By Way of the Green Line Bus -- Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums
The scene starts off with Richie Tenenbaum returning home to New York after hearing of his father’s illness. Alec Baldwin sets up the beginning of the scene with narration as Richie gets off the ship he’s spent the past few years on. Richie waits for his escort at the pier to arrive by way of the green line bus.
Establishing Richie’s point of view early on, Wes Anderson places the camera behind Richie’s head as the bus pulls to the stop. By doing this, Anderson now puts us, the audience, in Richie’s shoes and we get to experience first what he feels in this scene. The natural sounds of the city fade away. Then the camera punches in to a medium shot of his adopted sister Margot, the love of his life, getting off the bus. This is where the magic happens…
The camera is now in 48fps. As Margot steps down on to the sidewalk she looks up and notices the only man who has ever been constant in her life, Richie. The acting is perfect with just a slight opening of her mouth as she rediscovers the man who she too has loved all her life. By choosing to show Margot getting off the bus at 48fps, we as the audience have an ethereal view of this woman who we come to love instantly. It also allows us to experience what we all feel when we see that one special person in our lives.
Wes then cuts to an extreme close up of Richie Tenenbaum with a subtle blink of an eye as he watches Margot approach him. I find the blink significant because it is also an indication of Richie’s brain registering the familiar face of the woman he loves. The camera then cuts back to Margot and we track with her slowly approaching Richie and discovering only one of two times in the entire film that she’s happy. Wes then puts us equally back into her perspective as the camera pushes in on Richie.
Upon her arrival, the frame rate returns to 24fps and the two exchange a few lines of dialogue and then the scene ends with a bit of conflict. Actually Richie being so happy to see her only communicates in body gestures. Margot’s smile then fades. The framing of them becomes equal and they meet in the middle to a warm but reluctant embrace. As an audience this is the first time in the scene we see them in the frame together equally and we also sense that there is something about their pasts they neither of them have cured.
The aspect of this scene that I love most is how Wes chooses to show the initial viewing of each character through the other characters perspective in 48fps. From slowing the film down as she gets off bus is a really great way of expressing how much this man cares for this woman. He ultimately gives us the opportunity to see how time slows down when two people who love each other are together. Then by going back to 24fps with the dialogue he also shows us that those moments are in fact, very brief moments in our lives. These are the best moments in our lives. All of this, along with Nico – These Days playing in the background, sets up one of Wes Anderson’s best scenes to date.
I’ve watched this scene over a few hundred times now and I still see new things I didn’t catch from time to time. Great films will do that. Keep watching your favorite scenes as well and Im sure you’ll be surprised.