Cinema
Rushmore
Wes Anderson · 1998
Synopsis
Max Fischer, fifteen, a sophomore at Rushmore Academy, runs numerous clubs and a theatre company, but his grades put him on probation. He falls for Rosemary Cross, a young widow who teaches first grade at the school, and befriends Herman Blume, a disillusioned steel industrialist, father of twins at the school. For her, with Blume's money, he starts building an aquarium on the baseball field, and gets expelled. Enrolled at the public high school, he discovers that Blume is seeing Rosemary, and a series of revenges begins between the two friends.
Context
Second feature film by its director, written with Owen Wilson, who does not appear in it. It gave Jason Schwartzman, aged seventeen, his screen debut, and revived the career of Bill Murray, then in a slump, who went on to appear in many of Anderson's films. The shoot lasted fifty days, from November 1997 to January 1998, in Houston, where a private school played the part of Rushmore, on a budget of about nine million dollars. The music combines songs by British bands of the sixties with a score by Mark Mothersbaugh.
Who it is for
A film of an hour and thirty-three minutes, a deadpan comedy that moves without warning from farce to melancholy.
Prizes and reception
New York critics' prize for Bill Murray, two Independent Spirit Awards, seventeen million dollars in box-office takings and the National Film Registry in 2016.