The Errant Æsthete

Over the last 15 years, Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson have shown us something about people who lead extraordinary lives, either by choice or through sheer coincidence of birth. One particular subtext in all Anderson-Wilson collaborations recalls the work of Oscar Wilde–that is, life, through the medium of creativity and troubled genius, imitates art. Genius, in their early work, is ineffable, resplendent with the trappings of depressive, rumple-haired Nietzschean eccentricity and Faustian striving and discontent. As of late, Anderson’s idea of the troubled genius has lost its romantic cache. Its integrity as a thing of heroism and beauty has been ostensibly diagnosed. [via Link]

Mapping the idea of “life imitating art” onto Owen Wilson’s biography and Wes Anderson’s films reveals their startling convergence. As Anderson’s works increasingly addressed themes of depression, psychiatric treatment, and “hitting bottom,” so too did Wilson’s life chart a course towards collapse.