Kanye West as a character in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch
The archetype of the lonely writer, the lonely painter, the lonely singer, is one that reverberates throughout history. Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Leonardo Da Vinci, Kanye West — all creators whose creations have regularly touched on themes of heartache and loneliness. This consistent stream of individuals afflicted with both loneliness and the need to create begs the question — does creating fill the void or does it actually sustain it?
This question first surfaced in my mind as Kanye’s 808s and Heartbreak played on aux as I drove home from the movie theater. I had just seen Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, and was wondering how a Wes Anderson movie could be any more Wes Anderson-y. His trademark style popped out in every frame of the movie, visualizing three stories of a French newspaper’s final issue using pastel colors, symmetrical cinematography, and precise camerawork. If you couldn’t tell already, it’s safe to say I loved it.
The three major frame stories visualized in The French Dispatch are led by the account of a prisoner-painter by the name of Moses Rosenthaler. Moses’s relationship with art and creation is a lifelong one — a flashback to his youth shows him as lonely, poor, and mentally ill, yet always painting. In fact, Anderson specifically included a note in the script saying that “the splattered-paint does not come off; in fact, Rosenthaler always appears fully splattered, at all times, in some form of pigment or medium”. The conditions described in this flashback culminate in Moses murdering two men and being sent to prison as a result.
While in prison, Moses attempts to slowly kill himself by drinking increasing amounts of mouthwash. After more than a decade of doing so (and not painting), he joins an art class to prevent his own suicide, telling the class that “Otherwise, I think maybe it’s going to be a suicide. That’s why I signed up for Clay Pottery and Basket Weaving”. His teacher, a guard named Simone, becomes impressed by his artwork and enters a sexual relationship with Moses. Simone becomes Moses’s muse for his abstract paintings, and Moses quickly falls in love.
While art initially staves off Moses’s suicidal tendencies, he faces a period in which he simply doesn’t know what to paint, which drives him to try and kill himself via electric chair. Simone stops this attempt and uses tough love to motivate Moses back into painting. However, when Moses later confesses his love to Simone, he finds that it’s unrequited: “I want to say it as simple as I can. To try to shape it into words. The feelings in my heart. Simone and Rosenthaler say simultaneously: ROSENTHALER: I love you. SIMONE: I don’t love you”.
In Moses’s case, art sustains the void by sustaining his life. When Moses tries to electrocute himself to death because he simply doesn’t know what to paint, Simone, the muse that symbolizes Moses’s relationship with art, stops him from doing so by motivating him to paint. When Moses joins her class and she later becomes his muse, Simone becomes synonymous with art for Moses. As art has done for all his life, his close bond with Simone keeps Moses going, however his love is unrequited and the void of loneliness that has existed ever since he was a young painter is not filled. Thus, art doesn’t just sustain the void because it sustains his life, but also because it binds him with his unrequited love. Art is on the cusp of fulfilling the void, but it doesn’t — it only sustains it.
Moses’s story is followed by an article written by Lucinda Krementz, a writer who immerses herself in a revolutionary movement led by young college students. She begins her investigation by meeting the parents of a leader of the movement, and during dinner, they chance upon the topic of Krementz’s lack of a companion. She defends herself, saying “Take me at my word: I live by myself on purpose. I prefer relationships that end. I deliberately choose to have neither husband nor children (the two greatest deterrents to any woman’s attempt to live by and for writing). Why are we crying?”. While they soon realize that they are crying because of tear gas that wafted up to their apartment from the streets below, Krementz admits her sadness, in a matter-of-fact manner, to both herself and the student revolutionary leader, Zeffirelli.
As Moses sought to fill the void of loneliness with Simone, Krementz does the same with Zeffirelli, entering a similarly unlikely sexual relationship. Krementz becomes increasingly entangled with the revolution, helping Zeffirelli to revise his manifesto and narrating over a montage of shots overlayed by the names of the passing months — August through March. This passage of time is mirrored by the whopping 14,000 words she writes for her article (versus the requested 2,500), in addition to footnotes, a glossary, endnotes, and two epilogues.
When Zeffirelli’s similarly aged-love interest, Juliette, comes into conflict with Krementz, Juliette accuses Krementz of loving Zeffirelli and says that she should maintain journalistic neutrality. Juliette follows up by denouncing this love as vulgar, as Krementz is an “old maid”. Soon after, Zeffirelli says, “It’s a lonely life, isn’t it?”. In the script stage directions, Anderson indicates that Krementz should be surprised and answer, “Sometimes”. While it isn’t explicitly stated that Zeffirelli is talking about the life of a writer, the inclusion of Krementz’s surprise, in addition to the repeated topic of journalistic neutrality, points to this. Zeffirelli’s comment induces a sort of acceptance of reality for Krementz, who subsequently tells Zeffirelli and Juliette to go make love. Krementz’s story ends with her eating alone, in her office, before the newspaper editor comes in to read her story.
Watching Krementz become increasingly invested in the events of her story, we get the sense that this isn’t the first time she’s gotten too close to a story, only to realize in the end that it’s just that — a story, and not her life. She’s merely an observer, and a temporary one at that, flitting from story to story to relay them back to her newspaper editor. She finds meaning in her stories, as she found meaning in both her relationship with Zeffirelli and his revolution, and this meaning fulfilled the void of loneliness that was established from the start of her story. However, while writing fulfills the void in this sense, the very nature of her life as a writer, as she tells Zeffirelli’s parents in the beginning, ensures that this void is sustained. As she tells both herself and the parents, a family is the “greatest deterrent to any woman’s attempt to live by and for writing”, so stories remain stories, blips on the radar of her career that must inevitably be passed by in order to investigate the next.
The third and final major story is by Roebuck Wright, a food writer who switches back and forth from being interviewed to narrating his article — word-for-word, as he has a typographic memory. From the start, the topic of the void of loneliness is breached when the TV host lists through the pieces of writing that Wright should remember (essays, novels, etc.) and Wright interrupts with a seemingly unrelated topic: “(bittersweet) — the unrequited valentines. Sadly, I do”.
In between his narration of the events of his article — which include the kidnapping of a police detective’s son and salvation by a plot involving food poisoned by a talented chef — Wright reveals, in a moving manner, why he writes about food in particular. He says,
“There is a particular, sad beauty well-known to the companionless foreigner as he walks the streets of his adopted (preferably, moonlit) city. (In my case, Ennui, France.) I have so often shared the day’s glittering discoveries with: no one at all. But always, somewhere along the avenue or the boulevard: there was a table. Set for me. A cook, a waiter, a bottle, a glass, a fire. I chose this life. It is the solitary feast that has been (very much like a comrade) my great comfort and fortification”.
Just as Krementz “adopted” a new life besides young revolutionaries through her story, Wright allows the city and food of his story fill the void, even though he knows it’s an adoption that can only be temporary. Wright’s void of loneliness, caused by a lack of companionship, is fulfilled by the topic of his writing. He chooses this life of writing because it fulfills the void, even though it’s temporary nature simultaneously sustains it. Ironically, in accepting the temporary ‘companionship’ of food and writing, he denies any permanent fulfillment of the void.
Why is it that I noticed this relationship between aloneness and creation while I was listening to Kanye on the drive home from the movie? Perhaps it’s because Kanye’s story and music could fit right alongside the stories of Rosenthaler, Krementz, and Wright (with a Wes Anderson-styled layover, of course). Kanye’s whole life, as reflected by his discography, has been a struggle to fill the void of being alone.
As most of us probably have read about in the news or on social media lately, Kanye is struggling through yet another breakup — perhaps the most painful one of his life. Not-so-coincidentally, he also recently released Donda 2. Kanye’s music has consistently reflected his struggles with relationships and how the fame and lifestyle that comes from creating music at his level intersects with (and sometimes causes) these struggles. In fact, it can be argued that Kanye’s music is best when he uses it as a medium to express the emotions that come from these struggles. Herein lies the feedback loop that music creates with Kanye’s void of loneliness: Kanye breaks up with his beau and pours his heart into an album to cope with his newfound, yet familiar, loneliness. Eventually, he finds another relationship that fills the void in a way that music alone cannot. However, the lifestyle of celebrity and fame that accompanies his music finds the cracks of this relationship and expands them like water freezes and enlarges a pothole. In this way, music has filled the void for Kanye while simultaneously sustaining it.
This vicious cycle is most strikingly portrayed in “Touch the Sky” from Late Registration: “I’m tryin’ to right my wrongs / But it’s funny them same wrongs helped me write this song, now”. While this applies to Kanye in multiple ways, looking back on this 2005 album we can see that this fits the pattern of his love life. He tries to fill the void — to “right his wrongs” — yet this loneliness is a central part of his musical genius. Furthermore, his music is so intertwined with his identity that it’s impossible for him to “right his wrongs” with a relationship that is completely isolated from his life as a rapper — a life that he has found is incompatible with his partners.
We see how Kanye’s loneliness and relationship struggles help to define his music in 808s and Heartbreak, an album largely about his breakup with then-fiancée Alexis Phifer. Tracks such as “Welcome to Heartbreak”, “Coldest Winter”, “Heartless”, and “Say You Will” hit us with emotional verses straight from Kanye’s heart, telling us about how he struggles to move on from a relationship that he thought was true love. In “Pinocchio Story”, he raps,
“I got everything figured out / But for some reason I can never find what real love is about / … / Do you think I sacrificed real life / For all the fame of flashing lights?”
In these verses, we find a message eerily similar to those presented in the frame stories of The French Dispatch. Has Kanye’s pursuit of fame through music ruled out the potential for true love, as creating has sustained the void for Krementz, Moses, and Wright? The fact that Kanye and Phifer split because of his “life on the road” points to Kanye fitting right in alongside these news writers. Music helps Kanye to cope — to temporarily fulfill the void — yet the lifestyle that accompanies his music makes sure that this void is only sustained, and never truly filled.
Kanye once again uses music to cope with a breakup (this time with Amber Rose) on a few tracks in My Beautiful Dark Fantasy before he enters a promising relationship with Kim Kardashian. A couple of years into their marriage, with two kids, Kanye released the hit album The Life of Pablo. While this album has a myriad of interpretations, a theme emerges of Kanye being stuck in between by the fame and lifestyle of his past and a tamer family lifestyle. The cover repeats the phrase “WHICH / ONE”, juxtaposed with two images — one of a model, and one of a married couple with their families. History repeats itself — just as Kanye was split between his lifestyle and his relationship with Phifer, in The Life of Pablo, Kanye struggles to choose between continuing his past lifestyle and settling down as family man.
While Kanye’s story is far from over, the peaks and valleys of his love life, overlayed with the albums that he uses to lay out his resulting emotions, shows a symbiotic relationship between his void of loneliness and creations. Music fills the void for Kanye as a sort of temporary companion, a shoulder that will always be there to rest on. In accepting this temporary companion of music, its accompanying lifestyle ensures that this void will always be present in Kanye, like a symbiote ensuring that its host always needs it.
The question isn’t if loneliness is a requisite for creation — there are a myriad of painters, writers, and filmmakers who have found both love and success in their lives. No, we should instead ask, does art help or hurt one’s loneliness? Kanye’s career and life, along with those of The French Dispatch’s writers, argues in favor of the latter. The stories of Krementz and Wright and Kanye’s “Pinocchio Story” suggest that the life of a creator is one of solitude — it’s an either-or decision.
While the frame stories of The French Dispatch present an at-times pessimistic view of creation in relation to loneliness, taking a step outside of the frame results in a new perspective. After presenting these writer’s stories, Anderson shows them in the present, gathered to mourn the passing of Arthur Howitzer Jr., the newspaper’s founder and former editor. While it is mentioned that Howitzer died “alone, reading birthday telegraphs”, we are only ever shown the results of this. His death results in not only a gathering of people who truly cared about him, but the final version of this newspaper that constitutes this movie — a remembrance. After all, this film is inspired in large part by Anderson’s love of The New Yorker.
By having the audience take a step back, Anderson shows that while creation and loneliness might be interrelated, creation allows for the fulfillment of loneliness if we only look around. Yes, Howitzer dies alone in his newspaper office, but he had many close friends who cared for him and thousands more who read and cared for his newspaper. Yes, Kanye struggles with his romantic relationships, but he has close friends and millions of fans who support him through thick and thin (including some recently questionable Instagram posts). Humans are naturally drawn to creation as a medium to express their emotions, and the power that creation holds sometimes makes us forget that it’s only a placeholder in the ‘void of loneliness’. As humans are drawn to creating, we are also drawn to other’s creations, and so while creation might not directly fill the void for us, it surrounds us with an audience full of meaningful relationships.
