This Guy Turned His E46 M3 Project Into a Wes Anderson-Style TikTok Series
Wes Anderson is one of the few filmmakers with a style that’s distinctive. He doesn’t make movies about superheroes or films that depend on CGI manipulation. He comes by his weird by putting the quirk in quirky. Now TikTok users are taking Anderson’s oddball perspective and applying it to their daily lives. It was inevitable that this would spread to the car-obsessed segment of the video platform. And it has. There is a BMW involved.
First, a Wes Anderson primer. With films like The Royal Tennenbaums, Rushmore, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The French Dispatch, he often seems to elevate the aesthetic above conventional, linear storytelling. And seems to prefer deadpan acting instead of flamboyant emotionalism.
“A Wes Anderson film is, above all, cinematic,” explained Nicole LaJeunesse of VideoMaker.com in January. “The writer/director’s love and understanding of film as a creative medium shines through his work in every frame.” That includes, continues LaJeunesse, symmetrically composed shots, considered tableaus, precise use of color, and long takes without editing. It often plays as visual commentary that doesn’t need narration or dialog to express a viewpoint. And a lot of his characters wear berets.
Here's some weirdness from The French Dispatch for flavor.
Jesus Jiménez at The New York Times noted the emerging TikTok/Anderson trend in a story published April 24. “The short videos, often the products of meticulous editing, have drawn tens of thousands of views each,” he reported. “In some cases, they’ve drawn millions. Ava Williams, 26, a photographer from Brooklyn, made a TikTok video of a train ride from Connecticut to New York this month. Since she posted it on April 8, her early morning journey on the Shore Line East has been viewed more than 12 million times.”
It all comes together as an elevation of the mundane through the craft of mini-movie making.
That brings up an M3 that is frustrating its owner, Avery Carter. Carter has been posting about his E46 maintenance adventures across social media – Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and maybe JibJab, DoorSnore, CyberArk, and of course, SnotRocket –upped his creative game with this Wes Anderson transmission removal and clutch diagnostic.
The Wes Anderson thing will go on maybe a few more weeks. It’s fun, it’s kind of innocent, and it helps a lot if you’ve seen his movies. This one has an MGB-GT in it. So, here.
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