This year’s The Grand Budapest Hotel heralds a director that his superbly honed his craft, and as is almost always the case, it’s fascinating to see where the talent came from. Wes Anderson‘s first short, Bottle Rocket, was created in 1992, released two years later when it premiered at Sundance, then expanded upon for the feature-length version, which took an additional two years to arrive.
Not only introducing the world to Anderson, but Luke and Owen Wilson as well, the black-and-white 13-minute piece is far different visually than what we’re accustomed to from the director. With clear French New Wave influences, we can see the brothers play aspiring thieves and for more on the project, we also have a 25-minute documentary that goes behind the making of both the short and the follow-up feature.
Among the tidbits discusses are how those involved lived together in the same apartment, yet never read through the script for some time, the difficulty of cutting scenes, how Owen Wilson made a living playing pool, the two-year development process for adapting the short into a feature, improvisation help from James L. Brooks, a disastrous test screening (expanded on greater in a conversation with collaborator Noah Baumbach) and much more. Check out both the short and the 25-minute making of documentary below with a hat tip to No Film School.
