Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater –prominent writer/directors, Texas natives (both have roots in Houston) and coincidentally my two favorite humans. Their latest films were nominated for Best Motion Picture this year and, delving further, their careers have evolved at very similar rates, humbly paving the quaint dirt road that was the indie film scene in the ‘90s with Slacker and Bottle Rocket. Onward, they transitioned to tastemakers, acquiring cult followings with Dazed and Confused and The Royal Tenenbaums. With each film Anderson and Linklater make, their toolbox gets a little bigger without compromising their eclectic and pridefully offbeat styles, one vastly different from the other, yet hauntingly similar. Which leads to the question, who does it better? 

Both Texas boys, Anderson and Linklater began their film careers humbly and close to home, filming in Ft. Worth, Houston, Austin, and other Texas towns. Their horizons expanded as their budgets and reputations did, eventually allowing them to make what are popularly regarded as their opuses, The Grand Budapest Hotel, filmed in Germany, and Boyhood, Linklater’s “love letter to Texas.” But, allow me to ask, whose film locations are better?

Battle #2: Film Locations
Round One:

Houston, Texas
Ft. in Anderson’s Rushmore

Austin, Texas
Ft. in Linklater’s Slacker

Bohemian misfits traipse around Austin in Slacker, while Max Fischer is the worst student, yet involved with the most extracurriculars, at the fictional Rushmore Academy in Rushmore. While Anderson nobly returned to his place of origin, as well as his alma mater, St. John’s School, to make a story of an intelligent yet academically apathetic teen, there’s no denying that Slacker is a true showcase of the yet-to-be-donned-hipster scene of Austin in the 90’s, featuring popular landmarks like Mount Bonnell and the Continental Club.

Winner: Linklater/Slacker

Round Two:

New York City
Ft. in Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums

New York City
Ft. in Linklater’s School of Rock

The majority of School of Rock was filmed in New York City, the school in which Dewey Finn illegitimately takes a job as a substitute teacher located on Staten Island. In The Royal Tenenbaums, the house on Archer Avenue that Royal Tenenbaum bought in the winter of his thirty-fifth year is indeed a real house on the real Archer Avenue. While much of School of Rock takes places inside the school or in dank underground rock clubs, The Royal Tenenbaums takes place outside just as much as it does inside, with scenes in Battery Park, the American Museum of Natural Science, and the house on Eagle Island, which is actually a house in the Bronx. Anderson seamlessly incorporates his fanciful, saturated aesthetic into the concrete of New York City.

Winner: Anderson/The Royal Tenenbaums

Round Three:

Rajasthan, India
Ft. in Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited

Vienna, Austria
Ft. in Linklater’s Before Sunrise

The Texas directors go abroad in this final round. With scenes also set in Long Island, The Darjeeling Limited follows estranged brothers as they take a train from India to The Himalayas to seek out their mother. As vibrant, dusty and eclectically wacky as The Darjeeling Limited is, the shots of Celine and Jesse meandering through Vienna as they discuss what they want out of their lives is breathtaking and seductive and philosophical all at once. Try not to look up flights to Austria after watching Before Sunrise. Also, just a side note, but what could possibly paint the picture of young love better than riding the Riesenrad Ferris Wheel, then sharing a first kiss?

Winner: Linklater/Before Sunrise

Subjective Winner: Linklater’s Film Locations are Better

Join us next week for the next Wes/Dick showdown and check out prior segments:
Battle #1: Reuse of Actors

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