Todd Giles
down colors, characteristics related not just to aesthetics, but also to the
American culture in which the movie is set; a culture on the verge of the
explosion of colors, morés, sounds, and freedoms of the late 1960s. One
might argue, then, that Britten and Anderson’s works also share a nostalgia
for earlier, better times—Britten’s written just after World War II, Anderson’s
looking back to a time of seeming American “innocence” before the sociocultural-political developments of the radical 1960s. Indeed, both Moonrise
Kingdom and The Young Person’s Guide carry en memorium dedications to
youth.1
recurrent theme in Anderson’s oeuvre: the fragmented family unit. According
to contemporary American novelist Michael Chabon, “Anderson—who has
of his life—adopts a Nabokovian procedure with the families or quasi families
Rushmore forward, creating a series of scalemodel households that . . . intensify our experience of brokenness and loss
painting of the house within the house and a small children’s toy playhouse
Moonrise opens in darkness with ambient sound. Within a few seconds
we see an Anderson hallmark—a frame-within-the-frame—in the form of a
primitive painting of the house on the wall within which it hangs. Outside thunder
rumbles, indicating some kind of trouble in the household as the camera, and
scissors which will play a pivotal role later in the story; her red plaid attaché
hangs on the right. As the camera pans right, we see the portable record
player that will momentarily present the music which opens and closes the
Suzy’s younger brothers, climbs the stairs with his morning bowl of breakfast.
He disappears from view for a moment and returns with the record player in
hand as he walks to the music room.
of music in much the same way that Britten introduces the four instrumental
record, which begins with the voice of a young narrator explaining to both the
1
The Young Person’s Guide is dedicated to Pamela Maud, one of Joh