Anderson talks of ‘The Phoenician Scheme’ and Cannes bus

Wes Anderson isn’t driving the bus. Laurent is. That’s the name of the driver who’s bringing Anderson, and his bus, to the Cannes Film Festival. As they drive from his home in Paris to the South of France, Anderson explains by phone: “I don’t drive the bus. You have to have, like, four years of training and an EU bus driver’s licence. The thing is, if you’re going to drive a bus like this, you’ve got to be able to drive it in reverse, too.”

For years, Anderson has, in favour of the normal festival cars that shuttle guests, brought his own bus to Cannes so his whole cast can arrive together at the premiere. On Sunday, Anderson and company (including Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Scarlett Johansson and Bryan Cranston) will pile in for the premiere of Anderson’s latest, “The Phoenician Scheme.”

It’s another example of how Anderson has made something quite unusual into a regular tradition. With remarkable regularity, Anderson has been crafting movies uniquely his own since his 1996 debut, “Bottle Rocket.” There are variations. Some are expansive family dramas (“The Royal Tenenbaums”). Some are more intimate (“Rushmore”). Some are more densely layered (“Asteroid City”).

“The Phoenician Scheme,” a leaner tale which Focus Features will release on May 30, is Anderson working in high comic gear. A playful and poignant kind of thriller, it stars Del Toro as the tycoon Zsa-Zsa Korda, who decides to name his daughter, a novitiate (Threapleton) heir to his dubiously accrued fortune.

The wheels keep turning for the 56-year-old Anderson. But there are signs of time passing, too. The Cinémathèque in Paris is hosting an Anderson retrospective, as well as an exhibition of props, costumes and artifacts from his expansive personal archive. Anderson, who has a 9-year-old daughter with his wife, the costume designer Juman Malouf, spoke about those things and others on his way to Cannes to unveil “The Phoenician Scheme,” a movie that adds yet another fitting mantra to the world of Wes: “What matters is the sincerity of your devotion.”

How was it to dig through all the things you’ve saved from your movies?

We’ve been keeping this stuff for so long. The experience of doing it was kind of great. I’d sort of get pulled over there to approve things. And my reaction was, “Well, we have more stuff.” So we kept adding things. My daughter has lived with a lot of this stuff. The “Fantastic Mr. Fox” puppets have been in our apartment in New York ever since we made the movie in boxes. Over the years, she takes them out and plays with them.

Jason Schwartzman once told me your movies aren’t for kids but it’s “like they’re for kids when they grow up.” Do you agree?

(Laughs) Jason, and Bill, have a way of catching you off guard with a turn of phrase. But I like that description. It’s kind of an amazing experience to have had Jason involved in our movies for so long given that he was 17 when I met him. It’s fun and a strange feeling. The decades have to elapse for you to have had that much time together. And it’s quite shocking that they do. But there it is.

What drew you to Del Toro?

If I were to say what is the first idea of the movie, it is that face. It’s not an image of the setting, it’s an image of Benicio in a close-up as this character. His face is just so expressive and interesting. It’s a special advantage he has. He’s quite mesmerizing just looking at him on camera, his chemistry with the exposure of film. In “The French Dispatch,” there were electric moments on the set. But the electricity was amplified when we went back into the cutting room. The wheels started turning. When we showed “The French Dispatch” however many years ago in Cannes, I did mention to Benicio there, “Just be aware, there’s something else coming.”

Associated Presss