By Joe O’Connell
Sure, Max Fischer is a hustler guilty of both attempted murder and adapting "Serpico" for the high school stage. But "Rushmore" director and co-writer Wes Anderson begs you not to judge the kid too harshly. "He does some unforgivable stuff," Anderson said, "but I feel he is redeemed. I have a personal feeling for this character like he was someone I knew. I hate it when someone says they find him unlikable. We try to push him, but I don’t want him to be a bad guy."
Fischer, an outrageous prep-schooler portrayed by newcomer Jason Schwartzman (the son of actress Talia Shire), is the heart and soul of the much-anticipated sophomore effort from Anderson and Owen Wilson, the creators of the indie hit "Bottle Rocket."
"We did a big casting search all over the place for a year," Anderson said. "It was a real hassle. Finally our casting director in San Francisco found this kid and sent him in to me. I felt like within 30 seconds we had something. He was not like anyone else. He was very compelling and I just liked him a lot personally. I’d always hoped I’d get to cast someone I’d be friends with."
Anderson also was pleased to work with Bill Murray, who has already garnered wide praise for his role as a businessman who competes with Fischer for the hand of a first-grade teacher. Murray has been named best supporting actor by both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and was nominated for a Golden Globe. "He’s really funny and he’s such a great guy," Anderson said of Murray. "He made a real effort to support this movie. There’s a danger when you make a film that you’ll settle for things. Murray wasn’t interested in settling for anything. I’m not either, and it’s good to have somebody like that involved."
The film features a crew largely intact from "Bottle Rocket," with the heads of every department returning for "Rushmore." And Anderson felt even more at home with his character Fischer, a student who practically runs Rushmore Academy by forming endless clubs and producing lavish school plays, but can’t be bothered to study and thus faces expulsion.
Anderson attended St. John’s, the Houston school where "Rushmore" was filmed, and was the kid who loved to put on plays. Meanwhile, Wilson went to St. Mark’s in Dallas.
"Both of us thought we were going to go to really good colleges, but we were both bad students and never stood any chance of getting into the places we were applying," Anderson said. "We did get rejected by all of them."
Instead they went to the University of Texas at Austin and met in a fateful playwriting class. Anderson wrote a play, and Wilson acted in it. Before they finished school they two had started work on the "Bottle Rocket" script.
Their collaborative writing process starts with lots of talking,
Anderson said. "One of us will write a scene and hand it to the other, and
they’ll make marks and hand it back, act out things, add things," he said.
"As it goes along we write more and more and we start to figure out if we need a
scene. It sort of evolves that way, just the two of us hashing it out." Like
"Bottle Rocket," the script of "Rushmore" appears to be on the verge
of spinning out of control, but instead sends viewers on an enjoyably wild ride.
"The stuff we get excited about are unexpected turns in the story," Anderson
said. But he admits getting there takes careful planning. "The process starts with
the way you want the movie to feel, the setting, the characters and the way they’ll
interact, and less the story," Anderson said.
Next, the script is storyboarded, not once but twice. "It’s a pain because it takes forever," Anderson said. "I like to plan as much as possible. The more you can have ideas for things, the more you can really make an effort to find a new way to do a scene. It becomes more dense if you really make an effort, much like if you’re writing a novel. It’s hard to make that stuff happen spontaneously." Anderson worked hard to create "Rushmore" as a fable on film. "There’s a sort of unreality," he said. "You don’t see cars from today. There aren’t any cultural references really. It’s just its own little world."
Anderson cites as influences French films such as Louis Malle’s "Murmur of the Heart" and Jean Renoir’s "The Rules of the Game." "I like movies where there is real affection for the characters," Anderson said. "In these movies I feel there aren’t any real bad guys. I think Renoir says something to the effect that everyone has their reasons. You have to make an effort to understand them."
But he is not interested portraying the raw violence popular in many ’90s
American films. "I guess I’m not too into cynical, cool movies right now,"
Anderson said. Instead Anderson’s major American influences are ’70s directors
such as Mike Nichols and Hall Ashby. Similarities to the tone of Ashby’s cult hit
"Harold and Maude" and "Rushmore" are obvious. "I used a Cat
Stevens’ song," he said. "That got to be paying respect on some
level."
Music plays a large role in "Rushmore." Anderson originally considered using
music solely by the Kinks, but instead chose a soundtrack of ’60s-’70s British
invasion rock that better explains Max Fischer’s motivations.
"It’s really angry rock music, but it’s played by English kids in blazers, like school boys," he said. "I think that combo is something like what this kid is." Anderson hopes filmgoers who only experienced "Bottle Rocket" on videotape, will make a point of watching Fischer’s tale on the big screen. "With ‘Bottle Rocket,’ not that many people got to see it in the theater," he said. "There wasn’t much of an event to its release. I sort of regretted that."