The
Grand Budapest Hotel is a 2014 comedy film directed by Wes Anderson.
The screenplay by Anderson is from a story by Anderson and Hugo Guinness,
inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig. It stars Ralph Fiennes as a
concierge who is framed for murder, and teams up with one of his employees
to prove his innocence. The film features a truly wonderful ensemble cast,
including Tony Revolori, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Harvey
Keitel, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson.
The
film is a British-American-German co-production, and was filmed in Germany.
The
Grand Budapest Hotel was released to general acclaim from film critics,
and many included it in year-end top 10 lists.
The
film received 11 BAFTA nominations, more than any other film, including
Best Film and Best Director for Anderson, and Best Actor for Fiennes.
It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical
or Comedy, and garnered three more Golden Globe Award nominations, including
Best Director for Anderson.
It
also received nine Academy Award nominations, the joint most (with Birdman)
for the ceremony, including Best Picture and Best Director. It won the
Academy Awards for Best Production Design, Best Original Score, Best Costume
Design and Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
Cinema
Trailer
Cast
Ralph Fiennes as Monsieur Gustave H.
Tony Revolori as Young Zero Moustafa
Adrien Brody as Dmitri Desgoffe und Taxis
Willem Dafoe as J.G. Jopling
Jeff Goldblum as Deputy Vilmos Kovacs
Saoirse Ronan as Agatha
Edward Norton as Inspector Henckels
F. Murray Abraham as Old Zero Moustafa
Mathieu Amalric as Serge X.
Jude Law as The Author as a Young Man
Harvey Keitel as Ludwig
Bill Murray as Monsieur Ivan
Léa Seydoux as Clotilde
Jason Schwartzman as Monsieur Jean
Tilda Swinton as Madame Céline Villeneuve Desgoffe und Taxis
(Madame D.)
Tom Wilkinson as The Author as an Old Man
Owen Wilson as Monsieur Chuck
Bob Balaban as M. Martin
Giselda Volodi (it) as Serge's sister
Waris Ahluwalia as M. Dino
Neal Huff as Lieutenant
Lisa Kreuzer as Grande Dame
Florian Lukas as Pinky
Karl Markovics as Wolf
Larry Pine as Mr. Mosher
Daniel Steiner as Anatole
Fisher Stevens as M. Robin
Wallace Wolodarsky as M. Georges (as Wally Wolodarsky)
Production
The Grand Budapest Hotel is a British-American-German co-production
of Wes Anderson's American Empirical Pictures (US), Grand Budapest
Limited (UK), Indian Paintbrush (US), and Neunzehnte Babelsberg
Film GmbH (Germany). The film was funded by the German Federal Film
Fund (DFFF), Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg
as well as Medien-und Filmgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg.
Anderson
and Guinness' story was inspired by several works by the Austrian
writer Stefan Zweig, particularly the novella Twenty-Four Hours
in the Life of a Woman (1927), the novel Beware of Pity (1939) and
his autobiography The World of Yesterday (1934–42). Wes Anderson
suggested editor Barney Pilling watch Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop
Around the Corner and the films of Jacques Tati as references.
It
was filmed entirely on location in Germany, mainly in Görlitz
and other parts of Saxony as well as at Studio Babelsberg. Principal
photography began in January 2013 on location in Berlin and Görlitz.
One of the principal locations was the defunct Görlitzer Warenhaus,
a huge Jugendstil department store with a giant atrium, one of the
few such department stores in Germany to survive World War II. It
served as the atrium lobby of the hotel. Filming concluded in March
2013.
Anderson
shot the film in three aspect ratios, 1.33, 1.85, and 2.35:1, one
for each timeline.
For
wide shots of the hotel, Anderson used a three metre tall handmade
miniature model. He felt that, since audiences would know that the
shot was artificial, computer-generated effects or otherwise, "The
particular brand of artificiality that I like to use is an old-fashioned
one." He had previously used miniatures in The Life Aquatic
with Steve Zissou and more extensively in Fantastic Mr. Fox.
In
designing the hotel, Anderson and production designer Adam Stockhausen
undertook extensive research, looking at vintage images at the Library
of Congress of hotels and European vacation spots, as well as existing
locales such as the pastel-pink Palace Bristol Hotel, prominently
featured on movie advertisements, and the Grandhotel Pupp in the
spa town of Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad), Czech Republic and the Grandhotel
Gellért in Budapest. The model used varying scales: the hotel
model was 14 feet long and 7 feet deep, the tree-spotted hill on
which it stood was a different scale, and finally the funicular
railway in the foreground was built to a third scale to capture
it best cinematically.
The
painting in the film, Boy with Apple, a Renaissance masterpiece
by the artist Johannes Van Hoytl the Younger, is a fictional piece
commissioned by Anderson and painted by Michael Taylor. The painting
took four months to prepare for the film. Likewise the much sought
after pastry, Herr Mendl's courtesan au chocolat, is a humorous
fictional creation of Wes Anderson's, as a symbol of the courtesan
lifestyle of the concierge, the triple tier form of the story, and
as an element to escape prison. The bespoke pastry was produced
by a local baker in Görlitz. The brief was to come up with
something related to a classic religieuse, which is French for 'nun',
with chocolate covered stacked profiteroles resembling a nun in
black robes. Anderson worked with the baker to perfect the final
look.
The
widow's mansion was filmed partially within Schloss (castle) Waldenberg.
The fake newspapers in the film feature mainly original text, but
also use some excerpts from three Wikipedia articles.
The
Visual Effects were undertaken by the German VFX Company LUXX Studios.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack of the film is composed by Alexandre Desplat, who
worked with Anderson previously on Fantastic Mr. Fox and
Moonrise Kingdom. It is co-produced by Anderson with music
supervisor, Randall Poster; they, too, worked together on Moonrise
Kingdom. The original music is by Desplat, along with Russian
folk songs together with pieces composed by Öse Schuppel, Siegfried
Behrend, and Vitaly Gnutov, and performed by the Osipov State Russian
Folk Orchestra.
Wes
Anderson and Randall Poster chose a balalaika to establish the musical
voice of the film. They gathered two orchestras with a total of
35 balalaika musicians for the recording of the soundtrack, including
the France-based "Saint Georges" Balalaika Orchestra and
the State Academic Russian Folk Ensemble "Russia" from
Moscow. Desplat’s use of the balalaika begins with “Moustafa”
but it returns over and over again. Other instruments in this soundtrack
include alphorns, whistles, organ, male choir, bells and cimbalom.
The
32 tracks, with orchestral elements, keyboard instruments and balalaikas,
feature eclectic variations and central European melodic themes.
Balalaikas are used in "Overture: M. Gustave H" and church
organs in "Last Will and Testament". A music box interlude
punctuates "Up the Stairs / Down the Hall", and there
are haunted-house piano stylings in "Mr. Moustafa". Harpsichords
and strings are featured in the baroque piece, "Concerto for
Lute and Plucked Strings I. Moderato". The opening song, the
Appenzell yodel "s'Rothe-Zäuerli" by Ruedi and Werner
Roth, is from the Swiss folk group's Öse Schuppel's album Appenzeller
Zäuerli.
Soundtrack
Album Track listing
All
songs written and composed by Alexandre Desplat, except where noted.
1. "s'Rothe-Zäuerli" (Öse Schuppel) 1:12
2. "The Alpine Sudetenwaltz" 0:36
3. "Mr. Moustafa" 3:03
4. "Overture: M. Gustave H" 0:30
5. "A Prayer for Madame D" 1:20
6. "The New Lobby Boy" 2:17
7. "Concerto for Lute and Plucked Strings I. Moderato"
(Siefried Behrend and DZO Chamber Orchestra) 2:52
8. "Daylight Express to Lutz" 2:16
9. "Schloss Lutz Overture" 0:32
10. "The Family Desgoffe Und Taxis" 1:49
11. "Last Will and Testament" 2:16
12. "Up the Stairs/Down the Hall" 0:27
13. "Night Train to Nebelsbad" 1:44
14. "The Lutz Police Militia" 0:49
15. "Check Point 19 Criminal Internment Camp Overture"
0:11
16. "The Linden Tree" (Osipov State Russian Folk Orchestra
and Vitaly Gnutov) 2:24
17. "J.G. Jopling, Private Inquiry Agent" 1:28
18. "A Dash of Salt (Ludwig's Theme)" 1:32
19. "The Cold-Blooded Murder of Deputy Vilmos Kovacs"
2:47
20. "Escape Concerto" 2:12
21. "The War (Zero's Theme)" 1:01
22. "No Safe-House" 1:32
23. "The Society of the Crossed Keys" 2:21
24. "M. Ivan" 1:15
25. "Lot 117" 0:30
26. "Third Class Carriage" 1:20
27. "Canto at Gabelmeister's Peak" 5:35
28. "A Troops Barracks (Requiem for the Grand Budapest)"
5:18
29. "Cleared of All Charges" 1:10
30. "The Mystical Union" 1:26
31. "Kamarinskaya" (Osipov State Russian Folk Orchestra
and Vitaly Gnutov) 2:43
32. "Traditional Arrangement: "Moonshine"" 3:21