Wes Anderson’s New Art History-Inspired Film Stars Adrien Brody as a Ruthless Art Dealer

Cinephiles were finally treated
to an inside peek at Wes Anderson’s anticipated new film The
French Dispatch as the first trailer hit the web today,
and it turns out there’s something in there for art history
nerds.

One of the three stories in the
film, which is structured like an anthology, centers around a
ruthless art dealer, played by Adrien Brody, who is in pursuit of
the work of an incarcerated artist, played by Benicio del Toro.
Brody’s character, Julian Cadazio, is based on Joseph Duveen, a
highly influential British art dealer who almost single-handedly
established an CAmerican market for European
artwork. 

The film brings together three
stories from a fictional magazine also called The French
Dispatch, inspired by the New Yorker, and takes place
in a fake French city called Ennui-sur-Blasé. The first story, “The
Concrete Masterpiece,” follows a character named Moses Rosenthaler
(del Toro), a paint-splattered iconoclast called “the loudest
artistic voice of his rowdy generation” by the story’s author, J.
K. L. Berensen, played by Tilda Swinton.

In one scene, Rosenthaler stands
across Cadazio in a jail cell, arguing over the availability of the
former’s abstract painting, titled Simone Naked, Cell
Block J, Hobby Room.

“I want to buy it,” says Brody’s
character.

“It’s not for sale,” says del
Toro’s, before the two go back and forth with several rounds of
“yes, it is,” “no, it isn’t.”

In the end, it seems Brody won
out: Later in the trailer, we see the painting on view in a salon
while a voiceover from Swinton says, “The picture was a
sensation.” 

Duveen, the early 20th-century
inspiration for Brody’s dealer, was notorious for his dogged
pursuit of prized artworks, often going to great lengths to acquire
them. After amassing a world class collection of European
masterpieces, Duveen flipped them to rich industrialists across the
pond, including William Randolph Hearst, Andrew Mellon, and John D.
Rockefeller. His sales helped form the foundation of many American
museums, such as the Frick Collection in New York, and the Mellon
and Kress collections in the National Gallery of Art in Washington,
DC.

Today, Duveen’s legacy is often
summed up by his oft-quoted saying: “Europe has a great deal of
art, and America has a great deal of money.”

Brody, a longtime Wes Anderson
collaborator, is no stranger to the world of art making and buying.
He debuted his own series of fish and shark paintings at Art Basel
Miami Beach in 2015 and followed up the show with a much-publicized
exhibition at Art New York in 2016. He’s also a collector, known
for frequenting fairs with his pal Leonardo DiCaprio and snatching
up works by artists like Alec Monopoly.

In addition to Brody, del Toro,
and Swinton, The French Dispatch also features
Timothée Chalamet and Lyna Khoudri as student revolutionaries and
Jeffrey Wright as a character inspired by James Baldwin.Frances
McDormand, Bill Murray, Léa Seydoux, and Owen Wilson also make
appearances.

See more stills from the film
below.

The post Wes Anderson’s New Art History-Inspired Film Stars
Adrien Brody as a Ruthless Art Dealer appeared first on artnet
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