Roald Dahl’s Pornographic Poem, a Line from
Liccy [Felicity] Dahl, Roald Dahl’s widow, had invited Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach to Gypsy House, Dahl’s Buckinghamshire home, where Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach spent much time writing and going through Roald Dahl’s archives. In the billiards room, they had found something interesting.
“One thing Luke [Wilson] found,” said Wes Anderson. “He was, Okay you gotta look at this one…. Totally pornographic.” He talked about his shock at finding the pornographic line in a poem among the personal effects of the children’s books writer. His voice was sticky. Wes Anderson drank one-sixth of a glass of water.
They discussed the legality of changing the ending to the original story.
Noah: “Stealing things is harder now than it used to be—”
Wes: “I know what you mean—”
Noah: “Total clustercuss.”
Noah Baumbach drank water and looked at Wes Anderson over the top of his glass. Talk turned to the legal dilemma with the Cousteau Family during the filming of Life Aquatic. It ended with a settlement of $200,000 and a special credit. Wes Anderson held his hands up, leaned forward in his gray suit and made air quotation marks. He said, “The Cousteau Family was in no way involved in the filming of the movie.” Noah Baumbach laughed. Wes Anderson’s face was pink and healthy.
Wes: “We’ve really got taken in a direction here…. I was thinking let’s go to a clip—”
Noah: “Yes.”
Wes: “Haggis.”
The lights went off.
Film clip: Two young foxes enter a room. One in white underwear with animal prints says something in a mean way about the sleeping arrangement and climbs to the top of a red bunk bed. The other fox is in nice pajamas, like Paul Smith pajamas. He lies under a table and cries. The first fox climbs down. He turns on a train set. Both foxes watch the glowing train go around.
Meta-Death and the Calculator Watch
Noah Baumbach crossed his legs and kicked his foot up slightly. He moved it around stretching his ankle. Wes Anderson said some of the characters in Fantastic Mr. Fox, like the cousin Kristofferson, were not in the book. I wondered how long a second in stage-time is compared to a second in radio-time. Even for two friends, it seemed like it must be hard to talk without pause for over an hour. Talk moved quickly to the subject of the movie Taxi Driver:
Noah: “Do you feel like you love it?”
Wes: “Owen [Wilson] and I could communicate via lines from Taxi Driver over the course of a day—”
They talked about the difficulties of stop-motion animation. Noah Baumbach drank water and looked at Wes Anderson with a serious expression. Noah Baumbach put the glass down and put his index finger to his lip with the other fingers curled under. He looked at Wes Anderson.
“We wrote in Gypsy House. We wrote in Paris…” said Wes Anderson. “I’ll be indiscreet, I suppose.” I moved to the right. He said they were at a concert and he overheard Keith Richards and Eric Clapton talking. Keith Richards and Eric Clapton had had a history of animosity “some falling out over a girl,” in high school—they went to the same high school. The girl gave one of them a watch. They hadn’t talked to each other since high school. At the concert Wes Anderson heard one of them say to the other under his breath as he was walking out, “I still got the watch.”
Noah Baumbach said, “The rat has a watch….” He sat up and held his hands like he was grasping a basketball. His cuffs appeared from the dark sleeves of his suit. His watch shined. “The rat says, I still got it.”
“It introduced an undercurrent that the rat had had an affair with the wife of Mr. Fox,” said Wes Anderson. “It was a calculator wristwatch.”
They ruminated on the rat’s death.
Wes: “It’s a meta-death scene…operating on a level I can’t quite put my finger on—”
Noah: “But will kids…get a handle on this meta-level—”
Wes: “Yes.” He laughed like a scientist. Wes Anderson drank water. His glass was half-full.
“Haggis,” said Wes Anderson.
The lights went off.
“Or is it Haygis?” He looked around quizzically.
Film Clip: Mr. Fox and Badger are at an elegant dinner party talking about Mr. Fox’s stolen tail. Two young foxes are by a pink punch bowl. Both have real fur. One says he has a brainstorm about stealing back his father’s tail. The other says, “Whoa. Phew. Hmmm.”
