State of the Union gets quirky as a Wes Anderson film
CNN explains the State of the Union address in terms a "Moonrise Kingdom" audience would appreciate. Because both parties can agree the Capitol needs more monogrammed vintage luggage.
- Third place film critic, 2021 LA Press Club National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards
President Barack Obama will deliver his final State of the Union address on Tuesday. Hopefully, he'll be wearing vintage goggles and an orange jumpsuit and Luke and Owen Wilson will be in the audience.
OK, that's doubtful, but a CNN video, "The State of the Union Address as a Wes Anderson Film," certainly suggests the whimsical possibilities of a mashup between the annual speech and classic Anderson film tropes.
Anderson, an Oscar-winning director whose films include "Rushmore," "The Royal Tenenbaums," "Moonrise Kingdom" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel," is known for a distinct style of visual storytelling that features vivid colors, retro styling and relentlessly quirky music. The CNN video, posted Sunday and created to explain the basics of the State of the Union, is far less Wes Anderson-ey than other Anderson parodies. But it still brings Andersonian touches to the pomp and circumstance scheduled to start at 6 p.m. PT tonight.
Bright yellow opening credits flash under images of the main players: Obama, Speaker Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden. The video's broken into chapters. And the fresh-faced narrator, CNN Senior Digital Correspondent Chris Moody, delivers his lines with a formal matter-of-factness befitting any Anderson narrator.
"The Capitol has an underground city full of interconnecting tunnels," he says while walking through one of those tunnels to the sounds of a plucky stringed instrument. "And a train that runs directly to the Capitol building." We then see him on one of those trains -- facing backward, of course, with wind tousling his hair.
Especially perfect is the image of a little paper book containing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution set against an Anderson-red background and opened with a hand as the narrator describes the State of the Union's origins.
One YouTube commenter suggests presenting the State of the Union as a Michael Bay film. Personally, I'd like to see it as one of those "Epic Rap Battles of History."