Rushmore is a
1998 comedy-drama
film directed by
Wes Anderson about
an eccentric teenager named Max Fischer (
Jason Schwartzman), his friendship with
rich industrialist Herman Blume (
Bill
Murray), and their mutual love for
elementary school teacher Rosemary Cross
(
Olivia Williams). The film was
co-written by Anderson and
Owen Wilson.
The soundtrack was scored by regular Anderson collaborator
Mark Mothersbaugh and features several
songs by bands associated with the
British Invasion of the 1960s.
The movie helped launch the careers of Anderson and Schwartzman,
while establishing a "second career" for Murray as a respected
actor of independent cinema.
Rushmore also won Best
Director and Best Supporting Male awards at the 1999
Independent Spirit Awards while
Murray earned a
Golden Globe nomination
for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion
Picture.
Plot
The film centers on Max Fischer (
Jason
Schwartzman), a precocious and eccentric 15 year-old, who is
both Rushmore's most extracurricular and least scholarly student;
Herman Blume (
Bill Murray), a
disillusioned industrialist who comes to admire Max; and Rosemary
Cross (
Olivia Williams), a widowed
first grade teacher who becomes the object of both Max's and
Herman's affection.
Max's life revolves around Rushmore Academy, where he is a
scholarship student. Max spends nearly all of
his time on elaborate
extracurricular activities,
caring little how it affects his grades. He also feuds with the
school's headmaster, Dr. Guggenheim (
Brian
Cox).
Blume finds his operation of a multimillion dollar company to be
unsatisfying and is frustrated that his marriage is failing and the
two sons he's putting through Rushmore are unrepentant brats. He
and Max become close friends; Max admires Herman's success while
Herman is impressed by Max's cocksure attitude.
Ms. Cross arrives at the academy as a new teacher after the death
of her husband (and former Rushmore student), and Max quickly
develops an infatuation. He makes many attempts at courting her.
While she initially tolerates Max, Ms. Cross becomes increasingly
alarmed at his obvious obsession with her. Along the way Blume
attempts to convince Max that Ms. Cross is not worth the trouble,
only to fall for Rosemary himself. They begin dating without Max's
knowledge.
After Max attempts to break ground on an aquarium without the
school's approval, he is expelled from Rushmore. He is then forced
to enroll in his first public school, Grover Cleveland High.
Attempts to engage in outside activities at his new school have
mixed results. A fellow student, Margaret Yang (
Sara Tanaka), tries to engage Max, but he pays
little attention to her. Rosemary and Blume attempt to support him
in his new school.
Eventually, Max's friend Dirk (
Mason
Gamble) discovers the relationship between Rosemary and Blume
and informs Max as payback for a rumor Max started about his
mother. Max and Blume go from being friends to mortal enemies, and
they engage in back-and-forth acts of revenge on each other. Max
informs Blume's wife of her husband's affair, thus ending their
marriage. Max then puts bees in Blume's hotel room, and then Blume
destroys Max's bicycle with his car. Max also cuts the brake lines
on Blume's car, for which he is arrested. Eventually Max gives up
and explains to Blume that revenge no longer matters because even
if he (Max) wins, Rosemary still would love Blume. Max then becomes
depressed and stops attending school. He cuts himself off from the
world and works as an apprentice at his father's barber shop.
One day, Dirk stops by the shop to apologize to Max and bring him a
Christmas present. In the process, Dirk suggests Max see his old
headmaster in the hospital, knowing Blume will be there, as well.
Max and Blume meet and are cordial, and Max finds out that Ms.
Cross broke up with Blume. He also manages to bring Dr. Guggenheim
out of his coma. Max begins to apply himself in school again. He
also develops a friendship with Margaret Yang, whom he casts in one
of his plays.
Max takes his final shot at Ms. Cross and is rebuffed again. Max
makes it his new mission to win Ms. Cross back for Blume. His first
attempt is unsuccessful, but then he invites both Herman and
Rosemary to the performance of a play he wrote, making sure they
will be sitting together. In the end, Ms. Cross and Blume appear to
reconcile. Max and Margaret Yang also become a couple.
The movie ends with Max and Ms. Cross looking at each other
enigmatically as they share a dance at the play's
wrap party.
Cast
Production
With
Rushmore, Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson wanted to
create their own "slightly heightened reality, like a
Roald Dahl children's book".
Like Max Fischer,
Wilson was expelled from his prep school, St. Mark's
School of Texas
, in the tenth grade, while Anderson shared Max's
ambition, lack of academic ability, and had a crush on an older
woman. Anderson and Wilson began writing the screenplay for
Rushmore years before they made
Bottle Rocket.
They knew that they
wanted to make a film set in an elite prep school, much like
St. John's
School
in Houston,
Texas
which Anderson had attended. According to
the director, "One of the things that was most appealing to us was
the initial idea of a 15-year-old kid and a 50-year-old man
becoming friends and equals".
Rushmore was originally
going to be made for
New Line Cinema
but when they could not agree on a budget, Anderson, Wilson and
producer Barry Mendel held an auction for the film rights in
mid-1997 and struck a deal with
Joe Roth,
then-chair of
Walt Disney
Studios. He offered them a $10 million budget.
Casting
Anderson and Wilson wrote the role of Mr. Blume with Bill Murray in
mind, but doubted they could get the script to him. Murray's agent
was a fan of Anderson's first film,
Bottle Rocket, and urged the actor to
read the script for
Rushmore. Murray liked it so much that
he agreed to work for scale. The actor was drawn to Anderson and
Wilson's "precise" writing and felt that a lot of the film was
about "the struggle to retain civility and kindness in the face of
extraordinary pain. And I've felt a lot of that in my life".
Anderson created detailed storyboards for each scene but was open
to Murray's knack for improvisation.
Cast
directors considered 1,800 teenagers from the United States
, Canada
, and
Britain
for the role
of Max Fischer before finding Jason Schwartzman. In October
1997, approximately a month before principal photography was to
begin, a casting director for the film met the 17-year-old actor at
a party thanks to his cousin and filmmaker
Sofia Coppola. He came to his audition wearing
a prep-school blazer and a Rushmore patch he had made himself.
Anderson almost did not make the film when he could not find an
actor to play Max but felt that Schwartzman "could retain audience
loyalty despite doing all the crummy things Max had to do".
Anderson originally pictured Max, physically, as
Mick Jagger at age 15, to be played by an actor
like
Noah Taylor in the Australian film
Flirting - "a pale, skinny
kid". When Anderson met Schwartzman, he reminded Anderson much more
of
Dustin Hoffman and decided to go
that way with the character. Anderson and the actor spent weeks
together talking about the character, working on hand gestures and
body language.
Principal photography
Filming began in November 1997. On the first day of principal
photography, Anderson delivered his directions to Murray in a
whisper so that he would not be embarrassed if the actor shot him
down. However, the actor publicly deferred to Anderson, hauled
equipment, and when Disney denied the director a $25,000 shot of
Max and Mr. Blume riding in a helicopter, Murray gave Anderson a
blank check to cover the cost.
At one
point, Anderson toyed with the idea of shooting the private school
scenes in England and the public school scenes in Detroit
in order to
"get the most extreme variation possible," according to the
director. The film was shot in and around Houston, Texas
where Anderson grew up. His high school
alma
mater,
St. John's School, was
used for the picturesque setting of Rushmore Academy.
Lamar High School in Houston was
used to depict Grover Cleveland High School, the public school. In
real life, the two schools are directly next to each other. The
film's widescreen, slightly theatrical look was influenced by
Roman Polanski's
Chinatown. Anderson also cites
The Graduate and
Harold and Maude as cinematic
influences on
Rushmore.
Soundtrack
Wes Anderson originally intended for the film's soundtrack to be
entirely made up of songs by
The Kinks,
feeling the music suited Max's loud and angry nature, and because
Max was initially envisioned to be a British exchange student.
However, while listening to a compilation of other
British Invasion songs on set, the
soundtrack gradually evolved until only one song by the Kinks
remained in the film ("Nothin' in the World Can Stop Me Worryin'
'Bout That Girl"). According to Anderson, "Max always wears a
blazer and the British Invasion sounds like music made by guys in
blazers, but still rock 'n' roll". In his review for
Entertainment Weekly, Rob Brunner
gave the soundtrack record an "A-" rating and wrote, "this
collection won't make much sense if you haven't seen the movie. But
for anyone who left the theater singing along to
the Faces' "
Ooh
La La", it's an essential soundtrack".
Reaction
Rushmore had its world premiere at the 25th
Telluride Film Festival in 1998
where it was one of the few studio films to be screened and be
well-received by critics and audiences.
The film was also
screened at the 1998 New York
Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival
where it was a hit with critics.
The film
opened in New York
City
and Los
Angeles
for one week in December in order to be eligible
for the Academy Awards.
Box office
Rushmore opened for a week at single theaters in New York
City and Los Angeles on December 11, 1998. In one weekend, it
earned a combined
USD $43,666, selling out 18 of
31 showings. The film opened in wide release in 764 theaters on
February 19, 1999, grossing $2.8 million in its first weekend. It
went on to make $17.1 million, below its $20 million budget.
Reviews
The film was well-received by critics, earning mostly positive
reviews. It has an 86% "certified fresh" rating at
Rotten Tomatoes and a 86 metascore at
Metacritic. In his review for the
Daily News, film critic
Dave Kehr
praised
Rushmore as "a magnificent work: the best and most
beautiful movie of 1998".
USA
Today gave the film three out of four stars and wrote that
Bill Murray was "at his off-kilter best". Todd McCarthy, in his
review for
Variety,
wrote, "The deep-focus widescreen compositions possess an unusual
clarity that adds details and endows the action and humor with
exceptional vividness". Film critic
Roger
Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote,
"Anderson and Wilson are good offbeat filmmakers ... But their film
seems torn between conflicting possibilities: It's structured like
a comedy, but there are undertones of darker themes, and I almost
wish they'd allowed the plot to lead them into those shadows". In
his review
Time, Richard
Schickel praised
Rushmore as "an often deft, frequently
droll little movie turns into an increasingly desperate juggling
act, first trying to keep too many dark and weighty emotional
objects aloft, then trying to bring them back to hand in a graceful
and satisfying way".
In her review for the
New York
Times,
Janet Maslin wrote,
"It's a particular treat for its skewed, hilarious memories of a
cutthroat boyhood". In his review for the
The Independent, Anthony Quinn said of
Schwartzman that "he perfectly captures the poignancy of a
character who understands his failings but hasn't yet the emotional
resources to conquer them". In her review for the
Washington Post, Rita Kempley praised
Schwartzman's performance for winning "sympathy and a great deal of
affection for Max, never mind that he could grow into
Sidney Blumenthal".
Entertainment Weekly gave
Rushmore an "A" rating and wrote, "Anderson concentrates
on beautifully disciplined filmmaking, employing 1960s British
Invasion hits . . . to further define Max's adolescent
dislocation".
Jonathan Rosenbaum,
in his review for the
Chicago
Reader, wrote, "To their credit, Anderson and Wilson share
none of the class snobbery that subtly infuses much of
Salinger's work ... But like Salinger they
harbor a protective gallantry toward their characters that becomes
the film's greatest strength and its greatest weakness".
A life-long fan of film critic
Pauline
Kael, Anderson arranged a private screening of
Rushmore for the retired writer. Afterwards, she told him,
"I genuinely don't know what to make of this movie". It was a
nerve-wracking experience for Anderson but Kael did like the film
and told others to see it.
Anderson and Jason Schwartzman traveled from
Los
Angeles to New York
City and back on a touring bus to promote the
film. The tour started on January 21, 1999 and went
through 11 cities in the United States.
Awards and nominations
Rushmore was nominated for two
Independent Spirit Awards - Wes
Anderson for Best Director and Bill Murray for Best Supporting
Actor with the actor winning. Murray was also nominated in the Best
Supporting Actor category for the
Golden
Globes.
The
Los Angeles
Film Critics Association named Bill Murray
Best Supporting Actor of the year for his performance in
Rushmore. Wes Anderson was named the New Generation
honoree. The
National
Society of Film Critics also named Murray as
Best Supporting Actor of the year as did the
New York Film Critics. Film critic
David Ansen ranked
Rushmore the
10th best film of 1998.
Spin hailed the film as "the best
comedy of the year".
Rushmore is number 34 on
Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies".
The film was also ranked #20 on
Entertainment Weekly magazine's
"The Cult 25: The Essential Left-Field Movie Hits Since '83" list
and ranked it #10 on their Top 25 Modern Romances list.
DVD
Buena Vista Home Entertainment released a bare bones edition of the
film on June 29, 1999. This was followed by a special edition on
January 18, 2000 by
The
Criterion Collection with remastered picture and sound as well
as various supplemental materials, including an audio commentary by
Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman, a
behind-the-scenes documentary by Eric Chase Anderson, Anderson and
Murray being interviewed on
The Charlie Rose Show, and
theatrical "adaptations" of
Armageddon,
The Truman Show and
Out of Sight, staged specially for the
1999
MTV Movie Awards by the Max
Fischer Players.
References
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