RW412 - Wes Anderson Rewatch - Isle of Dogs

 

In this episode of The Wes ANDERSON Rewatch, Cory and Nathan will do absolutely anything to be able to discuss "Isle of Dogs."

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Anderson has said that he was inspired by seeing a road sign for the Isle of Dogs in England while Fantastic Mr. Fox was in development. Anderson said that the film was strongly influenced by the films of Akira Kurosawa, as well as the stop-motion animated holiday specials made by Rankin/Bass Productions.

Production began in October 2016 at the 3 Mills Studios in East London.

The animation department included a number of people who had worked on Fantastic Mr. Fox.

About 20,000 faces and 1,105 animatable puppets were crafted by "12 sculptors working six days a week" for the film; 2,000 more puppets were made for background characters. The detailed puppets of the main characters typically took 2–3 months to create.

Some critics have argued that the film is an example of racial stereotyping and cultural appropriation, and that one of its characters aligns with the trope of the "white savior". The Japanese characters speak unsubtitled Japanese, with their dialogue instead being translated by an interpreter or a machine.

Wes Anderson hosted a competition for someone to be a member of the voice cast for this film. The only requirement was that they donated ten dollars or more to the Film Foundation, a non-profit founded by Martin Scorsese, which specializes in the preservation and restoration of film around the world.

The title "Isle of Dogs" is a play on words. Said quickly and fluidly it sounds like "I love dogs." However, the play on words only works in English and loses that meaning in the Japanese pronunciation of the kanji, "Inu ga shima."

There is a mention of a Toho Mountain in this film. Toho is a leading Japanese film studio responsible for many of Akira Kurosawa's famous films (including Seven Samurai (1954) and Yojimbo (1961)) as well as the Godzilla franchise (which began with Godzilla (1954)) and many other giant monster and sci-fi tokusatsu (Japanese special effects) movies.

The film was released in 2018, which is the year of the dog in the Chinese Zodiac.

Wes Anderson said the character design of Tracy Walker was inspired by Kerry Fox's character Janet Frame in An Angel at My Table (1990).

The film's cast includes four Oscar winners: F. Murray Abraham, Tilda Swinton, Fisher Stevens and Frances McDormand, and eight Oscar nominees: Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Bryan Cranston, Greta Gerwig, Scarlett Johansson, Roman Coppola and Bob Balaban.

At the end of the movie, Anjelica Huston, who is a long time collaborator with Wes Anderson, is credited as the "Mute Poodle."

The film received nominations at the 76th Golden Globe Awards, 72nd British Academy Film Awards, and two nominations at the 91st Academy Awards, for Best Animated Feature Film (but lost to Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, which also starred Schreiber) and Best Original Score.

What's Up Next?

For the next film series, we'll be starting a Marvel Cinematic Universe Rewatch! We'll be breaking it up into the respective phases, starting with phase 1 and Iron Man.

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