The other night, I felt compelled to watch the 1971 British movie, "Melody", after hearing Wes Anderson reference it in an interview regarding Moonrise Kingdom, and before I went to see just that movie today. I'm glad I watched it first. This is one of those times when you can comprehend and appreciate how an artist has "played jazz", as they say, with an existing work, both thematically as well as in the details.
Melody is fascinating all by itself. It is very unique - an oddity, though I am unable to identify how much of that is due to the age and mediocre production values of the movie. The movie creates a world filled with cultural degeneration permeating everyone and everything. The children in school smoke, drink, more often than not act like wild animals (these could be the cast of Animal House some years earlier); the parents are vain or caddy, all colossally flawed human beings; the teachers are caricatures; the two principal kids can only be products of their environment - Daniel lights his father's newspaper on fire and attacks his best friend, though it is clear he is a victim of upbringing and environment, and that underneath this he is mostly predisposed to kindness. In any case, if the movie allows a miracle, it is that any sanity is possible in such a world. In this case, Melody and Daniel have survived parents and teachers and all the rugrat peers they are constantly surrounded by to become [mostly] sane human beings against the odds.
Despite the notes of satire in the portrayal of the teachers, when order finally breaks down into anarchy, it mostly feels like it had been inevitable. Though Ornshaw's tumult with Daniel follows a wonderful arc, they are sanity among insanity (Ornshaw more sane even than the others), and the force and momentum of the larger groups (the students, the teachers and parents) never cease pushing forward the events of the story.
The resolution of Melody and Daniel's impasse is a formalist choice of theme over the constraints of reality, no matter how chaotic the reality of the movie is portrayed to be. It is the only possible way to play out the romantic and redemptive trajectories of the story. Where else can two 10-year olds in love go but aimlessly into the wildness? That their final mode of transportation is both self-powered and absurd is perhaps a more careful choice than it may initially seem. And, with that, they pass into that transcendent movie-magic space composed of equal parts bliss and oblivion.
By my judgment, Wes Anderson has borrowed many of the right details from Melody, both central - the familial alienation felt by the leads, the delay in showing them together, the 180-degree change of heart among the peers - and smaller - the boy unabashedly enjoying painting nude models, their absurd home lives. Further, the strongest characteristics of Melody that he did not borrow are the ones that contradict his storytelling "toolkit" - the open-book ending, the overwhelming sense of ambiguity, of looking for sense among nonsense. It is also worth noting that the order of inspiration is evident (even if the 40-year gap in release dates wouldn't make it obvious) and I do not believe that a read in reverse would produce similar insights.
Fortunately, Anderson is strong enough with his own tools that a different, also outstanding movie results. The style is its own thing and yet enhances the movie - frames packed with details, the wonderful idiosyncrasy and juxtaposition (the kid on the trampoline when Uncle Ben makes Sam and Suzy talk over the idea of marriage). The music is much more varied than in Melody, though it may be surprising to find the strongest irony in the soundtrack to Melody ("Teach Your Children Well" playing as a kid's homemade pipe bomb destroys a convertible and the kids relentlessly attack the adults). Wes Anderson's music choices are not dissimilar to Tarantino in artistic intent - to embellish a scene, to add a brushstroke to scenes that, when successful, gives them a transcendent quality. The introduction to Moonrise Kingdom, especially, is as integral and interesting and fun as I can remember a movie intro being.
I think it was the best decision of my week to watch these essentially back to back.
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