Under the Influence: The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel, directed by Wes Anderson, is a movie that had influences from the literary works of Stefan Zweig. Some elements that the movie had were from Zweig’s personal life and parts of his writings, for example, Beware of Pity and the Post Office Girl. According to Wes Anderson, the “Society of Crossed Keys were a secret guild of European hotel concierges” that helped to prove Gustave’s innocence against a falsely accused murder. Bill Murray was a cameo as one of the concierges, which I thought was essential. In a conversation between George Prochnick and Wes Anderson, Anderson mentions that in the Grand Budapest Hotel, the characters of “The Author” and M. Gustave were supposed to represent Zweig himself partly based on personality and as a metaphor.

The subtext of the movie seems to be about how society in Europe is being affected by the rise of communism and fascism. In Beware of Pity, it had elements of the inevitable World War II, which was taking place in the time period of the Grand Budapest Hotel. The context of the movie is about how someone who works hard investing all his time and energy into a world of security, is facing with the conflict of losing everything. In the beginning of the film, Gustave was questioned by soldiers about Zero’s immigrant status. Then again at the end of the film, Gustave died trying to protect Zero and his girlfriend from the officers. It seemed to relate to the Post Office Girl as well because of her struggle with the Nazi oppression. It is notable to mention that Zweig lived during both World Wars as a Jew. Keeping that in mind, you can tell the influences it had in his works that has influenced Anderson’s work.

Another element that the Grand Budapest Hotel had from Zweig’s work is the attention to detail. Anderson noted that Zweig wrote with such detail that it seems to translate onto the screen. There were a lot of color schemes in each shot from the movie. With a lot of these scenes changing so quickly, there is a pattern of change in moods and tones throughout. I also noticed that everything was shot in one point perspective. I believe that was done on purpose to emphasize that the events in the movie were recalled memories. That way it could be considered to be more of a visual storytelling rather than a movie. The narration also helped make it feel like you were observing a live book. I hate using this term, but it felt whimsical because of the cuts to each chapter in the movie. Each establishing shot of the setting seems purposefully faux; another visual way to show that it was more of a story being told.

Having already reviewed Rushmore, another movie directed by Wes Anderson, the Grand Budapest Hotel shared a similar take on its style. A lot of Gustave’s actions and demeanor was basically an older version of Max from Rushmore but that did not take away from the quality of the film. I think that Wes Anderson is a director that certainly has done a lot of research and reading a lot of literary works from Stefan Zweig. When I was reading what he says in the conversation, he does a lot of critical thinking and analyzing about Zweig as a writer and why certain controversial topics effects his writing.