Rushmore: More than an eccentric coming of age film
In 1998, Wes Anderson presented Rushmore, a romantic comedy that takes the viewer on a journey to the charmingly eccentric and quirky world of Max Fischer (Jason Swartzman), a fifteen year old attending a prestigious prep school where he is in all the extracurricular activities but has poor grades. His life changes after he meets Mr. Blume (Bill Murray), and falls in love with Miss Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). In this film, I would like to revise a series of scenes, that contain subtle but rich text about woman’s objectification, drawing on Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” essay .
To dissect psychoanalytically the scenes that show Max’s intense infatuation for Miss Cross, it is important to agree with Laura Mulvey as she comments that “fascination of film is reinforced by preexisting patterns of fascination already at work within the individual subject and social formations that have molded him.” According to this theorist, pleasure in looking has been split between an active/male and a passive/female, which means that woman are looked as objects of male desire, provoking a man to take action in various ways. Miss Cross’ appearance, a thirty something first grade teacher at Rushmore, represents truth and grace. Her unreal rosy cheek look and english accent make her an attractive female that both Max and Mr. Blume want to date. She represents the passive female, she is just herself and whatever she does or does not do becomes a mystery for her pursuers.
When Max secretly observes Miss Cross from behind the classroom door she -woman- becomes the image and he -man- becomes the bearer of the look or the spectator of such beauty and grace. A similar situation is portrayed when Mr.Blume hides behind a tree while observing her supervise a kid painting outdoors on a canvas. Miss. Cross’ appearance provokes Max to engage in extraordinary deeds to get her attention. According to Mulvey , the male makes things happen and controls the events while the woman, creates anxiety.
A n excellent example is found in the sequences that show how Max puts all his effort and creativity to impress Miss Cross. He becomes the active male, that driven by adolescent infatuation and desire decides to; save Latin Lessons after knowing she loves Latin, writes and directs a new play that receives rave reviews, and does research, gets a sponsorship and conducts the construction of a twenty five thousand dollar aquarium for her to teach biology in .
In the beginning of the scene when Miss Cross wants to make clear that she would not date Max, he “stares at her as if she were a statue.” (Anderson), and she proceeds to ask “Has it ever crossed your mind that you're way too young for me?”
Max looks up and answers “It's crossed my mind that you might consider that a possibility, yes”. and Miss Cross adds “Not to mention you are a student”. Max replies with arrogance and in a patronizing tone “And you are a teacher. And never the twain shall meet. I know, I’m not trying to pressure you into anything, Miss Cross. I’m surprised you brought it up so bluntly.” This actions show that Max did not like her coming up to him so directly. She is the woman, and according to Mulvey she should not demystify herself or set things straight and she is not entitled to act or speak for herself.
Taking a close look to the scene that precedes Maxis successful play, he goes to a fancy restaurant with Mr.Blume, Miss Cross and her friend John (Luke Wilson). He gets drunk because he is upset due to the fact that Miss Cross brought a male friend to his dinner party. He is being sadistic in a non vulgar way treating John with disrespect. When Miss Cross asks him what’s wrong?, he makes a scene and replies screaming “You hurt my feelings. This night was important for me” as everybody in the restaurant stares disrupted. This behavior shows his sentimental regret towards her, he is punishing her with his attitude, which could be explained in Mulvey’s comment in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”:
Thus the woman as icon, displayed for the gaze and enjoyment of men, the active controllers of the look, always threatens to evoke the anxiety it originally signified. The male unconscious has two avenues of escape from his castration anxiety: preoccupation with the reenactment of the original trauma (investigating the woman,demystifying her mystery),counterbalanced by the devaluation, punishment or saving of the guilty object; or else complete disavowal of castration by the substitution of a fetish object or turning the represented figure itself into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous... The first avenue, voyeurism, on the contrary, has associations with sadism: pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt (immediately associated with castration),asserting control and subjecting the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness.(844)
On the other hand, Max does not pay attention to Margaret Yang, a smart and outgoing classmate that is the same age as he is. In the scene after Max makes an introduction speech in a classroom at his new school, Grover High, she comes up to him and behaves indifferently. Since Margaret is intelligent, she represents competition for Max. There is no mystery about Margaret, and that is why there are no close ups of her. “The beauty of a woman as object and the screen space coalesce; she is no longer the bearer of guilt but a perfect product, whose body, stylized and fragmented by close-ups, is the content of the film, and the direct recipient of the spectator’s look.” Therefore, she is not being objectified by Max but he notices her until the scene where Max and Dirk are flying a kite and are interrupted by her remote control airplane. The look on Max’s face as he talks to her, changes, it becomes tender and sweet unlike the looks he gives to Miss Cross.
In this film, spatial relationship is an important element that the director used. The scene of Max and Miss Cross sitting on the bleachers shows her face in various close ups. Every time there is a shot of her talking, it is as if she is being looked down (because she is looking up to Max that is sitting on the top bleacher). Max looks bigger, wider and more powerful than he is. “There is little or no mediation of the look through the eyes of the main male protagonist “(Mulvey). The spatial relationship element is also noticeable when Mr. Blume visits Miss Cross’s house. When she opens the door and he walks up to her, she shrugs her shoulders as if in need of protection.
To conclude, I must say that Max Fisher objectifies Miss Cross because she reperesents something he will never have. Therefore, when he tries to break the barriers between them by forcing her to kiss him, she reacts by using a different language. Miss Cross sabotages Max with dirty talk (“not if you fuck me... do you want me to make you a handjob”) and looses her glamour, her poise. This words are too abrasive for him. In that moment, she ceases to be the object of his desire.
Works Cited
Anderson, W. & Wilson,O. Rushmore. film script. date of retrieval Oct 29th 2004.
www.angelfire.com/movies/moviefreak/rushmore.html.
Mulvey, L. (2004). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. In L. Braudy & M. Cohen (Eds.), Film Theory and Criticism (pp.837 - 848). New York, New York: Oxford University Press.
Rushmore. By Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson.Dir. Wes Anderson. Perf. Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams, Seymor Cassel, Brian Cox. 1998.
To dissect psychoanalytically the scenes that show Max’s intense infatuation for Miss Cross, it is important to agree with Laura Mulvey as she comments that “fascination of film is reinforced by preexisting patterns of fascination already at work within the individual subject and social formations that have molded him.” According to this theorist, pleasure in looking has been split between an active/male and a passive/female, which means that woman are looked as objects of male desire, provoking a man to take action in various ways. Miss Cross’ appearance, a thirty something first grade teacher at Rushmore, represents truth and grace. Her unreal rosy cheek look and english accent make her an attractive female that both Max and Mr. Blume want to date. She represents the passive female, she is just herself and whatever she does or does not do becomes a mystery for her pursuers.
When Max secretly observes Miss Cross from behind the classroom door she -woman- becomes the image and he -man- becomes the bearer of the look or the spectator of such beauty and grace. A similar situation is portrayed when Mr.Blume hides behind a tree while observing her supervise a kid painting outdoors on a canvas. Miss. Cross’ appearance provokes Max to engage in extraordinary deeds to get her attention. According to Mulvey , the male makes things happen and controls the events while the woman, creates anxiety.
A n excellent example is found in the sequences that show how Max puts all his effort and creativity to impress Miss Cross. He becomes the active male, that driven by adolescent infatuation and desire decides to; save Latin Lessons after knowing she loves Latin, writes and directs a new play that receives rave reviews, and does research, gets a sponsorship and conducts the construction of a twenty five thousand dollar aquarium for her to teach biology in .
In the beginning of the scene when Miss Cross wants to make clear that she would not date Max, he “stares at her as if she were a statue.” (Anderson), and she proceeds to ask “Has it ever crossed your mind that you're way too young for me?”
Max looks up and answers “It's crossed my mind that you might consider that a possibility, yes”. and Miss Cross adds “Not to mention you are a student”. Max replies with arrogance and in a patronizing tone “And you are a teacher. And never the twain shall meet. I know, I’m not trying to pressure you into anything, Miss Cross. I’m surprised you brought it up so bluntly.” This actions show that Max did not like her coming up to him so directly. She is the woman, and according to Mulvey she should not demystify herself or set things straight and she is not entitled to act or speak for herself.
Taking a close look to the scene that precedes Maxis successful play, he goes to a fancy restaurant with Mr.Blume, Miss Cross and her friend John (Luke Wilson). He gets drunk because he is upset due to the fact that Miss Cross brought a male friend to his dinner party. He is being sadistic in a non vulgar way treating John with disrespect. When Miss Cross asks him what’s wrong?, he makes a scene and replies screaming “You hurt my feelings. This night was important for me” as everybody in the restaurant stares disrupted. This behavior shows his sentimental regret towards her, he is punishing her with his attitude, which could be explained in Mulvey’s comment in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”:
Thus the woman as icon, displayed for the gaze and enjoyment of men, the active controllers of the look, always threatens to evoke the anxiety it originally signified. The male unconscious has two avenues of escape from his castration anxiety: preoccupation with the reenactment of the original trauma (investigating the woman,demystifying her mystery),counterbalanced by the devaluation, punishment or saving of the guilty object; or else complete disavowal of castration by the substitution of a fetish object or turning the represented figure itself into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous... The first avenue, voyeurism, on the contrary, has associations with sadism: pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt (immediately associated with castration),asserting control and subjecting the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness.(844)
On the other hand, Max does not pay attention to Margaret Yang, a smart and outgoing classmate that is the same age as he is. In the scene after Max makes an introduction speech in a classroom at his new school, Grover High, she comes up to him and behaves indifferently. Since Margaret is intelligent, she represents competition for Max. There is no mystery about Margaret, and that is why there are no close ups of her. “The beauty of a woman as object and the screen space coalesce; she is no longer the bearer of guilt but a perfect product, whose body, stylized and fragmented by close-ups, is the content of the film, and the direct recipient of the spectator’s look.” Therefore, she is not being objectified by Max but he notices her until the scene where Max and Dirk are flying a kite and are interrupted by her remote control airplane. The look on Max’s face as he talks to her, changes, it becomes tender and sweet unlike the looks he gives to Miss Cross.
In this film, spatial relationship is an important element that the director used. The scene of Max and Miss Cross sitting on the bleachers shows her face in various close ups. Every time there is a shot of her talking, it is as if she is being looked down (because she is looking up to Max that is sitting on the top bleacher). Max looks bigger, wider and more powerful than he is. “There is little or no mediation of the look through the eyes of the main male protagonist “(Mulvey). The spatial relationship element is also noticeable when Mr. Blume visits Miss Cross’s house. When she opens the door and he walks up to her, she shrugs her shoulders as if in need of protection.
To conclude, I must say that Max Fisher objectifies Miss Cross because she reperesents something he will never have. Therefore, when he tries to break the barriers between them by forcing her to kiss him, she reacts by using a different language. Miss Cross sabotages Max with dirty talk (“not if you fuck me... do you want me to make you a handjob”) and looses her glamour, her poise. This words are too abrasive for him. In that moment, she ceases to be the object of his desire.
Works Cited
Anderson, W. & Wilson,O. Rushmore. film script. date of retrieval Oct 29th 2004.
www.angelfire.com/movies/moviefreak/rushmore.html.
Mulvey, L. (2004). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. In L. Braudy & M. Cohen (Eds.), Film Theory and Criticism (pp.837 - 848). New York, New York: Oxford University Press.
Rushmore. By Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson.Dir. Wes Anderson. Perf. Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams, Seymor Cassel, Brian Cox. 1998.
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