Rushmore (film)
| Rushmore | |
|---|---|
 Original theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Wes Anderson |
| Written by | Wes Anderson Owen Wilson |
| Produced by | Wes Anderson Owen Wilson Barry Mendel |
| Starring | Jason Schwartzman Bill Murray Olivia Williams |
| Cinematography | Robert Yeoman |
| Edited by | David Moritz |
| Music by | Mark Mothersbaugh |
| Distributed by | Touchstone Pictures |
Release dates | October 9, 1998 (premiere) February 5, 1999 |
Running time | 93 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Languages | English Latin |
| Budget | $20 million |
| Box office | $17,105,219 |
Rushmore is a 1998 comedy-drama film directed by Wes Anderson about an eccentric teenager named Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) and 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 film 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 1st 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.
Eventually, Max's friend Dirk (Mason Gamble) discovers the relationship and informs Max, initially as payback for a rumor Max started about his mother. Max and Blume go from being friends to mortal enemies. The two engage in a back-and-forth series of revenge on each other. Max informs Blume's wife of her husband's affair, ending their marriage. Max also cuts the brake lines on Blume's car, for which he is arrested. Meanwhile, Blume destroys Max's bicycle with his car.
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. He eventually begins spending time as an apprentice to his father, a barber. A fellow student, Margaret Yang (Sara Tanaka), tries to engage Max, but he pays little attention to her.
One day, Dirk stops by the barber 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, but Max finds out that Ms. Cross broke up with Blume. However, he does manage to bring Dr. Guggenheim out of his coma.
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
- Jason Schwartzman as Max Fischer
- Bill Murray as Herman Blume
- Olivia Williams as Rosemary Cross
- Seymour Cassel as Bert Fischer
- Brian Cox as Dr. Nelson Guggenheim
- Mason Gamble as Dirk Calloway
- Sara Tanaka as Margaret Yang
- Connie Nielsen as Mrs. Calloway
- Luke Wilson as Dr. Peter Flynn
- Owen Wilson (uncredited) as Edward Applebee
Production
The film was shot in and around Houston, Texas where Wes Anderson grew up. His high school alma mater, St. John's School, was used for the picturesque setting of Rushmore Academy, while Lamar High School in Houston was used to depict Grover Cleveland High School, the public school. In real life, the two schools are directly across the street from one another. Auditions were held at the schools to cast students as themselves; however, St. John's is a coeducational school whereas Rushmore Academy is all-male. Aside from the blazer Max wears, the uniforms used in Rushmore are the actual student uniforms of St. John's students. Parts of the movie were also shot at North Shore High School and the Kinkaid School. Doug and Don's Barber Shop on East Eleventh Street in the Houston Heights was used for his father's barber shop.
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").
Legacy
Since the film's success, Jason Schwartzman has appeared in numerous films, more than often portraying equally peculiar characters. Moreover, Rushmore is widely credited with introducing a new side of Bill Murray, a comedic actor typically known for his smug yet charming, easy-going delivery. The film signalled Murray's transformation into an actor known for tragicomic portrayals of men who have been beaten down into detached and mournfully wistful characters. After Rushmore, Murray established a "second career" as a respected serious actor, playing characters of this type in Cradle Will Rock, The Royal Tenenbaums, Lost in Translation, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Broken Flowers, and The Darjeeling Limited
Awards and recognition
Rushmore is number 34 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies".
Rushmore also won the following awards:
| Year | Award | Category |
| 1998 | Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards | Best Supporting Actor (Bill Murray, tied with Billy Bob Thornton for A Simple Plan) and the New Generation Award (Wes Anderson) |
| 1998 | New York Film Critics Circle Award | Best Supporting Actor (Bill Murray) |
| 1999 | American Comedy Award | Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture (Bill Murray) |
| 1999 | Golden Satellite Award | Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical (Bill Murray) |
| 1999 | Independent Spirit Awards | Best Director and Best Supporting Male (Bill Murray) |
| 1999 | Lone Star Film & Television Award | Best Actor (Jason Schwartzman), Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Bill Murray) |
| 1999 | National Society of Film Critics Award | Best Supporting Actor (Bill Murray) |
| 1999 | Young Star Award | Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Comedy Film (Jason Schwartzman) |
It was also nominated for the following awards:
| Year | Award | Category |
| 1999 | British Independent Film Award | Best Foreign Film - English Language |
| 1999 | Chicago Film Critics Association Award | Best Supporting Actor (Bill Murray) and Most Promising Actor (Jason Schwartzman) |
| 1999 | Golden Globe | Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Bill Murray) |
| 1999 | Young Artist Award | Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young Actor (Mason Gamble) |
| 1999 | Young Star Award | Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Comedy Film (Mason Gamble) |
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 especially for the 1999 MTV Movie Awards by the Max Fischer Players.
Homages and connections with other Anderson films
- The famous shot of Max sitting on the go-kart used in the "Making Time" montage is based on a photograph by Jacques Henri Lartigue. Anderson would later reference Lartigue's work in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.[citation needed]
- The penciled-in quote inside a book Max is reading is Diving for Sunken Treasure by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Philippe Diote: "When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself". In Anderson's later film, The Life Aquatic, the main character Steve Zissou is a parody of and homage to Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
- The Vince Guaraldi Trio's version of "Hark, The Herald Angels Sing" appears in Rushmore. "Christmastime Is Here", also from A Charlie Brown Christmas, and performed by the Vince Guaraldi Trio, is in Anderson's film The Royal Tenenbaums.
- In the scene where Max meets Rosemary, he is carrying the book, The Powers That Be by David Halberstam, an account of the rise of journalistic media to political power.
- In the scene where Max buys the dynamite, he holds an ID up to the salesman and says, "And could you make the order out to Ready Demolition, Tucson, Arizona?" This is the same line a character buying explosives uses in the 1995 Michael Mann film Heat. The film is also referenced during Max's production of Serpico, when the actor portraying Serpico snaps his fingers while saying "That you're gonna follow this thing all the way to the end...of the line...where I got to be." Not only is this line almost identical to a line spoken by Al Pacino in Heat, but Al Pacino also portrayed Serpico himself in the 1973 film.
- The surf board seen in the background of the war play is an homage to Robert Duvall's character in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, as was the play's character named "Surfboy," also paying homage to the character of Lance in Coppola's film.
- Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude was a big influence on the film's look and tone, as well as Mike Nichols' The Graduate.[citation needed]
- The font used throughout the film is Futura, in particular, Futura Bold. Anderson also used it extensively in Bottle Rocket and in his subsequent films.
Influence on popular culture
- The video for the song "Stupid Kid" by Alkaline Trio is an homage to the movie.
- "Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades" is the name of a Brand New song on the album Deja Entendu. The song title is a line from the movie.
- Metal group Every Time I Die have a song entitled "She's My Rushmore" from their 2003 album Hot Damn!. "She's my Rushmore, Max" is a line from the movie.
- Give Up the Ghost has a song called "I Saved Latin", referencing a line from the movie.
- The album Take This to Your Grave by Fall Out Boy includes a song called "Tell That Mick He Just Made My List Of Things To Do Today", referencing a line of Max Fischer's, although the quote in the movie is actually "...that stupid mick...". The band has also toured under the codename Saved Latin.
- Guitarist Frank Iero from My Chemical Romance has said Rushmore to be his favorite movie, and the video for the band's song "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" is inspired by the movie, notably the school setting and almost identical jackets worn by the band.
- The Australian alternative rock band Kisschasy have a song entitled With Friends Like You, Who Needs Friends? on their 2005 album United Paper People. The title is a reference to a line from Rushmore.
- The band The Decemberists video for single Sixteen Military Wives appears to take stylistic and thematic cues from Rushmore, including a whimsical, humorous plot satirising American imperialism using school societies and descriptive captions similar to those used in the film.
- The video for Motion City Soundtrack's debut single, The Future Freaks Me Out, is based on the movie's school play finale.
References
External links
