniques related to mise-en-scene — including lighting, depth of field, and narrative editing — to ensure that the audience experiences events in a way that reflects Zero’s emotionally tinged memories of them. Budapest is a story about memory and loss, and so its form accurately reflects its content. Zero, the narrator at the center of the story, is in a constant state of grieving over Agatha, and the mental blocks he has erected around his memories of her manifest themselves in the film’s distant treatment of her character. On the other hand, Zero keeps his memories of Gustave H. very much alive in his mind, which is why he is the character that the audience gets to know best by the end of the film. Even besides the grander framing devices like narrative arc and character developments, Zero’s emotional baggage has noticeable effects on the way that information is conveyed to the audience. Lighting cues, changes in focus depth, and montage sequences are only a few of the ways that Wes Anderson frames the events of 1932 to fit the retrospective gaze of the Zero of 1968. However, they are the mise-en-scene techniques that most clearly remind the viewer of the point of view through which they are experiencing The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Works Cited:

Bordwell, David, Kristin Thompson, and Jeff Smith. Film Art: An Introduction. 11th ed. New York: McGraw Hill Education, 2017. Print.

The Grand Budapest Hotel. Dir. Wes Anderson. Perf. Ralph Fiennes and Tony Revolori. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2014. DVD.