Member review

My knowledge of Rushmore before sitting down to watch it was pretty slim. I wasn’t going out of my way to watch it and I’d been putting it off for while going through the rest of his back catalogue; Any preconceptions I had were swiftly dismissed for the better.

Max Fischer is an academically failing, yet highly eccentric teenage student attending the elite Rushmore Academy, he befriends Herman Blume, a millionaire industrialist from a blue-collar background, and then develops a romantic interest in a teacher twice his age. Max is shocked to discover Blume taking his place and starting an affair with her.

I found Rushmore’s plot engaging from the beginning, and yet full of subversions and deceit. Our immediate introduction to Max is through a dream sequence. Max has delusions of grandeur; he is an academic failure, on the verge of being expelled. Max doesn’t agree with this, we see his fantasy of superiority over his classmates. In his mind he is beloved and respected by all around him. He dreams of himself as a child prodigy able to solve impossible an impossible equation.

While the whole film captivated me, Max’s character was probably what I enjoyed most. Early in the film, Max is seen reading a book by the famous ocean adventurer and documentary maker Jacques Cousteau (an important figure for Anderson who would go on to be the inspiration for one of his later films ‘The Life Aquatic’), within which is scrawled a quote from Cousteau “when one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep It to himself”. Max has a fascination with extra-curricular activities, fencing, bee keeping, newspaper writing just to name a few, many of these clubs and societies Max has set up himself. Max’s fascination with theatre however is most poignant here. Since he was essentially a toddler, Max has written plays, this is what got him a scholarship to Rushmore in the first place. Max sees his life as extraordinary; he prioritises interesting experiences over education, and wants to share his work with others, both through the setting up of ‘societies’ for the things he enjoys and putting on plays for a large audience, the majority of which Max himself appears as a major character within.

I saw Max as something of an a relatively explicit self-insert from Anderson. The location used for Rushmore Academy is Anderson’s old school, which was also a private prep school. Max shares many of Anderson’s interests as well. While the plot of the film at points deviates heavily from the idea of Max sharing his stories, the plays have the important role as markers for each stage of his life throughout the plot.

While I’ve overwhelmingly focused on Max’s character, Rushmore is a highly enjoyable film throughout. The performances of, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray and Olivia Williams are excellent and I’d recommend it to anyone regardless of their knowledge of the director.