The Wes Anderson Collection

by Matt Zoller Seitz, Eric C. Anderson (Illustrator), Michael Chabon (Introduction)

Overview

This New York Times bestselling overview of Wes Anderson's filmography features previously unpublished behind-the-scenes photos, artwork, and ephemera, with an introduction by Michael Chabon.

Writer/director Wes Anderson guides movie/television critic Matt Zoller Seitz through Anderson's life and career in a hardcover book-length conversation, woven together with original illustrations and production images from Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Moonrise Kingdom.

The result is a meticulously designed book that captures and reflects the spirit of Wes Anderson's movies: melancholy, playful, wise, and wonderfully unique.

Also available from Matt Zoller Seitz: The Oliver Stone Experience, The Wes Anderson Collection: Bad Dads, The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Mad Men Carousel.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810997417
Publisher:	Abrams, Harry N., Inc.
Publication date:	10/08/2013
Series:	Wes Anderson Collection Series
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	51,191
Product dimensions:	10.10(w) x 12.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Matt Zoller Seitz, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism, is the TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, as well as the editor-in-chief of RogerEbert.com.

A Brooklyn-based writer and filmmaker, Seitz has written, narrated, edited, or produced more than a hundred hours' worth of video essays about cinema history and style for The Museum of the Moving Image and The L Magazine, among other outlets. His five-part 2009 video essay, "Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style," was later spun off into a New York Times bestselling hardcover book series: The Wes Anderson Collection (Abrams, 2013) and The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel (Abrams, 2015).

Seitz is the founder and original editor of The House Next Door, now a part of Slant Magazine, and the publisher of Press Play, a blog of film and TV criticism and video essays. He is the director of the 2005 romantic comedy Home.

Michael Chabon is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of many novels, the most recent being Telegraph Avenue. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and four children.

Max Dalton is a graphic artist living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, by way of Barcelona, New York, and Paris. He has published a few books and illustrated some others, including The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel (Abrams, 2015). Max started painting in 1977, and since 2008, he has been creating posters about music, movies, and pop culture, quickly becoming one of the top names in the industry.

Editorial Reviews

10/28/2013
Cultural critic Seitz tours the quirky career of movie director Wes Anderson in this upbeat coffee-table book. Featuring a plethora of behind the scene photos, production artifacts, the author successfully conveys Anderson's creativity especially through the use of the director's original artwork. Every Anderson movie—from Bottle Rocket to the most recently Moonrise Kingdom—gets the royal treatment: a short essay from Seitz, an interview with the director, scrapbook's worth of photos. Anderson reveals the importance of his college library for aiding his interest in film, discusses his attraction to "old-fashioned special effects," and shares his favorite directors including Alfred Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut, along with how he attempts to evoke their style in his own movies. Seitz shows detailed knowledge of his subject's work, and Anderson is open about his creative process, making this tour especially worth taking. An introduction by author Michael Chabon is an added bonus. Color illus. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

It’s smart, informative, and looks beautiful. In other words, it’s the perfect gift.

Complex magazine

Reading the book, you feel as if you’re disappearing into the miniature world of Anderson’s movies, like you’re playing around in the files and fastidiously kept dossiers assembled for each project. In this way, the book mimics the work.

Complex.com

Each page of this book—filled with conversations, photographs and artwork surrounding each film—showcases Anderson’s pop-culture inspirations from Hitchcock and Star Wars to Jacques Cousteau and the French New Wave. Better than most of their kind, the talks reveal a candidness and honesty between critic and director, allowing Seitz to dig around Anderson’s vault and share his discoveries.

FILTER

A magical tour of Wes Anderson’s filmography.

C magazine

Your coffee table wants—no, scratch that—needs this book . . . Packed with 400 images of everything from behind-the-scenes set shots to makeup inspiration to hand-drawn storyboards, the massive tome is pure eye candy. But in addition to the visuals, Seitz also dives deep into each and every Anderson film.

NYLON

The Wes Anderson Collection comes as close as a book can to reading like a Wes Anderson film. The design is meticulously crafted, with gorgeous full-page photos and touches like a still representation of Rushmore’s opening montage.

The A.V. Club

01/01/2014
The first book by Pulitzer Prize finalist and television critic Seitz (New York magazine) covers the director Wes Anderson's filmmaking career from 1993's Bottle Rocket to 2012's Moonrise Kingdom. Taking a cue from its subject, the coffee table-size book is intricately and whimsically designed, with many movie stills, production photos, and original illustrations of characters and places from the films that capture the director's quirky sensibility. After an introduction by writer Michael Chabon, the films are covered chronologically, with brief essays and lengthy interviews of the filmmaker conducted by Seitz. The work is intended to immerse fans in the unique world of Anderson's films and provide insight into his inspiration and techniques. As a fellow filmmaker (Home, 2005), fan, and longtime acquaintance of Anderson's, the author's enthusiasm and knowledge of his subject helps the volume succeed wonderfully. Only one other book-length treatment of Anderson's work has been published (Mark Browning's Wes Anderson: Why His Movies Matter). VERDICT This visually attractive and accessible title will appeal to Anderson fans and popular film buffs.—Dave Valencia, Seattle P.L.

Library Journal