The French Dispatch (2021) on Netflix
After the editor of The French Dispatch dies, his staff in Ennui-sur-Blasé assemble one last issue, gathering stories of a jailed painter, a student revolt and a kidnapped boy.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.1/10170,601 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes75%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1975, Arthur Howitzer Jr., editor of The French Dispatch in the town of Ennui-sur-Blasé, dies, and his will calls for one farewell issue before the magazine closes. Herbsaint Sazerac opens it with a cycling tour of the town; other articles cover Moses Rosenthaler, a painter in prison who paints a portrait of Simone, a guard; a student revolt reported by Lucinda Krementz and led by Zeffirelli, with Juliette among the revolutionaries; and a private dinner for Roebuck Wright and the Commissaire, cooked by Lieutenant Nescaffier, that is interrupted when the Commissaire's son Gigi is kidnapped for ransom by criminals. The kidnappers demand the release of an accountant called Albert, known as the Abacus.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The French Dispatch (2021)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch was inspired by his love of The New Yorker, and several characters were based on real magazine figures: editor Arthur Howitzer Jr. on founding editor Harold Ross, Herbsaint Sazerac on writer Joseph Mitchell, and food journalist Roebuck Wright on an amalgamation of James Baldwin, A. J. Liebling and Tennessee Williams.
- The segment "Revisions to a Manifesto" was inspired by Mavis Gallant's two-part New Yorker article "The Events in May: A Paris Notebook" about the May 68 student protests, while "The Concrete Masterpiece" drew on the 1951 feature "The Days of Duveen", a six-part profile of art dealer Lord Duveen.
- Kate Winslet was at first in the cast of The French Dispatch, but she left the project to get ready for her next role in Ammonite.
- Rosenthaler's abstract paintings in The French Dispatch were created by German-New Zealand visual artist Sandro Kopp, Tilda Swinton's partner, over three months in an on-set studio in Angoulême; Kopp also served as Tony Revolori's hand-double for scenes of the young Rosenthaler painting.
- The French Dispatch's animated segments were directed by Gwenn Germain, who had worked on Anderson's Isle of Dogs, and were done entirely by local illustrators as a nod to Angoulême's comic heritage; the team of at most 15 people took about seven months, inspired by The Adventures of Tintin and Blake and Mortimer.
- Cinematographer Robert Yeoman shot The French Dispatch on 35 mm film, using Kodak Vision3 200T 5213 for color sequences and Eastman Double-X 5222 for black-and-white ones, and the crew used scaffolding and ropes instead of a Technocrane and golf carts instead of camera cars.
- Production designer Adam Stockhausen estimated that over 125 sets were constructed for The French Dispatch, most on location around Angoulême, where a former felt factory was converted into a makeshift movie studio.
