The Grand Budapest Hotel

''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' is a 2014 comedy-drama film written and directed by Wes Anderson. Ralph Fiennes leads a seventeen-actor ensemble cast as Monsieur Gustave H., famed concierge of a twentieth-century mountainside resort in the fictional Eastern European country of Zubrowka. When Gustave is framed for the murder of a wealthy dowager (Tilda Swinton), he and his recently befriended protégé Zero (Tony Revolori) embark on a quest for fortune and a priceless Renaissance painting amidst the backdrop of an encroaching fascist regime. Anderson's American Empirical Pictures produced the film in association with Studio Babelsberg, Fox Searchlight Pictures, and Indian Paintbrush's Scott Rudin and Steven Rales. Fox Searchlight supervised the commercial distribution, and ''The Grand Budapest Hotel''s funding was sourced through Indian Paintbrush and German government-funded tax rebates.

Anderson and longtime collaborator Hugo Guinness conceived ''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' as a fragmented tale following a character inspired by a common friend. They initially struggled in their brainstorming, but the experience touring Europe and researching the literature of Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig shaped their vision for the film. ''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' draws visually from Europe-set mid-century Hollywood films and the Library of Congress's photochrom print collection of alpine resorts. Filming took place in eastern Germany from January to March 2013. French composer Alexandre Desplat composed the symphonic, Russian folk-inspired score, which expanded on his early work with Anderson. The film explores themes of fascism, nostalgia, friendship, and loyalty, and further studies emphasize the function of color as an important storytelling device.

''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' premiered in competition at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival on February 6, 2014. The French theatrical release on February 26 preceded the film's global rollout, followed by releases in Germany, North America, and the United Kingdom on March 6–7. ''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' received widespread critical acclaim for its craftsmanship, acting, cinematography, editing, costumes, makeup, production design, direction, musical score, visuals, screenplay and comedy; occasional criticism centered on the film's approach to the subject matter, fragmented storytelling, and characterization. It earned $172.9 million in box office revenue worldwide, Anderson's highest-grossing feature to date. The film was nominated for nine awards at the 87th Academy Awards, winning four, and received numerous other accolades.

Plot

In a cemetery in the former nation of Zubrowka, a young woman visits the shrine of a renowned writer, known simply as "Author", reading his most-cherished book: ''The Grand Budapest Hotel''. The book, written in 1985, recounts his 1968 vacation at the once-grand, then-drab hotel. There, he meets its owner, Zero Moustafa, who at dinner tells his rags to riches story.

In 1932, Zero is the newly hired lobby boy at the prestigious Grand Budapest Hotel. Monsieur Gustave H., the hotel's fastidious concierge, seduces old, wealthy clients, including the 84-year-old dowager Madame D., with whom he has had a nearly two-decade affair. She mysteriously dies a month after her last hotel visit. Gustave and Zero visit Madame's Schloss Lutz estate, where they encounter surviving relatives for the reading of her will by her attorney Deputy Vilmos Kovacs. Kovacs announces a recent codicil to the will which bequeaths '' Boy with Apple'', a priceless Renaissance painting, to Gustave. Madame D's son, Dmitri, is outraged and demands Gustave's arrest. Gustave and Zero leave, absconding with the painting, hiding it within the Grand Budapest.

Gustave is later arrested by Inspector Henckels under the suspicion of Madame D's murder. He befriends a gang during his imprisonment and provides them with pastry from Mendl's, a well known bakery. One day, one of Gustave's cellmates, Ludwig, tells Gustave and the rest of the prisoners about his deep knowledge of the prison and how to exploit its weaknesses to escape, namely via a storm-drain sewage system. Gustave is then convinced to join the prison break. Gustave has Zero place hammers, chisels and sawblades inside pastries made by Agatha, an apprentice baker at Mendl's and Zero's fiancée. Because the pastries from Mendl’s are well-known work-of-art, the guard who is in charge of checking outside foods for contraband is unable to bring himself to break open the pastries to check for content, enabling the pastries to pass through security check.

During the process of escaping, Gustave and the convicts stumble upon a group of guards secretly gambling during the night. Günther, one of the escape party, is able to kill them all with a shiv but loses his life in the process. In the end, the rest of the group manages to escape and disperse. When Zero and Gustave are reunited, they set out to prove Gustave's innocence with the assistance of a fraternity of concierges known as 'the Society of the Crossed Keys'. They learn that Madame D had a missing second will which would only take effect should she be murdered. Dmitri's hired assassin J. G. Jopling trails their whereabouts, murdering Kovacs, Madame D.'s butler Serge X, and Serge X's sister in his pursuit to kill Gustave. Following a chase, Zero pushes Jopling off a cliff to save Gustave, and the two men continue their escape from swarming Zubrowkan troops led by Henckels.

Gustave, Zero, and Agatha arrive back at the Grand Budapest to find it converted into a military headquarters following the outbreak of war. Agatha sneaks in to retrieve ''Boy with Apple,'' but is spotted with the painting by Dmitri. Gustave and Zero rush to save Agatha from harm as she flees from Dmitri. He shoots at them and initiates a melee with Zubrowkan troops, which Henckels stops. Agatha's attempt to escape leaves her and Zero hanging from a balcony before safely falling into the van of pastries in which they came.

Madame D's second will, making Gustave the beneficiary of her fortune, is found attached to the back of ''Boy with Apple''; he succeeds her as owner of the Grand Budapest Hotel, and becomes one of the wealthiest Zubrowkans. He travels by train with the now-wed Zero and Agatha to celebrate, before encountering hostile soldiers that destroy Zero's refugee documents. Gustave tries to fend off the soldiers but is killed. Zero inherits his fortune and maintains the Grand Budapest in memory of Agatha, who died of flu with their infant son.

Cast

* Ralph Fiennes as Monsieur Gustave H., the Grand Budapest Hotel's renowned concierge
* Tony Revolori as Zero Moustafa, the newly hired bellhop mentored by Gustave
** F. Murray Abraham as the elderly Zero
* Adrien Brody as Dmitri, Madame D.'s son
* Willem Dafoe as J. G. Jopling, a ruthless hitman working for Dmitri
* Saoirse Ronan as Agatha, an apprentice baker and Zero's girlfriend
* Tilda Swinton as Madame D., the wealthy dowager and secret owner of the hotel
* Edward Norton as Albert Henckels, the police investigator of Madame's murder
* Mathieu Amalric as Serge X, a shifty butler who works for Madame
* Jeff Goldblum as Deputy Vilmos Kovacs, the lawyer representing Grand Budapest interests
* Harvey Keitel as Ludwig, leader of a prison gang at Checkpoint Nineteen
* Tom Wilkinson as Author, writer of ''The Grand Budapest Hotel''
** Jude Law as the young Author in 1968
* Bill Murray as M. Ivan, Gustave's friend and one of several concierges affiliated with the Society of the Crossed Keys
* Jason Schwartzman as M. Jean, the Grand Budapest's concierge in 1968
* Léa Seydoux as Clotilde, maid at Schloss Lutz
* Owen Wilson as M. Chuck, a Society of the Crossed Keys concierge

Other cast members included Larry Pine as Mr. Mosher, Milton Welsh as Franz Müller, Giselda Volodi as Serge's sister, Wolfram Nielacny as Herr Becker, Florian Lukas as Pinky, Karl Markovics as Wolf, Volker Michalowski as Günther, Neal Huff as Lieutenant, Bob Balaban as M. Martin, Fisher Stevens as M. Robin, Wallace Wolodarsky as M. Georges, Waris Ahluwalia as M. Dino, Jella Niemann as the young woman, and Lucas Hedges as a pump attendant.

Production

Development

Drafting of ''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' story began in 2006, when Wes Anderson produced an 18-page script with longtime collaborator Hugo Guinness. They imagined a fragmented tale of a character inspired by a mutual friend, based in modern France and the United Kingdom. Though their prototype led to a roughly 12-minute-long cut, the Anderson–Guinness collaboration stalled when the two men were unable to coalesce a uniform sequence of events to advance their story. By this time, Anderson had begun researching the work of Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig, with which he was vaguely familiar. He became fascinated with Zweig, gravitating to ''Beware of Pity'' (1939), '' The World of Yesterday'' (1942), and ''The Post Office Girl'' (1982) for their fatalist mythos and Zweig's portrait of early twentieth-century Vienna. Anderson also used period images and urbane Europe-set mid-century Hollywood comedies as references. He ultimately pursued a historical pastiche with an alternate timeline, disillusioned with popular media's romanticism of pre-World War II European history. Once ''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' took definite form, Anderson resumed the scriptwriting, finishing the screenplay in six weeks. The producers tapped Jay Clarke to supervise production of the film's animatics, with voiceovers by Anderson.

Anderson's sightseeing in Europe was another source of inspiration for ''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' visual motifs. The writer-director visited Vienna, Munich, and other major cities before the project's conception, but most location scouting began after the Cannes premiere of his coming-of-age drama ''Moonrise Kingdom'' (2012). He and the producers toured Budapest, small Italian spa towns, and the Czech resort Karlovy Vary before a final stop in Germany, consulting hotel staff to develop an accurate idea of a real-life concierge's work.

Casting

A seventeen-actor ensemble received star billing in ''The Grand Budapest Hotel''. Anderson customarily employs a troupe of longtime collaborators—Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Owen Wilson, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, and Jason Schwartzman have worked on one or more of his projects. Norton and Murray immediately signed when sent the script. ''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' ensemble comprised mostly bit cameos. Because of the limitations of such roles, Brody said that the most significant challenge was balancing the film's comedy with the otherwise solemn subject matter. All were the filmmakers' first casting choices save for Swinton, whom they pursued for Madame D. when Angela Lansbury dropped out as a result of a prior commitment to a ''Driving Miss Daisy'' theater production. Once hired, actors were encouraged to study the source material to prepare. Dafoe and Fiennes in particular found the animatics helpful in conceptualizing ''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' from Anderson's perspective, though Fiennes did not refer to them too often because he wanted his performance to be spontaneous.

Anderson desired an English actor to play Gustave, and Fiennes was an actor he sought to work with for several years. Fiennes, surprised by the offer, was eager to depart from his famously villainous roles and found Gustave's panache compelling. Fiennes said he was initially unsure how to approach his character because the extent of Anderson's oversight meant actors could not improvise on set, constraining his usually instinctive performing style. The direction of Gustave's persona then became another question of tone, whether the portrayal be hyper-camp or understated. Fiennes drew on several sources to shape his character's persona, among them his triple role as Hungarian-Jewish men escaping fascist persecution in the István Szabó-directed drama '' Sunshine'' (1999), his brief stint as a young porter at Brown's Hotel in London, and the experience reading ''The World of Yesterday''. Johnny Depp was reported as an early candidate in the press, claims which Anderson denied, despite later reports that scheduling conflicts had halted negotiations.

Casting director Douglas Aibel was responsible for hiring a suitable actor to play young Zero. Aibel's months-long search for prospective actors proved troublesome as he was unable to fulfill the specifications for an unknown teenage actor of Arabic descent. "We were just trying to leave no stone unturned in the process." Filmmakers held auditions in Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, France, England, and the United States before revising the role's ethnic criterion. Eventually the filmmakers narrowed their search to Tony Revolori and his older brother Mario, novices of Guatemalan descent, and Tony landed the part after one taped audition. He and Anderson rehearsed together for over four months before the start of filming to build a rapport. Abraham spent about a week on set filming his scenes as the elderly Zero.

Saoirse Ronan joined ''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' in November 2012. Though a longtime Anderson fan, Ronan feared the deadpan, theatrical acting style characteristic of Anderson-directed films would be too difficult to master. She was reassured by the writer-director's conviction, "He guides everyone extremely well. He is very secure in his vision and he is very comfortable with everything he does. He knows it is going to work." The decision to play Agatha with Ronan's native Irish accent was Anderson's idea, after experimenting with German, English, and American accents; they felt an Irish accent projected a warm, feisty spirit into Agatha.

Filming

The project was director of photography Robert Yeoman's eighth film with Anderson. Yeoman participated in an early scouting session with Anderson, recording footage with stand-in film crew to assess how certain scenes would unfold. Yeoman drew on Vittorio Storaro's dramatic lighting techniques in the romantic musical '' One From the Heart'' (1982). Filmmakers shot ''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' in ten weeks, from January to March 2013 in eastern Germany, where it qualified for a tax rebate financed by the German government's Federal Film Fund and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. They also found Germany attractive because the production base was geographically confined, facilitating efficient logistics, but the frigid weather and reduced daylight of early winter disrupted the shooting schedule, compounded by the slow film stock used for the camerawork. To rectify the issue, the producers used artificial lighting, accelerated the daily work schedule, and filmed night scenes at dusk.

Principal photography took place at the Babelsberg Studio in suburban Berlin and in Görlitz, a mid-sized border town on the Lusatian Neisse

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