Grand Budapest Hotel Scene Review: The Reading Madame D.’s Will
The Grand Budapest Hotel is a fantastical and hilarious film with its quick humor, playful acting, absurd yet elegant costumes, and use of color. This critically acclaimed film is visually stunning. However, beneath the dazzling surface there is a grim undertone of barbarity and loneliness.
Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) is a drama comedy that explores the motifs and styles of Eastern Europe in the early-to-mid twentieth century. Although the film is fictional there are realistic aspects that make the movie provocative. From the script, to the costume and set design, to the choice instrumentation in the music, Wes Anderson has outdone himself on this cinematic masterpiece — looking back it’s easy to see why this film was nominated for so many Oscar awards.
The Grand Budapest Hotel takes place in an imaginary Eastern European country named Zubrowka. The film has multiple time lines and a unique narrative structure. The viewer starts with seeing a woman walk into the Lutz cemetery and walk towards a grave with a headpiece of the man named “Author”. The woman then proceeds to put something on the grave and take out a book titled The Grand Budapest Hotel. As she begins to read the book, the narration of the author begins and the viewer is taken back to 1985 where the author is still alive. The older author, played by Tom Wilkinson, reminisces about his visit to the Grand Budapest Hotel in 1968.
The viewer travels back in time again, to when the esteemed author (Jude Law) visits the Grand Budapest Hotel in its withering condition and meets the renowned owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham). Mr. Moustafa was a refugee immigrant with no family and inherited a fortune. The author was intrigued by Mr. Moustafa’s story and his loneliness. With an abrupt encounter in the hotel’s bathhouse, the writer curiously asked Mr. Moustafa how he came to own the hotel. Instead of answering that question right away, Mr. Moustafa invited the writer to dinner to tell him the story of how he came to own the Grand Budapest.
When the narration switches to Mr. Moustafa, the viewer is taken further back in time to 1932. This was when Mr. Moustafa was only known as Zero, the quiet and obedient junior lobby boy of the hotel, working under the eccentric concierge Monsieur Gustave H.. Over time Monsieur Gustave and Zero’s relationship as mentor and protégé develops into a loving friendship. Monsieur Gustave guides Zero in how to work as the lobby boy in the hotel while Zero attends to Gustave needs and helps him in his mischievous adventures.
One scene in particular that ignites the bond between these two characters and the plot is the death of Madame D. and the reading of her will. Madame D. (Tilda Swinton) was one of Gustave’s older lovers, and clients, that came to the hotel for nearly twenty years. When Gustave found out that she had died, him and Zero traveled to her estate to pay their respects. While sitting by his ex-lover’s casket, Gustave is told that Madame D.’s butler, Serge X. (Mathieu Almaric), needs to speak with him. As Gustave and Zero wait in Serge’s office in the kitchen, the narration from the older Zero begins. The narrator identifies Serge for the first time, and the butler in all white makes eye contact with Gustave and Zero. They spot Serge in a rush somewhere else and follow him through thick green doors.
When Gustave and Zero open the doors, the narration stops and the camera zooms out to let the viewer see the mise-en-scène, which feels like hunting trophy room at first glance with the stuffed dear heads and horns mounted on both walls near the door. But after three seconds the sequence cuts to the rest of the room from perspective of what Gustave and Zero see: lighted chandeliers, rifles put on racks, bear skin rugs and more mounted dear heads, multiple people sitting down in chairs on both sides of an aisle that leads to a stage. On the stage there is a brown wooden desk at the center, a piano with a bench to the left and a stuffed bear standing on the right. There is also painting of a boar at the far wall behind the stage with candles lit on both sides. The viewer then gets another camera angle from the stage; seeing the people sitting down and the main characters in the far back near the doors. The setting then feels like an auction house at this moment. The narration continues and the camera pans across those who are sitting in the room. The older Zero begins to explain that all of Madame D.’s relatives are here, but for what reason?
When the camera panning stops we see Serge at the right side of the room looking over to Gustave and Zero surprised that they followed him into the hall. The camera swiftly moves over to where Gustave and Zero position, and rapidly moves to the left side of the room where a door is opened for Deputy Kovacs (Jeff Goldblum)to enter. Deputy Kovacs, a lawyer and friend of the Grand Budapest Hotel, is carrying in a box of documents, presumably belonging to the Madame D., looks over to Gustave and Zero confused yet concerned. Zero’s narration confirms that Kovacs is indeed the lawyer of the dead widow’s estate as well. The camera continues to follow Deputy Kovacs walking onto the stage and places the box of documents on a desk. Then the camera angle changes and we see Kovac’s silhouette in the foreground as he looks out into the crowd. A few seconds later the crowd goes silent and all eyes are on Deputy Kovacs.
Deputy Kovacs begins the proceedings of Madame D.’s will and names a few people who are obtaining the dead woman’s inheritance, including her son Dmitri (Adrien Brody). The sequence cuts back and forth between Kovacs, Dmitri and the other family members who are entitled to the widow’s fortune. But before Kovacs lists which family members get what, he reads a letter that Madame D. wrote just before she died. The camera is pointed upwards and is close up to Kovacs’ face making him seem like a special orator for all to listen and respect. The letter states that Monsieur Gustave can have her most prized treasure: Van Hoytl’s painting Boy with Apple. Gustave is absolute awe while everyone else in the room is in shock and disgust, especially Dmitri. The camera then cuts to a random elderly man who asks who Gustave is. The camera then swings over to the back of the hall and Gustave replies in a very courteous fashion.
The perspective switches again and now the viewer is seeing through Gustave’s eyes. The viewer sees the crowd turn around from their seats and see Dmitri get up from his seat, call Gustave by a homophobic slur, and walk angrily down the isle to him. Dmiti continues by asking why Gustave is at the will proceedings, the camera angle switches to Gustave, and he replies by saying he is paying his respects to a woman that he loved.The camera zooms out again and the viewer is shown the perspective of what the crowd sees: Dmitri, Gustave, Zero, and eventually Dmitri’s right hand-man, and assassin, Joplin (Willem Dafoe). The camera shot does switch in between Gustave and Dmitri’s argument.When Gustave speaks the camera includes Dmiti’s back and Zero, but when Dmitri speaks the camera focuses in on his face and upper body, and sometimes zooms out to the crowd’s perspective again. Dmitri is vehemently against Gustave having Boy with Apple and continues to call Gustave names and slander his reputation. Dmitri turns to the crowd saying that Gustave takes advantage of elderly women and probably has sex with them. Gustave makes a comment saying that he sleeps with all of his friends followed by a quick punch to the face from Dmitri and Gustave falls to the floor. The crowd gasps. The camera angle is now to Zero’s back and Dmitri is looking at him. Zero throws a punch to Dmitri’s face and Dmitri falls to the floor. The crowd gasps louder. The camera angle then switches to Joplin’s back and Zero looks at Joplin. Joplin throws a punch at Zero’s face and Zero falls to the floor. The Joplin turns around to the crowd and raises his fists up in a fighting stance to see if anyone else wants to fight him. The crowd gasps even louder and the dark Eastern European leitmotif throughout the scene raises to its peak volume. There’s a spotlight placed around Joplin’s face and fists when he turns around to face the camera giving the scene a more comedic element.
After the quarrel, the camera cuts to Gustave and Dmitri starting to stand back up. The viewer sees a side profile of both characters now. Dmitri threatens to kill Gustave if he finds out that he laid on his mother’s body, dead or alive. Joplin and Serge come to hold back Dmitri while Monsieur Gustave says that he’s leaving now. Gustave turns around to walk out the door and the scene ends there.
The event of Monsieur Gustave obtaining Boy with Apple is where the plot begins to unravel. Dmitri and Joplin do everything they can to hide the fact Madame D. was poisoned by them, and so they decide to place the blame on Gustave. Gustave is then arrested, but breaks out of prison so that he can clear his name. Gustave and Zero then set out to find the only witness to the murder, Serge, before Joplin gets to him first. The rest of the film then goes on to develop Agatha and Zero’s love relationship, and for Gustave to know that there is “a second copy of the second will” that Madame D. wrote the night before she died. After all of the comedic adventure, Zero unfortunately loses everyone he ever loved and admired. Gustave was shot to death by the French army for defending Zero because he was an immigrant, and Agatha and her baby died of sickness two years after she married Zero. Although the quick pace, sharp humor, fantastic style and romance are all well entertaining, these aspects of the film are all superficial. Beneath that colorful surface there is barbarity and loneliness, and Zero faces that all of his life.
Director: Wes Anderson
Producer: Wes Anderson
Writers: Wes Anderson (screenplay and story), Hugo Guinness (story), and Stefan Zweig (inspired by the writings of)
Editor: Barney Pilling
Cinematographer: Robert D. Yeoman
Composer: Alexandre Desplat
